12 Steps To Unplugging From The Matrix, Reclaiming Mind, and Detoxing From The Beast

No, I’m not talking about THOSE steps although I am familiar with them. Ironically, it’s been 12 years since I last consumed alcohol. The consumption of alcohol is no longer a social or antisocial activity I engage in. I don’t miss it. Alcohol made me do or not do things that I still regret but that I have forgiven myself for. I choose forward. I try to live my life as one of making amends by living as honest and clean a life as best I can…AND BEING A GOOD AND USEFUL FATHER. Alcohol use never changed my personality but enhanced or stifled parts of my personality that needed very little enhancement. The steps I’m going to explore here are those needed to divest myself from social media which is a, let’s face it, an addictive and distracting stimulant that most people can live without. It was a pathway, a gateway to full on control of peoples lives. Social media changes narratives, sways public opinion, swings elections, promotes civil unrest and violence, aids foreign and domestic terrorism, and holds more power than most governments. Cancel culture was borne of social media and ensures that public opinion is monitored and punished when ‘moderators’ or ‘fact checkers’ deem your content to be offensive, dangerous, or to be in violation of ‘community standards’. People are being shunned, de-employed, doxxed and digitally and physically attacked or killed. Social media is being used by predators to lure young and vulnerable people, children especially, into dangerous situations or trafficking and slavery. Liberals and Democrats love social media. Social?

The social media platforms (toxic addiction merchants) will be heretofore referred to as TAM. TAM preys on the vulnerable. The TAM products that are abused by most people are Facebook, Twitter and TikTok. They all proclaim and promote virtues of facilitating unity, connectivity, amusement, entertainment and understanding. They also claim that your privacy and safety is their highest priority and that the free exchange of ideas and opinions is sacred. All of these proclamations and claims are blatantly false and the reality of platform use are carefully explained but hidden in long and convoluted language in their ‘terms of service’. Your personal information is bought and sold and your ideas and opinions are subject to extreme censorship and online shaming and punishment if found to be in violation of a dominant or mainstream narrative. These services are also free but not really. The user pays for the service by giving up certain, if not all freedoms and privacy. They pay for the service with their enslavement to the service and targeted advertising. The cellphone has become ubiquitous and their use a necessity for life. Some life.

In broad terms, by cutting the wireless cord, you may actually get parts of your life back. You might find time to do things that you actually enjoy and connect with real people. You might build a bird feeder perhaps? You might find balance in your life. It’s bad enough to be a slave to one’s job. To be also enslaved by ones cellphone and the TAM that operates it, and you, offers little hope for a peaceful and sovereign life.

The 12 Steps Of Social Media Anonymous might look like this. The successful use of these 12 steps would be enhanced by not posting any elements of their use on your preferred TAM site.

1. We admitted that we were powerless over social media and that our lives had become managed and therefore unmanageable

2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves had enslaved us and that only we could restore ourselves to sanity and personal sovereignty

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives back over to ourselves and our families and regain our power as sovereign beings with decisive action

4. Made a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves to determine why we needed social media to obscure the facts of life and lull us into distraction, compliance and slavery

5. Admitted to ourselves and to other human beings the exact nature of our wrongs, omissions and failings while enslaved to social media

6. Were entirely ready to remove these defects of character and their enablers by divesting ourselves of enslaving technologies

7. Humbly asked our higher selves to remove our shortcomings and for the strength to extract ourselves from social media

8. Made a list of all of the people we have harmed from our use of social media and became willing to make amends to them all

9. Made direct amends to such people, wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or other addicts using means other than social media

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it without using social media

11. Sought through personal reflection and meditation to improve our conscious, personal and physical contact with others preferring non social media contact to carry that out

12. Having had a re-awakening to reality we tried to carry this message to social media addicts and practice these steps in all of our affairs and activities

There are a few things that you might try while you gather the nerve to either limit or go cold turkey on your use of TAM.

A) Consider a medically supervised detox. Withdrawal can be difficult and distressing.

B) Turn off all notifications from from any apps or platforms you may be running. Study Pavlovian conditioning or read Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ while you detox.

C) Try to get your TAM account suspended or ‘jailed’ by speaking your mind. Jail can be an ideal place to pause, reflect and detox.

Most twelve step programs involve developing a relationship with a God or higher power to help guide you through them because it is believed that surrender and obedience are key to success in the program. The success rates claimed in ongoing studies by AA vary but in general indicate that 24% of participants stay sober 1-5 years while 13% stay sober 5-10 years. 22% maintain sobriety for 20 or more years. It was the ‘God’ thing that tripped up many participants.

There is an App available on Google Play which will allow you to download and access the Big Book and other literature on your TAM device. The App also features a sobriety calculator and meeting locator. It’s all about balance…I guess.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference – Reinhold Niebuhr

Amen!

Possible new acronym : WMD (Weapons of Mass Delusion)

3 comments