This is it folks, hold on to your seats, because S just HTF!

....or did it???

How many times have you clicked on a juicy thread title just like this one because you just couldn't help yourself! I know I have! Totally understandable of course due to our innate curious nature as human beings.

Now that I have gotten your attention due to my sensational thread title, I don't expect many of you will stay to hear what I have to say when you find out that I am not touting the end of the world after all. I know, I know so sorry to disappoint!

I'm afraid no doom and gloom here but I was hoping I might be of help to anyone who has fallen into the same traps I did or are wallowing in a state of paranoia due to innocent naivety and overload of 'alternative' information, if so, then this thread is for you. If not, then may you quickly find your 'back' button in your browser and a speedy safe journey to you!

To give you some perspective on my experience and where I am coming from I will back up just a bit. I am 26 years old now, but without going into too much detail, I was born into a very christian family. We were part of a small organization, a church, who believed so much in the 'end times' and preached constantly that we would all be sent to concentration camps many of us murdered for Jesus, and that we should always be prepared. I was 2 years old when my parents joined this organization, and therefore was brainwashed from that age until about 16 years old when we finally broke away. So I was very indoctrinated and raised to be very fearful of the world around me. Everyone was out to get me, the black helicopters were surely going to land in my back yard any time and cart me away to a prison where I would rot away for my beliefs and probably be tortured until I died. The world was going to collapse in the year 2000, and all of us children at the church would talk amongst ourselves in fear and excitement about Jesus coming back and the trials and tribulations that would befall the world. "Get your heart right with God" was drilled into our heads over and over again. I even had an overnight bag packed with canned goods and silly other things a 7 year old might think to put in a bag to prepare for that night when 'they' would come to round us up! We were not taught to think critically about anything, in fact all of our questions that were unable to be answered were brushed aside and we were told that God had a purpose for not giving us that information and we were to just blindly trust whatever the leaders told us because they were the voice of God. When I was about 15 or 16 years old my family finally broke free of this cult like organization, I was so quickly immersed into the "real" world and all of its wonders that I, for quite a time forgot about all of this other end of the world nonsense. Sometime after the age of 16 I experienced a complete break down and deconstruction of all of the religious beliefs I had been brainwashed by, I felt like I had some sort of ephiphany and there really was something more to the world, and while religion for me was not the answer, I had such an overwhelming thirst for knowledge that I wasn't willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak.

Fast-foward to '07, where I somehow managed to stumble across some 'alternative' news forums. Now I should have been smarter then because of my previous experiences, but because I had this unquenchable thirst for knowledge, I launched myself headfirst into the crazy world of conspiracies.

I didn't know how to filter out the nonsense. Alex Jones, David Icke, Wilcock, you name them, if they were on the forum I would read the information. I just absorbed absorbed and absorbed until one day I had the worst 6 hour panic attack. I have never experienced anything like it again and hope I never will. All of these crazy threads from unverifiable sources about Martial Law, the New World Order, FEMA camps, HAARP, Chemtrails, etc. started having a terrible effect on my subconscious. Consciously everything was fine or so I thought, but my mind was just absorbing all of this negative information to the point where I started feeling paranoid about everything. Suddenly I realized I was back to my childhood and all that nonsense that had tried to keep me so wrapped up in fear to even step out my front door!

I began to think critically again, I stepped away and started to see the patterns. The very sensationalized news headlines that had me so freaked out before, I suddenly realized had never actually come to fruition. Aliens didn't actually take over the world, martial law in my neighborhood was never declared. George W Bush rode out his term and another leader has taken his place. 5 years later and here I still am, and the same thread titles are still popping up everywhere! And yet here I sit in front of my computer screen. Nobody came for me, I didn't end up on a cattle car en-route to some distant FEMA camp, no black helicopters landed in my back yard, no government agent in an unmarked vehicle parked on my street to watch me for my internet clicks and curiosities.

The point of this is to remind us all that sensational news is found here on ATS and all of these conspiracy forums just as well if not more than on the MSM, and much of it has the same purpose: Shock value in order to gain ratings, or S & F's. Now I know there will be those who will purposefully misunderstand my point and I am not saying these things will never happen, because they very well may at some point! But there is so much more to life than being scared of stepping outside your front door because of things we read online or sensationalized newscasts we love to watch. I love coming to ATS I love reading about crazy things, but I now enjoy doing so from a much more objective point of view, taking everything with a large grain of salt. And I am in now way accusing all forum members of posting titles just for stars & flags, however there are those few that do.

