I am writing my thoughts a step at a time for two reasons.  First to make sure I stay on point.  Secondly so that I don’t lose me as my reader.

Living outside the US I can clearly see the cultural disease that manifests from within.  Not all things are bad just the important ones.  I have time to read, write and research.  What a pleasure.  I have to actively avoid giving my empty hours to others

The small slice of Americans who have expatriated and now live in Ecuador show all the signs of cognitive dissonance.  They have made up their minds and then seek reasons to support it.  The food is better here (it is), the people are friendlier(?), followed by a litany of rights and wrongs in the US.  Despite their complaints, so many return to the US but not until they spin the dissonance.

Because they do not research, let alone understand, their thinking process, I can observe how they think.  I see it as being better than looking through a microscope as I am in the solution itself.  My observation is not hidden but my interpretations are.  The expats imitate the governments control of free speech by shunning those who openly oppose their views.

The first thing I observed is that Americans like to fill their time with activity.  When I taught psychology at the university level I came across an expanded version of Sigmund Freud’s defense mechanisms.  The expanded version was by Anna Freud, his daughter. She divided the defense mechanisms into four categories from basic to advanced.

The most primitive being denial and the most advanced being altruism which included volunteering.  That little chart remains in my memory.  I now see what my mother meant when she said, “You will learn that volunteering comes in many forms, many are not as they seem.”  Thanks mom, I see it.

The good intention in volunteering often masks its real purpose to/of the volunteer.  I see a reward system to the recipients that can lead them to avoid their responsibility.  For example, the need of love, touching, praise and education for an orphan or abandoned child is not disputed.  However the bigger issue is the responsibility of the culture.

By giving the fish without teaching how to fish becomes the issue.  How to address this problem through action and not spin remains the problem.

Understanding people tends to be a lot more easier when you understand, or at least acknowledge, that humans follow the avoidance of pain and the embrace of pleasure.  The problem comes in that sometimes what is painful to us is pleasurable to another.

Case in point, a killer whale is not rewarded with fish when a stunt is performed before a crowd.  In fact the giving of the fish is a punishment.  The killer whale once roamed the high seas and the reward now is change in its environment.  Since its environment is essentially a huge bathtub, the giving of fish adds to the boredom of the tank.  However seeing someone clapping their hands, throwing a ball or taking a huge toothbrush and splashing the water is different — it is a change in the environment.

Recently the opening of relations to Cuba presents a great example.  I hear it said that the Cuban people have had enough.  So ending the American embargo can now be viewed as a positive step to the long suffering Cuban people.  The Cuban people never were the focus of the embargo.  The embargo was established to help destabilize a cruel and unjust government.  The government killed thousands of innocent people, clamped down on free speech and demoralized a culture.

Apparently the Cuban people feared, or possibly did not know, what freedom meant.  Regardless US foreign policy violated a cardinal psychological tenet and rewarded a corrupt government after 50 years.  One might argue that we sent a message that there is a statute of limitations on dictatorships.  Or one might find another reward.  Like the people of Cuba will be thankful for our understanding.  The reward is that if you do nothing to fight for your freedom we will reward you (maybe that’s a test run for what’s happening in the US)

My point is that when you violate psychological rules you will pay a price.  Unless there is a reward that escapes our vision.  But that would mean there is something less transparent.

Like the mother who accepts abuse from a husband yet still loves her son and stays in the marriage for the child’s sake.  But years later when the son abuses, the  earlier reward is not seen.

Sometimes you gotta be cruel to be kind.

When I was a paramedic, I thought it nice that people had the comfort of a religion or a belief.  Being raised Catholic (in recovery) I sometimes thought that according to the rules of the church, that a recently departed had a snowballs chance in hell of getting to heaven.  But it still seemed nice they believed that there was something better ahead.

I couldn’t understand why people got upset if they believed that the person who passed was moving on to a better place.  That’s when I realized they truly did not have this belief.  These were not tears of joy but rather tears of fear that this end awaits them.

