“At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say,—’Come out unto us.’ But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Increasingly today we get to choose our distractions. We intentionally choose to check our text messages, email and who is following us or “liked” us on any social media app. For some there is a pleasure in being able to take action and “freeing’ themselves from daily worries, work, boredom and routine. This is one level of personal intentional distraction.

There is another type of intentional distraction that is created and perpetrated by others in which we willingly engage, thinking it is by our own choice and under the guise that we are paying attention—paying attention to something bigger than ourselves, something important, etc.

This art of intentional distraction has been in practice for centuries, if not millennia. Consider this. Distraction is defined essentially as the process of diverting the attention of an individual or group from the desired area of focus and thereby blocking or diminishing the reception of desired information.

There is distraction that is caused by the lack of ability to pay attention or a lack of interest, and then there is distraction of great intensity or attractiveness of something other than the object of attention. This is intentional distraction driven by the elitist-run institutions, ranging from the media, finance, education to governments and international organizations, that is in place to keep us compliant, mindlessly occupied under the illusion that we are doing something or caring about something important or even causing us to doubt ourselves.

These are intentional distractions that are established so that the masses focus on a topic, idea or activity that the “compliance leader” feels supports their mission. The intention of these large scale, institution-driven intentional distractions are essentially to keep us occupied while hidden agendas are driven. These so called leaders do not want all to evolve or change—to ascend—since they believe that they are more entitled to advancement, wealth, success, etc., than what they may consider the average citizen, under the guise that they know what is best for the general population. 

These “leaders” create whole ecosystems of rules, criteria, policies and processes rooted in expectation and fear to keep the “average citizen” out or keep people second-guessing themselves—and sometimes it is done under the veil of entertainment or to keep people safe.

These distractions can take many forms in which most people get entangled.  Think about it—social media, reality TV, smart phones, over-priced sporting events and concerts, over-priced college education—not to mention now fake news, and the list can go on. Some of these “things” become obsessions and some become aspirations. We probably all know of someone who waited in line for hours to get the next i-gadget, who go into extreme debt for higher education to get that dream job, or who want to be like a deemed celebrity, or believe everything of what they hear or read on established news outlets.

Now is the time to wake up and question everything and to examine the distractions in your life and why you are participating in them. Now is the time to question the allure of them. Everything going on today is not what is appears to be. Great change is happening and the power and information brokers, the elitists and those in the institutional establishment want to control the message, to preserve what they believe is their earned right or stature and resist a change where all ascend.

There is a great enlightenment unfolding. We see real-world signs of it everyday—protests, debates, up-risings; discomfort with the establishment; the questioning of duality: and the rise of paradox. It is so important in the midst of this, to center yourself, reflect and to be careful not to get distracted from what is really important to you and your values–and to question everything.