I'm not suggesting we walk around blindly to the world events that are clearly happening, because lets face it, big life changing events are always going to happen, and I would venture to say that many of us are here because we want to change the direction our world is heading in, and help to bring about a positive change and a better world for our children. But what I am suggesting is that we be careful to a different kind of blindness. A situation where we might find ourselves in where we are so busy absorbing all sorts of questionable information from usually very questionable sources that our subconscious begins to become addicted to the shock value attached to all of this information. So then, instead of keeping our eyes open and our minds thinking in a logical manner, we begin to shut out the very real world around us. The world in which our families are growing up, our friends are existing along side of us, the birds are singing and the children are playing outside. We become consumed by a bazillion and one end of the world scenarios, we become paranoid and withdrawn, and oftentimes we become judgemental to those closest to us, and of course those 'sheep' who we all love to hate. We begin to lay blame on the worlds state of affairs on everyone and everything outside of us. Many of us become obsessed with the world ending so much so that we are wishing it upon the 'sheeple' because in our skewed perspective we have decided that 'they' deserve a horrible painful end to their existence.

Continued....

A wonderful song by TOOL, Vicarious springs to mind.

Open your eyes my friends, sometimes the most effective change can be had on the homefront, in your own houses in your own neighborhoods. Remember that we are all human, some of us are given more tools than others or tougher experiences but that does not make anyone better or worse than anyone else. We cannot bring about a positive change if we are constantly laying the blame on 'them'. It is so easy to sit back on our computer chair thrones and hurl superior judgements on those around us, so protected we are by the confines of the little cyber universe we have created that we have lost touch with the real world.

This is meant to uplift and encourage you my friends. Next time you find yourself weighed down by the utter terribleness of the outside world recreated and served up in a deliciously juicy headline online, I encourage you to step outside your front door. Take a breath of the air, listen to the birds signing, look up at the stars and realize what a little speck you are, yet how amazing and wonderful a creature you are, as well as your neighbor across the street. Next time you are driving in your car reach out with your thoughts to touch the other cars around you, realizing that those little blobs of steel racing around on 4 wheels contain unique individuals as thoroughly immersed and invested into their own little worlds as you are in yours and give thanks for this wonderful opportunity the experience LIFE.

Be happy my friends, and though the world may fall down around you, realize that you are only here for a moment, so use that moment wisely.

Sincerely,
Seeker

PS I would like to thank the forum members here who over the years have helped me to navigate my journey through this confusing world of conspiracy even while they may not have even realized it, when it comes to subjects I really have no knowledge about. I will not name names because I do not want to leave anybody out, but you know who you are and thank you for attempting to be voices of reason in this wonderful gong show. There are those of us that appreciate you immensly.

*Mods please move if this is not in the right forum*

Well said. I agree with everything you're saying. I had the same experience minus the religious upbringing. The more you read into things without critically thinking, the more paranoid you will become.

A good quote I find very suitable, used by Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Dawkins, and most often attributed to Richard Feynman:

"Keep an open mind –
but not so open that your brain falls out."

Originally posted by paradox
Well said. I agree with everything you're saying. I had the same experience minus the religious upbringing. The more you read into things without critically thinking, the more paranoid you will become.

A good quote I find very suitable, used by Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Dawkins, and most often attributed to Richard Feynman:

"Keep an open mind –
but not so open that your brain falls out."

That is a great quote which I also love!
Thanks for sharing.

reply to post by seeker11

This is it folks, hold on to your seats, because S just HTF!

Dear seeker11,

I would like to touch upon just a few points and the first being that I like your writing style. You remind me of someone that I knew (and liked) a long time ago quite a lot... but alas, you are just a bit too young, lol! (Note: Your youth, in this case, is to your advantage!)

Next, I didn't click in because of the title itself but because I tend to select threads that are newer and less worked over. It's kind of like going fishing... everyone wants the bigger, older ones to mount on the wall but they don't feed anyone.

Onward...

The world is not what it appears to be. This is not to say that nothing is real but over time, it has (for me) become quite clear that things are just not as clear cut as either a species that fell out of a tree, broke its back so it could walk upright and then eventually, learned to cast iron, plow fields and fly to the moon. It also outpaces the Adam & Eve story by quite a lot as well.

The word around us today is rife with currents and eddys that crisscross and create undertows and unexpected results. The driving force is not governments elected by people who come here and argue politics and slam one another over JFK and 9.11.