My point is not about religion or belief.  That is a much longer blog series.  My point is pretending to have a belief or a faith but not showing the commitment necessary.  In fact, I see one faith that actually does what it says.  The radical Muslims do what their book says.  They are vilified for doing as they say.

While the religion of politics is rewarded with money and power for NOT doing what they say.  Go figure.

I had a few careers where I played with the big boys.  These specialists had either talent (baseball) or skill (emergency medicine) or expertise (neuropsychology).  To interact with these people gave me so much.  For the most part these individuals learned as much from me as I did from them.  At the time I did not realize this.  The point is they really knew something.

Then a series of bad life events led me to Cuenca Ecuador.  Here everybody knows everything.  There is not a single question you can drum up that does not have an answer on an expat forum.  They might not know the closest star to earth but they can tell you how the planets influence your personality and for an additional 10 dollars they can predict your children’s future.

I should be happy living among so much knowledge, but sadly I am not.  I hear cancer cures, benefits from shamans, hatred for both political parties, love/hate for the president of Ecuador and this information proves beneficial to me.  I listen.  I get on the internet and go to sites of studied knowledge.  I look up what I heard and voila I have solid information. But outside the peer reviewed information I show extreme caution as someone is usually selling something — an idea or a product that is heavily conflicted with what the science says. Quite often it is contrary to the local experts and there lies my benefit.  A story is born.  As an example I have a dear friend who rants and raves how untrustworthy the government is.  He just posted an article that says the U.S. government finally admits that marijuana kills cancer cells.  Forget the issue of marijuana.  What about trusting the government?  Now I should trust them because they agree with you?  I’m confused.

Why would a person say something that has a grain of truth but expand it into an absolute and be offended if you looked for information to support their claim.  You will not like my opinion because we all tend to do it.  (future blog)

I learned that the terms racist and misogynist to mean anyone who disagrees with a statement by the speaker.  I think this has long been an issue to man but the internet and social media illuminate this human desire to have THE ANSWER.

I recently read an article about alternative medicine.  I liked the energy of the article and commented on it.  The response I received from the author missed my point and defended THE ANSWER. I was looking to have an interchange of ideas, of intellectual debate, of a search for information Instead I got THE ANSWER I remember leaving my post doctorate with THE ANSWER.  I laugh when I think back to how stupid  that feeling was.  I say feeling because the feeling of being right has the same feel as being wrong.

As I maneuver through the internet looking for information I am frequently pulled toward a comment, a picture, a post.  I go to investigate and find myself on a page that I can’t easily get off.  I press a big arrow and find myself immersed in an ad.  I take a breath and look more carefully and select the button that will get me off this page and go to a page that looks threatening and really wants to know if I want to leave this page.  Why would I want to leave a page of ads I was tricked into viewing in the first place?

Well that’s one way things happen.  I worked in advertising and copy writing and know that ethics are merely suggestions.  I often think of a group of people sitting around trying to figure out how to make money FAST and without having to really earn it.  So one guy says we have to find something that nobody wants, is virtually free to us and then make it the next CURE ALL on the market.

“Apricot seeds!”  shouts one of the entrepreneurs.  We convince people that it cures cancer.

“But we don’t know that,” says a young man who will soon be cut out of the funding process.

“We’ll make up the study and find studies that suggest these results.  Alternative medicine and Shamanistic stuff can easily be exploited right now,” he adds.

So with a few computer designs, much copy writing and a credit card reception – a business is born.  It works off the theory that people will hear and believe what they want to and that ONE thing is all you need.  No need to change your lifestyle, to exercise or change your thinking.  Not for the $700 value not even the $299 additional program we will throw in, but simply for a fully refundable $59.99 you can receive  these ground up seeds we got paid to remove because they are poisonous this life saving, cancer curing offer that we took great diligence in preparing for your needs.

And so it goes, a culture of purchasers and the wolves that answer the bleats of the sheep.