Day-034-My time with the special forces

As a child I enjoyed playing war-games. Why this is so is another story. This is about how I ended up with the special forces and the things we did as 'force multipliers'. The term special forces is a description for people who when combined become from a strategic perspective capable of performing very complex mostly covert missions behind enemy lines. 

We confuse the enemy, disrupt communications and are often capable of altering the scene on the battlefield. The strength is not firepower per definition. Its firepower combined with stamina, consistency, originality, surprise, speed, intelligence, psychology, know how and strategic overview. Manipulators capable of disturbing the so called 'normal' flow of things. 

Units are a combined gathering of talents and although composed out of specialists everybody in the unit is more or less capable of performing al tasks creating a bit of redundancy and resistance to failure. There is an aura of specialness but in reality it's simply a clever combination and form of people management. The rest is made in Hollywood by Mad Men, as we all know.

So a relatively small group like this can become very influential on the battlefield. Maybe that's why I enjoyed playing war games as a child. The hide and seek, improvisation, creativity and physical challenges. 

There is however a big difference between this playfulness and the hars reality of a real special forces unit. The mission objectives are always dictated by global politics and that means I will eventually be bound by rules of engagement. These rules can drastically reduce my options within my unit's missions on the battlefield. That's why we are trained to not ask questions but to execute. That's what we do. We execute and we will try to do that as efficient as possible and to the best of our abilities as a team. Time is money in the business. 

The whole honor thing is absolute hollywood bullshit. We get medals but are not allowed to wear them in public. We do not die for king and country. We die for our brothers on the team because we are are trained like that. If you spend more time with your buddies than with your wife and kids the bonds get very intimate and strong and you don't let your buddies down. The mission always comes first. Business before boobs.

The rush of executing highly complex missions under great pressure and being able to get this done as a team is addictive. The specific demands create a lot of adrenaline and that makes it very addictive. To get to a certain level requires a lot of training where one will make long days a lot of days. Hard to chew at times but getting the business done under the nose of the enemy under extreme stress is an overwhelming experience. Outsmarting the enemy is eventually what it's all about.

Being in a special forces unit has it's privileges. We operate in the system but always behind the scenes. So like our uniforms we are not bound by the regular rules and scrutiny of the company's doctrine. Our outfit is mostly mission specific and so is the equipment we use. Anything as long as we get the fucking job done fast and effectively. And although we are relatively expensive to operate the choice to use a good spec ops team mostly has a high return on investment.

The downside of being an operative in the business is that we don't have long careers. Most operatives do business between 21-40 years of age. After that it becomes very hard. So either you have some incentives going or you land yourself an intelligence or consultancy job. So like a professional soccer player you have to plan your career carefully otherwise you end up with a lot of specific experience that will be kind of worthless in normal life. 

It's really hard to adjust to 'normal' life if you are used to being in the company. It's an addiction and a lot of guys become very depressed and have a really hard time integrating back into normal life. Apart from living with the permanent imagery of the worst shit this world has to offer also few outside the company understand what is going on in the shadows of this world. And almost nobody gives a shit. That's why we don't care about politics or queen or country. In the end it doesn't matter because a bullet is a bullet wherever it lands. 

Every innocent person that dies because we have more firepower is our responsibility as a society but no one seems to realize that our presence in the world is a representation of us as a society that means everybody! The strange thing is that people are often very curious about the work we do and how we do it but they never seem to be interested in the nitty gritty. The why we are here in the first place and who deploys us.

Only the haters, the conspiracy theorists, and activists seem to have something to say but most of them bark up the wrong tree collectively. I cannot say all I want to say here because most of it is classified and boring to be honest but if there is one thing I have learned in al those years it's that we are all responsible for what happens in the world by our daily acceptance and allowances. 

It's all economics that decide where and if we operate. The global future of our deployment is decided by consumers today because the world has become geo political. Buying my daughter a teddybear means I have blood on my hands these days.

We have so much money to our disposal and battlefield strategies are not rocket science. We have become so methodical that there are often multiple scenario's unfolding simultaneously which makes it even harder for the enemy to counter what we do. But routine also leads to more collateral damage because routine leads to mistakes. Decision makers start operating on their emotions and are often manipulated by higher forces. Democracy as such does not exist. Killing people is eventually self interest period.

Most of my colleagues work for private companies that make shit loads of money operating on the edge of and often above the law. The mission objective is always the same. Create chaos and confusion. In that way we create an alibi for intervention. That intervention means running the show so someone else can profit from it. By profit I mean money. 

