Occupy Yer Mind: #RightHereRightNow | Mickey Z.

Photo credit: Mickey Z.

Mickey Z. -- World News Trust

Feb. 23, 2012

"It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now?"  -- Zack De La Rocha

Where are you? Here.
What time is it? Now.

This is an insidiously ingrained culture we're trying to transform and such a transformation often begins by changing minds -- starting with our own. On that note, while perusing the Wild Mind Buddhist Meditation website, it struck me how crucial living "in the moment" can be to the expansion of the #Occupy movement.

Mic Check: "A lot of the time we are like robots, automatically living out habitual patterns of self-pity, anger, wish fulfillment, fear, etc. We dwell on and brood over past hurts even though we know we can't go back and change anything. We daydream about fantasy futures and imagined paradise that lie ahead. Meanwhile, life goes on in the present."

Here are some thoughts on having less thoughts and living more in the here and now…

#OccupyMindfulness
In the Buddhist/meditation sense, this is defined as "concentrated awareness of one's thoughts, actions or motivations." In more radical terms, it might be best described as recognizing and accepting accountability. As Noam Chomsky reminds us, we are "responsible for the predictable consequences of our actions." You see, being mindful is more than just having the oft-discussed "awareness." Most of us are aware of global warming and its causes, factory farms, environmental degradation, species extinction, the health care crisis, etc. We know about it but are we doing anything about it? That is #occupied mindfulness.

#OccupyIndependentThought
The next time you reach for a container of "fair trade" coffee, consider that -- by definition -- everything else is "unfair trade." Or when you walk through a supermarket, passing aisles of poison packaged in toxins until you find the tiny "Natural Foods" section, ask yourself this: Why not just label the rest of the store "Unnatural Foods"? We are so inundated with corporate propaganda on a minute-to-minute basis that we rarely even stop to consider what a word like "natural" means. After all, arsenic is natural, isn't it? So are uranium and E. coli, for that matter. Each day -- many, many times a day -- our view of the world is being honed and refined into what can only be labeled a consumer mentality. Good news: That programming is rendered powerless by critical thinking.

#DeOccupyCorporateMedia
Whether you label them liberal or conservative, most major media outlets are large corporations owned by or aligned with even larger corporations, and they share a common goal: to make a profit by selling a product -- an affluent audience -- to a given market: advertisers. Therefore, we shouldn't find it too shocking that the image of the world being presented by a corporate-owned press very much reflects the biased interests of the elite players involved in this sordid little love triangle.

#OccupyBeginner'sMind
See things as they are, not as you wish they were. If you told a child about climate change, that child would likely ask, "What causes climate change?" You might answer, "Many things, especially the meat-based diet and petroleum-based industry." The odds are that kid would promptly deliver the obvious, baggage-free, beginner's mind question: "So, why doesn't everyone just stop eating meat and using oil?" As they say in South Florida: BINGO.

#OccupySimplicity
Albert Einstein sez: "If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor." Okay then, with all due respect for Einstein's tailor, here's some truth for ya: 90 percent of the large fish in the ocean and 80 percent of the world's forests are gone. Eighty-one tons of mercury are emitted into the atmosphere each year as a result of electric power generation. Every square mile of ocean hosts 46,000 pieces of floating plastic. Each day, 200,000 acres of rain forest are destroyed; 150 plant and animal species go extinct; and 13 million tons of toxic chemicals released across the globe. Ludwig Wittgenstein sez: "Let's cut out the transcendental twaddle when the whole thing is as plain as a sock on the jaw." Get ready to duck because the "whole thing" is mostly caused by our beloved way of life and here's the inelegant truth: The path towards a more sane and just culture begins with the simple choice to change how we live and more importantly, what we allow the 1% to get away with.

Where is the best place to start? Here.
What's the best time to start? Now.

#OccupyTheMoment
More from Wild Mind: "Being in the moment does not mean that we are stuck in the moment. We can mindfully and creatively call to mind past events, or imagine what might happen in the future. We can think about the past and think about how we might have acted differently, or wonder why something happened the way it did. We can think about possible futures, and of how the actions that we commit now will make those futures more or less likely. When we are thinking about the past or future while being in the moment, we are conscious that we are reflecting and we're not lost in thought. We don't confuse fantasy with reality."

In the spirit of #occupying reality, I will remind you of the last line of the RATM quote I offered up top: "It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now? All hell can't stop us now."

We are the 99%. Expect us. Join us...

#OccupyYerMind. OccupyRightHereRightNow. #DeOccupyPropaganda.

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Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook.

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