ArtificialReality

It is a stormy day on the californian coast and while we are prepared to break camp at dawn, our neighbour is video taping a fire in an outdoor pit.

The fire is taunted by the swirling winds as the cameraman locks his frame and watches his creation unfold. Later, I learn that he has a successful business selling video to nature-loving trendsetters in lala land that want to experience nature in the comfort of their living room.

It reminds me of New York stores that use (or once used) homey smells, like fresh bread, to put customers in a good mood as they entered the store. It is probably the same idea behind the ubiquitous elevator music.

Although a faint smell is more subliminal, like the early days of movies when they used to insert a few frames of suggestive images to prompt the audience into believing they just had an urge to buy whatever was being suggested.

We are easily manipulated because we are so predictable. A little suggestion here or there is all we need. Most of us extract memories from associations with our life experience yet don’t see the bigger picture hidden by our actual reality.

My childhood smells and sights and sounds are probably the same as other kids in my childhood neighbourhood. We all remember the nice smells or the nice images of idealized family, especially in greeting-card season. Some of us, however, also remember the abuse of childhood through similar cues.

The fire is being blown by high winds now. The fire has lost the coziness associated with a gentle flame. I look to the fire starter in alarm but realized that he takes the matter too seriously to be distracted.

As an adult you will never get permission from the childhood imprinted memories of parental authority. You must take it.
It is the most demanding aspect of growing up and the thing that hold us closest to the bosom. The emotional outrage that challenges your childhood source of security, food, shelter and love.

We are all abused as children as the nature of child rearing is abusive. This doesn’t mean that your parents were mean, just ignorant of their own abuse.

The society that profits from this fact condemns the child to repeat the sins of the parents. The exploitation of this repressed individual continues the abuse, through extending the inability of the victim to see the pattern of their life in a rehabilitative manner.

The video taping is over. The fire has died. His excited, quick movements reveals that he knows he has something useful, something valuable. He understands the needs of his clients and the power of comfort and rage.

The artificially of our lives is that we cannot grow up until we see our selves clearly and fully. We can not see the present struggle within us until we recognize our selves as victims.

It is difficult for the child of abuse to know any other way to express love that what the adult offers. It is also difficult for us to see a world beyond what our authoritarian leaders offer. This is why we are all victims, even the victimizers.

We all know that there are rules to life and each person must follow the artificial guidelines or face rejection by society. We also know that life without reality is meaningless. It is the nature of all terrorist acts that they come from pain and sorrow, as well as defiance.