If intelligence does it's work, if strategy does it's work, if counter intelligence does it's work, if aggression does it's work, if all work together, executing missions, launching campaigns, guerrilla tactics, acceptable loss, ammunition, e-warfare. We talk about targets, strategic plans, central command, our mission objectives, return on investment and winning wars. Sound familiar?

To take it back to playing war games as a kid. I wanted to win and I wanted to 'feel' special. I ended up in marketing and advertising operations because that made me sort of special. One of the creatives. The ones that are special. 

The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. Not fond of rules. No respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy. While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

You see, before you know I'm quoting an Apple commercial. I probably felt so desperately inferior that I had to prove something to myself so I ended up working in advertising and marketing. Mainly advertising though and being responsible for creating imagery. The suits that are worn by the corporate story. I'm one of those guys that say  Zero sugar but keeps his mouth shut about the aspartame. That's the deal. It's up to you to prove me wrong but you won't. 

The fact I choose to burry myself in the corporate clusterfuck put me in some rather special ops teams and often gave me an insiders view on how easy it is to manipulate the masses by sending one of the teams to execute some creative strategy. It's amazing to see how creative people get If you paid them to do so. Investigate and you will find that a warroom is exactly the same as the boardroom. No difference whatsoever. Generals become CEO's, CEO's become politicians, Politicians become CEO's and we are al shareholders by allowing this bullshit to run reality as it unfolds.

Next time you watch the news and you hear whatever spokesperson talking about whatever, just pay attention to the words they choose. They will speak the battlefield language because marketing is war and we all commit to our duty on the battlefield. Over and out.

Day-033-"Friendliness the disease"

Within DIP Lite I was looking at the word 'friendly' and how I have lived this word. And it always amazes me how much opens up if I start to look at a single word and how multi dimensional words are. If you are interested in language the Desteni material will blow you out of your socks. It's possible to write about a single word into infinity because in a holographic way a word represents all words. It triggers the question why we have the abc in the first place?

So here I see within one word multiple dimensions of how I can live and have lived the word 'friendly'. Friendly as a form of manipulation because I want to be liked. Even being unfriendly. Because telling someone to fuck of shows very clearly that I am very specific about who I want to be friendly with. It's about personal preference thus 100% self interest.

Being liked and earn affection is one of the first things we learn. It's the tool to get things my way. The friendly rivalry is always there because it's what shapes this reality. It does not stand alone because it's part of the play out within relationships within all groups. It can be explicit competition like a dog wrestle. But it will still be rivalry and it boils down to and finds its origin in self interest. I can trace that back very easily to the observation I made as a child. Manipulation was something I learned so I only have to look at the origin of my education to find the friendly lie. The soothing voice of my mother that says it's ok to cry as I am manipulating the hell out of her.

How far am I willing to go to get what I want? It's like in mediaeval times and how the dutch where able to do business in japan while the rest got their heads chopped off. The dutch bent over backwards, went on their knees and licked the boots of a shogun as long as they got their business deals. They didn't care about keeping up appearance. They took on the 'friendly' appearance that got them the most results and that's it. They where well dressed but pirates nevertheless. The japanese liked the dutch. They where humble and friendly as long as you where not a slave or a boat that was entered because they where the bankers of their time and build their wealth and kingdom on the basic rule of the trade that people have to like you first before you become able to fuck them up the arse. In that perspective friends are the foes you do business with.

Any-a thing / Many-a things / Make-a thing / Mark-a thing / Marketing

It's the biggest blind spot I had in my life and one of the major points of frustration in daily life. Why didn't I see this before? This system operates to a very simple rule. And it's this rule in combination with ice-cold lifelong consistency that makes 'matter' come 'our' way. There is no place for playfulness or a celebration of life within getting what I want. Being friendly in its current expression is the blinding smile of deception and the foundation of this 'financial' reality. I'm a puppy fighting for a nipple in total denial.

If I want to be in a favorable position I must be that perfect picture. That friendly, humble and serviceable person that pops up in the mind of the right person. Strangely enough it's basic rules of advertising and I never wanted to see that they applied to myself as well. Such stupidity.

Like I said, a MAJOR blind spot. Then there is the belonging to and finding oneself in an alliance of some sort. Where one becomes supported by the group because I have now proven my alliance trough my actions within and as self sacrifice as a donation to the group. And this applies to all groups. My battle scars will get a certain status. The more medals the more status. From being in a street gang to being a member of the board or a wolf in a pack. It's all the same shit and I will abuse my own children out of fear of fading from the grid. I understand that change can only come from myself as my actions because no one wants to 'hear' this. There is no friendly way to tell it!

