Over the
past one hundred or so years, our entire Western culture has been subtly
re-programmed. Our behaviors, our
responses, our hopes and our desires have been subject to various and contrived
manipulations by those who stand to profit from being able to control the
behavior and responses of both the individual and society as a whole.
What?
-We have been
unwittingly and unknowingly but malevolently crafted and manipulated into being
chronically unhappy and dissatisfied individuals.
-We have been
programmed to be unhappy with our:
Appearance-Weight-Social status-Possessions-Wealth-Poverty-Home-Children-Job
Family-Friends-Enemies-Government-Church - and, last but not least –
God.
The trick,
or should I say the motive behind all of this is: The chronically unhappy person is easily
controlled and manipulated. Above all,
from the manipulator’s perspective, the key is to keep the individual unhappy.
Why?
Unhappy
folks can be manipulated because the unhappy individual will always try to seek
consolation and relief from the pain of the unhappiness that pervades him. The unhappy person seeks to feel better, to
be consoled, to be reaffirmed, to feel whole and complete.
Once the
condition of the unhappy person has been established, it becomes fairly simple
to control the ways and means by which the unhappy individual seeks comfort,
consolation and respite from the perceived source of his or her unhappiness.
What more
convenient means, then, to make the unhappy person feel better than to sell
them something that they perceive will make them happy.
We observe and
experience ourselves this phenomenon constantly:
“If I go
shopping, I’ll feel better.”
“If I snack
on something, I’ll feel better.”
“If I get
drunk, I’ll feel better.”
“If I take
drugs, I’ll feel better.”
“If I buy
that new car, I’ll feel better.”
“If I
indulge in pornography, I’ll feel better.”...
“You will be
reaffirmed with incomparable beauty if you buy this crème.”, hauntingly echoes
the advertisement with all of the allure of the Sirens of ancient myth.
The only
thing is, I never feel better, I am never consoled and the beauty crème did
nothing to reaffirm my worth as an individual.
It is
important to observe that through it all, however, our programmed responses
never change. We remain in the same
behavioral pattern as did Pavlov’s dogs over a century ago, drooling and
slobbering at the sound of the advertiser’s bell.
We denounce
the evils which seem to so endemically afflict modern society, yet we have been
intentionally programmed to be those very things which we denounce - ugly,
obese, drunken, sex crazed, unlawful, greedy, immoral, disrespectful, selfish,
socially deviant, (did I say lazy?), individuals. And we wonder how society got this way.
“We have
seen the enemy and they are us!”
Since it is
contrary to the natural law for any of us to seek to be ugly, obese, drunken,
sex crazed, greedy, immoral, unlawful, selfish or lazy, we are inwardly
compelled to divest ourselves of these negative attributes.
What better
way to realize a sizeable profit than to teach these same people that they can
rid themselves of this negative baggage by throwing money at it.
Preach to
them: “You can buy your way to happiness.”
So, we begin
to think in distorted and disordered ways, “Since buying that new car didn’t
make me feel as good as I thought it would and the latest beauty crème really
works best when used to clean my whitewalls, maybe a business trip away from
home with my boss’ secretary will do the trick.”
The subtle
but omnipresent common denominator to all of this unhappiness is the mechanism
in which we find ourselves trying to placate or alleviate our unhappiness by
gratifying ourselves with something or even someone.
Thus is
manifested the insidious evil that lies therein: There are those in this world who very much
want us to be in a state of continuous unhappiness because they stand to profit
tremendously from us in that weakened condition.
In other
words, we have been bred to be taken advantage of!
There has
been much in the press of late about the growing obesity of Americans.
Unhappy
people quickly become obese people.
Since eating is naturally a pleasurable experience, the psyche
rationalizes, “If I’m really unhappy, I need to eat a lot in order to feel
better.”
The more
prevalent obesity becomes, the harder the media works to project the image of
the perfect body as being borderline anorexic.
Thus, the already unhappy, obese person becomes even unhappier,
consuming even more, and consequently becoming more obese and more socially
ostracized.
We seek
relief and escape by embracing the very thing that enslaves us!
The
spiritual noose tightens and the spiral continues downward, much in the manner
in which the pattern of our personal debt begins to reflect itself as a
miniature of the collective national deficit – the baggage keeps getting
heavier, with no relief in sight.
Just as a
street corner dealer gets a new junkie hooked on his drug of choice, the crafty
marketer reasons, “I can sell the obese person a membership to ‘Curves’, then
lead her across the street to spend another $5 on a Big Mac with supersize
fries after a good, healthy workout, by whispering in her ear, ‘After all, you owe it to yourself.’”
