Happy New Year! May you live 2013 with your Eyes Open!

Here are five lessons for 2013.

First, the basis for being free is knowledge. Without knowledge, the ignorant are easily fooled.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization,  
it expects what never was and never will be."- Thomas Jefferson 

In ancient society the education of a free man was the Seven Arts or the Seven Arts of a Liberal Education (liberal as in "free man"). The first three of those arts is called the Trivium. Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric which used to be the basis for an elementary education prior to public education introduced in the late 19th Century. It rests upon the shoulders of individuals today to rediscover this education and unlearn the illogical nature of a "modern" education.
An easy first step to introducing someone to just how corrupted our society is... is to examine logical fallacies (lies). If one looks, one will find logical fallacies everywhere... "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me"(Once someone lies to you, they have given you fair warning). Most commercials have numerous fallacies, as well as, tv shows, movies, news, magazines and even how people interact. Once a person starts to realize this they have the basis to understand who to trust and who not to... a very valuable lesson.

The Fallacy Project (Several examples of fallacies in commercials)

The Psychopath Test... Psychopaths are in control

I had heard somewhere that politicians and psychopaths have a great deal of similarities... in fact, I used it in a speech I gave... the line I repeatedly mentioned was..."and it's not just because psychopaths and politicians have so much in common"... the speech was about why I don't vote.

However, it wasn't until I happened to read an article on education that led me to a chapter 15 of the book by John Taylor Gatto "The Underground History of American Education". Chapter fifteen is titled..."The Psychopathology of Everyday Schooling". And then, in the local library, I picked up a book by Jon Ronson called the "The Psychopath Test"... these all made it clear... it was pretty obvious my sub-conscious was pointing me in a direction that I had to investigate further.



There is so much about psychology that intrigues me. It seems I have always had more than an adequate thought in my head that asked questions like "Why?"... and the biggest Why of all is ..."Why are we here?" This led me in a quest for knowledge on various fronts... but then another book opened my eyes to psychology... "A Man's Search for Meaning" by Victor Frankle. I'm not going to go into all the doors this book opened in my mind but the fact of the matter is it gave me a whole new category to think and study about. Psychology.