In my personal opinion, it is both far simpler and more complicated. part of this is always visible, part is not. but as the majority of us do indeed love to follow the marching band and take part in whatever trends the momentary culture of acceptance demands, we gladly fly down the rabbit hole after politics and nationalism and various other sundry subject matter.

Anyway, enough of all that. Once again, nice post and... best wishes

reply to post by redoubt


Thank you friend, I will take that as a compliment.

I too believe the world is not what it appears to be, but things rarely are. That is one of the things that drives me to visit sites like this and to unpuzzle the puzzle so to speak. It is all very curious to me and I am curious as a cat. However I have learned how to better protect myself from the "killed the cat" part of curiosity.

Thank you for your input!

I joined up after reading this just so i could post a comment of how i litereally got up and started a slow clap after reading the whole thing.

Very true.

Back in 2006 i was unemployed and thus had a huge amount of free time. I spent all of it on Inforwars and ATS (under my old username that i forgot the password to )

It made me so paranoid and scared and upset. All the time just worried and fearing what was coming. I had to make the judgment call to step away from it for a while. It wasnt until somewhat recently, last year or so that i came back to ATS. Mainly to read about and watch UFO/Ghost stuff since its interesting without being so outwardly terrifying.

I joined again recently just to start contributing again. But i still don't go to Infowars or Prisonplanet ect because of the negativity.

Im not saying those sites are wrong, or that they lie, not at all. I just can;t let myself get bogged down by that stuff all the time. I dont have the financial resources nor the mental fortitude to handle spending 100% of my life being prepared. You have to just live as well.

reply to post by seeker11


Wow we could have been siblings. It's uncanny how your life experiences match with mine.
I too have walked a similar path, but have arrived at a different destination and outlook. I sincerely hope the rest of your journey goes well.
Never forget your roots and where you came from
S&F

reply to post by seeker11


This is like a pop-up add, whit an add for a pop-up blocker...

On a serious note. S&F for you, i liked you post, and i hope more people will fall in to the "trap" and read it, cause they should

I will say that I don't hold with the typical shtf end of the world scenarios. You're right in that it's foolish to be totally obsessed with this stuff. But I also believe that it's foolish to completely ignore what's going on right in front of your eyes.

I believe that there is manifestly something going on in the world that will lead to some big changes. The trick is to not get so crazy about it that you start envisioning zombie hordes and scenarios like "The Road".

Very well put Seeker and Congratulations on your awakening.

It's amazing how many people simply crave the next big title, news or goss. They need that shock value to satisfy their craving. And like all cravings, comes addiction. Much like drugs and alcohol. It can be very difficult for some people to resist.

What it does go to show is that we can all experience the reality we want. If we want to experience shock and awe from news titles, we can. Likewise if we want to experience the delightful beauty of nature outside, we can. Its fascinating that our realities can completely change simply by altering our perceptions or level of consciousness.

We each have our callings, and each step we take in our life paths will teach us something new about ourselves if we know how to read those steps.

Again, well done seeker and thanks for your efforts.

reply to post by seeker11


while i think you played a nasty trick using the title you used to seduce us
i appreciate your post, it makes a lot of sense
thanks!

reply to post by seeker11

Very nice post seeker11!!!

Absolutely agree with you. In many ways, my story is similar. I also grew up in a christian family. I believed the earth was 6000 years old. I was going to church (infrequently) up until about 2001. I couldn't say "**** god!" until a few years ago - had to deprogram my fear of the spaghetti monster. I still want there to be love and fairness in the world. Not believing in a god doesn't make us bad people. BEING a bad person is what makes you bad! I put a lot of weight on rationale thought.

I still have a view that the world is sinful or shallow. Have to keep deprogramming. I mean, I get too judgmental about people being people. I'm not perfectly recovered. I don't mean that I want to be blind to evil or wrongdoing. My religious beliefs brainwashed me and the effects linger.

I still love to come to these forums for the banter and the theorizing for an hour or two. In my view, it's engrossing to discuss the universe and all of the tough questions that can't be easily answered or observed readily. I don't get paranoid. In fact, I already know that 99 percent of the fear porn is BS. I stay away from most of it and stick to philosophy/science and the gray area mostly.

We need Phage and others like him. The battle against fear porn is just begun.

Starred you.

Some nice music::

"CONSPIRANOIA" was a word I heard the other day that describes how you WERE felling perfectly I think!
Really enjoyede the read, thank you.