If You Are Not Upset by Dean Gotcher

If You Are Not Upset ...

by
Dean Gotcher

... you will not have the "energy" to read any of these issues, i.e., spend the time to truly understand what is happening to you and the world around you—the Why? and How?. Most people I speak to today (especially the "millennials") get that "deer in the headlight" stare when I try to explain what is happening to them and their children—needing a dopamine fix to keep their attention. "Make me 'feel good' (don't' make me think to hard—or think at all—or hurt my 'feelings') and I will listen to you."—wanting your approval, i.e., affirmation. It is like taking a pacifier (iPhone) away from them. If they can not grab it back and run (get away) from you (close down their mind), they will kick and scream, sit and sulk ('feel victimized'), or attack you until they get it, i.e., their peace of mind back. They will do whatever it takes to "prevent someone who KNOWS from filling the empty space." (Wilfred Bion, A Memoir of the Future)

As Steve Rea, a friend of mine, keeps reminding me (in his case, talking to legislators) "You can't talk to stupid." In a culture of dialogue, i.e., "feelings," facts and truth become the source of "controversy," i.e., "tension and conflict"—engendering a guilty conscience for doing or being wrong, which no one wants to have, accept, or admit since they are enjoying what they are doing to much, fulfilling their heart's desire.

"The heart is deceitful above all things [thinking pleasure is the standard for "good" instead of doing the Father's will, i.e., having to set aside pleasure, i.e., having to humble, deny, die to "self" in order to do God the Father's will, i.e., in order to do right and not wrong according the Father's commands, rules, facts, and truth], and desperately wicked [hating God the Father and His authority which "gets in the way," i.e. which prevents, i.e., inhibits or blocks it from enjoying the carnal pleasures of the 'moment'—which the world stimulates]: who can know it?" Jeremiah 17:9 Those of dialectic 'reasoning,' i.e., who dialogue, i.e., "think" ('reasoning') through "feelings," as children of disobedience ('justifying' their "self," i.e., 'justifying' their "lusting" after the things of the world) can not see their hatred (which includes indifference) toward God the Father as being evil because their love of "self," i.e., their love of pleasure—which the world stimulates—is "in the way," blinding them to the truth of the deceitfulness and wickedness of their heart.

"And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." Luke 16:5

"The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes. For he flattereth himself [his "self"] in his own eyes, until his iniquity be found to be hateful. The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit: he hath left off to be wise, and to do good. He deviseth mischief upon his bed; he setteth himself in a way that is not good; he abhorreth not evil." (Psalms 36:1-4)