The sly
marketer takes money out of our pockets both coming and going.
(,,,) Sexual
addiction is merely another manifestation of this malevolent and coercive
attempt to make the individual unhappy and keep the individual unhappy because
-
The unhappy
individual is much more easily led into sin.
And, as we all know, there is a great deal of money to be made in
sin! (“The love of money is the root of
all evil.”)
We got this
way because a group of people worked very hard over many generations to make
all of us weakened in this manner in order to control us.
“Make them
dumb, lazy, fat and affluent and I can do anything I want with them. They won’t care what I do as long as I keep
them comfortable”, chuckles satan as he plans seating arrangements for us in
the bottom of hell.
The unhappy
person seeks to satisfy him or herself first, without consideration of the
consequences or the effects his behavior has on others.
God created
sex. He meant for it to be enjoyed. Primarily, however, God made sex to be
unitive and procreative – the true union of love in which two people give
themselves to each other in order to become one. (marriage)
True love is
“self-denying and giving” not “selfish and taking.”
Sexual
gratification, then, simply becomes the selfish act of the lone individual in
search of the illusion of happiness, a false light as it were, the result of
which only leads to more unhappiness and progressively more searching since this
solo act lacks both the unitive and procreative sharing that is necessary in
the true act of love.
Without true
selfless love, therefore, there can be no genuine gratification or satiation of
desire, which is why the act of self gratification, once completed, feels so
empty and unsatisfying. We continue to
hunger and long for more satisfaction.
Thus, the cycle of addiction becomes self-perpetuating and progressively
worse.
The Solution
Whenever we
seek consolation and joy from anything other than God, we are going to be
disappointed.
Only God is
capable of fulfilling and satisfying our inmost needs and desires.
No thing
can, no person can – only God can.
It is for
the reasons described above that the devil works so hard to steal away your joy
and happiness, for both of these are truly divine graces and gifts from God.
That’s why
the warning has never echoed more true, “Don’t let the devil steal your joy.”
We must come
to the realization that the satisfaction that we truly need is God Himself, for
God is pure, selfless love. The pursuit
of God leads to happiness.
It is only
through the action of selflessly giving of ourselves to others do we become
satisfied in return. The more we give,
the more we receive, and this is because we can never outdo God in generosity.
It is in
giving that you receive all the more – and the truly happier you will become.
That is what
the devil doesn’t want you to realize or understand.
The solution
lies in overcoming our pre-programmed fear of being charitable and giving.
As
previously noted, we have been configured and adapted to an environment
that rejects true love and replaces it
with a false and distorted caricature that is self-love.
We have been
programmed to be afraid to try new things, especially intangibles such as
charity, kindness, patience and self-sacrifice.
These
attributes are born of placing our trust in God and not in the world.
Again, the
devil doesn’t like this because it is through the very acts of charity,
kindness, patience and self-sacrifice in your daily living that he loses
control of you.
The first
step in overcoming an enemy is being made aware of his existence.
Things to
Consider -Examine your
life.
How are you
being manipulated through chronic unhappiness?
Which
buttons does the devil push to manipulate and control you?
Honestly
examine, too, how much and how often you demonstrate tacit acts of charity,
kindness, patience and self-sacrifice in your daily living.
An increase
in these positive behaviors inevitably corresponds to a decrease in the desire
for self-gratification and a loosening of the grip that sexual addiction has on
you.
Cling
tenaciously to God who is the source of your joy and make sure that you take
time every day to know where He is in your life.
If you do,
His joy will be ever present, your joy will be complete and you will truly want
for nothing, even if you possess little as far as the world is concerned.
God Bless!
Paul, for
the Serenellians
St. Bernard of Clairvaux - "Absolutely every person, no matter how enmeshed in vice, ensnared by the allurements of pleasure, a captive in exile… fixed in mire… distracted by business, afflicted with sorrow… and counted with those who go down into hell—every soul, I say, standing thus under condemnation and without hope, has the power to turn and find it can not only breath the fresh air of the hope of pardon and mercy, but also dare to aspire to the nuptials of the Word."
St. Bernard of Clairvaux - "Absolutely every person, no matter how enmeshed in vice, ensnared by the allurements of pleasure, a captive in exile… fixed in mire… distracted by business, afflicted with sorrow… and counted with those who go down into hell—every soul, I say, standing thus under condemnation and without hope, has the power to turn and find it can not only breath the fresh air of the hope of pardon and mercy, but also dare to aspire to the nuptials of the Word."