Millions upon millions of educated – and even aware people, all over the world, are succumbing to a new virus ‘SBS’, or ‘Sound-Bite Syndrome’. Its symptoms are best described as an inability to concentrate on anything meaningful for anything other than a very short passage of time.
To concentrate the mind so as to read something that requires a certain depth of thought or fuller cognisance, is becoming an endangered skill.
Now that is a truly shocking fact. One that should register high on the shocking fact ratio. It should jolt us all into recalling the vital role that genuine communication plays in the passing of essential knowledge and inspiration – including lyrical poetry and vivid prose.
For these great tools of consciousness raising to be corrupted into a thousand broken pieces of easily assimilated sound-bites, must constitute one of the most masterful silent weapons of destruction of the Illuminati war chest.
It’s not just the children who grow up on a diet of sugary sweets, synthetic colouring agents and indigestible preservatives who can’t concentrate on their school work; there are now great swathes of the population as a whole who need to have their reading matter served-up to them in the same manner as a fast food outlet doles out its instant processed meals.
What this does, is to put all the most valuable writings, be they literary, spiritual, historical or even scientific, out of reach of what amounts to the best part of an entire generation – particularly those growing up in the instant access era. Those who have become so pap fed with processed communication bites that their brains have shrunk. In such cases, certain regions of the neocortex, lacking stimulation and activity over an extended period of time, become virtually dead zones.
Thus the attention span required to absorb and reflect on a decent analytical video or a thoughtful blog, is literally inaccessible to exactly those who need it the most.
This plays into the hands of the fabricators of spin and slick advertising. It means that many remember an advert slogan more easily than that which is going on either side of it. Sound-bite syndrome, or ‘attention deficit disorder’ as it is known in the trade, is a disease ruthlessly exploited by corporate media exponents in all post-industrial cultures.
Tragically, it is the innocent minds of young children that are most easily infected. Dumped in front of the TV, video or video game app. By their dumbed down parents, they quickly absorb the tailored mind controlling ingredients on display. And it is questionable whether, after a number of years of this torture, they can ever fully recover the innocence of imagination that is crucial to the development of independent thought and creativity in later life.
Sedation by sound bite is, in particular, the superficial hallmark of much social media text messaging and aptly named ‘tweeting’ and ‘twittering’. Too many are tweeting, twittering and frittering away their lives in cul-de-sacs of banal banter; and in the process, degrading an entire culture of mind skills that once lead to thoughtful, careful and reflective communication. That which draws upon the well of human insight and applies it with specific intent in order to convey the deeper emotions and concerns we all need to shape and share, every day of our lives.
The ever quickening pace of life in the ‘profession conscious’ fast lane of today’s status quo is a subliminal death trap. The slower reflective process, which would ultimately temper and counteract the ever smaller and faster sub divisions of time that typify the ambitious socialite, are systematically pushed to one side by an essentially adrenalin driven life style.
The commitment to deep thought and a mulling-over of the pros and cons of what one is engaged in, are seen as an unnecessary intrusion on the all-important work and play ethos. An ethos, that when analysed, turns out to be a status quo led indoctrination commitment of the slave to his/her master.
The master, in most cases, being ‘the establishment’. The establishment, in turn, being the master control cabal whose empires expand in direct proportion to the degree to which the human brain shrinks.
It is particularly the children who become the sacrificial lambs in this modern day slaughterhouse. And the parents, who thought their children were just nice little play things to keep them amused between various career options – they are simply the victims of their own blinkered vanities, of their unquestioned and self-serving ambitions. Irrevocably snared by the status quo, they actually believe themselves to be free!
Let us all beware. At almost any time any one of us can fall into this trap. If we have developed sufficient staying power on the road of consciousness, we can usually extract ourselves from this entanglement without too much damage – but few have fully overcome its seductive tentacles.
We need to be ever watchful, not just for ourselves and our children, but for those close to us whom we witness falling. And this is tricky, because no one who believes themselves to be free – likes being told that they are not – however subtly it is put.
We need to guard our sacred language skills and give them their proper due. “In the beginning was the word” – and even if it wasn’t – there is no doubt about the sacred nature of the word. There is no doubt about the extraordinary power (for good and evil) of the word.
Neither is there any doubt about the corruptibility of the word. And here one has to include death by subtle emission. Words, once normal parts of a colourful vernacular, go missing. They fail to appear on internet dictionaries; then in ordinary ones. They appear in red on the computer spell check.
Before you know it, the entire foundation of centuries of language wealth – is corrupted and undermined. And then, one day, all that will remain in common use will be a clone like replica – George Orwell’s ‘news-speak’. Let that day never be. For we are as good as dead the day our words become simply the soulless and sterile symbols of banality.
Let us value that which has value and discard that which doesn’t. Be careful, even with trivialities as ‘R.U.OK?’, ‘Thanx’ and ‘gr8’. If we are seduced into a two tier communication system for ease, convenience, speed, or whatever, we too may be complicit in degrading the full power of communication which is our special gift.
We too risk becoming party to the Illuminati’s grand ambition to devalue all values and to sterilize, neuter and divide into sound and ‘read bites’ that which is profound, sensual, spiritually vital – and essentially indivisible.
We need to remember that all things sacred can only retain their sacred qualities when they are nurtured, honed and honoured on a daily basis. This requires the application of a certain sobriety and gravitas – an anchoring of the soul.
Click on this link to see an inspiring short interview with Julian Rose www.youtube.com/watch?v=YddHSuHWe2o
Julian is an early UK pioneer of organic farming, an author and international activist. His latest book
‘In Defence of Life’ is available at www.amazon.com and on Julian’s website: www.julianrose.info