I’m sitting at my desk thinking about the
power and awesomeness that is contained within the human brain. The marvelous things we are able to do and
yet how very little is truly understood about how the brain works.
All the abilities of our senses that we possess
are really contained within the neuron connections of our brain. What we see, hear, feel, taste, are all
really a function of how our brain interprets the responses it receives from
the environment around us and our actions within that environment.
Just
imagine for a moment that you are standing outside your house and a vehicle
goes traveling down your street. You
hear the sound of the engine. But HOW do you know it is the sound
of a car engine? Is it not because your
brain has been trained or conditioned to respond to the sound that you are
hearing as that of being the sound of a vehicle engine?
You look up from your activities and
notice that the car traveling past you is red. But how do you know that it is RED? Has not your brain been trained or
conditioned to recognize what your eyes are seeing and the stimuli that they
are sending to your brain as the color RED?
When we stop and think about it for a
moment, we live our entire lives based on the responses that we receive from
our brain and the perceived response that we should have based on those
inputs. Does that not indicate that if
the brain were trained or conditioned to recognize the impulse responses that
it receives differently, we would live our lives in a manner that would no long
relate to how it is now?
I know I’m sending thoughts to your brain
now that perhaps you have never considered before. However, I hope you are able to follow how I
am reasoning on this matter.
We dig stones and gems from the earth and
then we are TOLD that THESE are worthless and THOSE are valuable! WHY? We are told
that certain items are more valuable than others and we believe it because we
are trained in that manner. As an
example, and this one has always confused me, consider aspirin! Aspirin is a medication used to reduce pain,
fever, or inflammation. It is also known
as acetylsalicylic acid (ASA). The
molecular formula for aspirin is C9H8O4 or CH3COOC6H4COOH or HC9H7O4. (I know that was a mouth full.) Why does aspirin cost about $1 (US dollar) to
upwards of $10 (US dollars) per bottle for the same thing? Because we have been trained or conditioned
to think that a certain BRAND name has made the product somehow better than all
the others. Friends, wake up! Aspirin is aspirin, period!
Another example that I think of often is
water! When I was growing up if someone
had told me that one day, we would be paying for water in a bottle I would have
thought them to be crazy! But today what
are we doing? Paying unbelievable prices
for bottled water.
Look at your grocery shelves. You have to decide if you want Hawaiian
water, purified water, artesian still water, pure spring water, carbonated (or
not) mineral water, glacial water, alkaline water, distilled water, or perhaps
there are many other choices you would have to make. I’m by no means trying to be technically
correct here, but, depending on the type and brand of water you purchase you
could be paying $3 (US dollars) or higher per gallon for this purchase. Again I am not trying to point a finger at
any specific company or brand, but some investigations have shown that these
expensive bottled waters are basically the same water you can get out of your
kitchen faucet at home. And on the
average a municipal water system charges its customers about $3.38 per 1,000
gallons of water. If you were
drinking about 100 ounces per day, that would cost you about $1 (US dollars)
PER YEAR!!!!! If you were buying the
least expensive bottled water that annual cost would be over $800 (US dollars)
per year. I think I can see an area
where some money could be saved very easily, what about you?
And before you give me that “I can’t drink
the water from the faucet” excuse, let me share this story with you. Remember our minds have been trained to want
the BRAND. We want the BEST! My wife and I often will purchase a bottled
water for our use when traveling. We
then keep the bottle and refill it from the faucet, putting it in the fridge to
get cold for drinking later. There are
times when we might have several of these bottles in the fridge at the same
time. On one occasion we had some
friends over to eat and when preparing to sit down for the meal one of our guests
said that they couldn’t drink the water from the faucet even if it had been put
in the fridge to get cold. They only
wanted bottled water. I told them I had
some in the fridge and I would be happy to get them one. So I went to the fridge, got out one of the
bottles we had filled from the faucet, “opened” it for our guest and gave it to
them. They enjoyed the water with their
meal and never voiced a single complaint.
Seeing the water in the BRAND-name bottle satisfied the training
(conditioning) that they had in their mind and everything was fine. I do know that some people do have
sensitivities or reactions to some chemicals that may be put in municipal water
so I don’t recommend this ploy for all.
It just happened to work in my situation.
Sadly this mental training or conditioning
has worked for centuries in regards to the human race. People have been mentally trained or
conditioned to believe that some people, because of their color, background,
nationality, or many other reasons, are superior to others that are different
than they are. People have believed
these things for so long that many think they have a RIGHT to demand
certain things because of their envisioned superiority. But the truth is that we all belong to the
same race --- the human race! And we all
live in the same area --- the planet earth!
The problem with unlearning that mental training or conditioning
is that we’re only human!
QUOTE TO CONSIDER
"The truly bizarre moment is
when you realize that
I am the normal one!"
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