It's problematic when one sees that there is only one group in fact which is 'LIFE'. Simultaneously I find myself in a reality that doesn't change because I don't change. A reality that is split into an overwhelming number of groups. As a child I will have to merge with one or more of those groups. It's my goddamn 'social structure'. A structure that is always classifiable by the money god that rules that specific group. No income is the ultimate failure in the system and it means there is only one group left. The opposites the underdogs, the losers.

Belonging to the ones that don't belong means suffering beyond belief and because that is everyones worst fear we defend our positions of self interest at the cost of all 'life'. It makes us teach our children to live the lie and speed up the process of destruction even more. Isn't that the worst child abuse imaginable?

I lived the word friendly in multiple dimensions and few are genuine self honest expressions. Friendliness has the potential of being every act that stands for absolute oness and equality as what is best for all life. To walk the message of jesus and to do unto my neighbor as I would do unto myself. The friction with present reality is that one will (like jesus) have to friendly say no to a lot of 'things' and one will not have a lot of friendly things to say. I will crucify myself isn't it?

SO the word friendly is very much here to be redefined into an understanding of what true friendliness in the best interest of all entails. I have a long way to go.

Day-032-"space chimp will work for food"

Sehr geehrte Herr Lammers,
für Ihr Interesse an unserem Unternehmen und die Zusendung der Unterlagen möchten wir uns hiermit herzlich bedanken.

Sicherlich können Sie sich vorstellen, dass sich eine Vielzahl von Interessenten für unsere Stelle beworben haben. 

Die Entscheidung fiel uns nicht leicht, aber leider müssen wir Ihnen mitteilen, dass wir uns für einen anderen Mitbewerber entschieden haben.

Wir wünschen Ihnen für Ihren weiteren beruflichen Werdegang alles Gute.

Dear Mr. Lammers,
thank you for your interest in our company and the supplied references and documents we would like to hereby thank you for your efforts. 

Surely you can imagine that a large number of interested parties have applied for this job opening. The decision was not easy for us, but unfortunately we have to inform you that we have opted for another competitor.

We wish you all the best for your future career endeavors. 

Coming from the field of communications this response holds no secrets. It's part of standard operating procedures and is pulled out of the corporate database where it's filed as a standard letter somewhere in  the human resource corporate communications directory.

It's a response to me applying for a job. And the guy or girl that is responsible for communicating this stuff is like any other employee bound to the same operating procedures. Having an 8 hour workday and having to spend at least six of them as billable hours. You are not able to get personal with 250 applicants if you are on a timed budget. 

Look around and one will see that reality is ever more becoming a reflection of these standard operating procedures. They are surfacing everywhere and at the same time companies would like us to believe that they take us personal. No they will not and they cannot. It's impossible if you have more customers than the people in your street. 

Suppose I would have gotten the job I would have to learn how to speak this company specific dialect as well. I worked for company's that had 40 pages of house rules. Part of operating procedures. It makes no difference where you are in this reality. You can only make a living in this system if you are profitable and that means that one will become part of the win-loose equation and like all gamblers in a casino there will be only losers. We live in a world with less casinos and more gamblers. The pool of losers is only getting bigger. Applying for a job these days feels like betting a last penny on a one armed bandit. I never really had to apply for jobs. I more or less came and got a job. I feel ashamed that I'm part of a system that communicates via standard operating procedures realizing that it has been like that from the beginning of time as the construct of self interest. 

The more profit flows to less people the bigger the pool of losers becomes until only the sea of misery remains. We will see that we where programmed according to standard operating procedures and thus created a standard outcome which is a sea of misery. With this much unemployment at the moment it becomes clear that there is to much labour product and very little demand. So for those operating the procedures specific talent has never been this cheap. This will speed up the process we see unfolding. Meat is cheap and it will bring out the carnivores.

We will see exactly the right people getting exactly the right jobs because it becomes very easy to find pieces for the puzzles. It will speed up and intensify the corporate wars. The army's will be better equipped. This will force old soldiers to work underground or become mercenaries in order to survive.

It's so clear that the only solution to prevent global chaos and suffering is a basic income in order to keep things stable. The third world war that is raging is based on cash-flow. This is the time where bullets are just fireworks for distraction. Nord Korea a diversion. Battles are determined by how many people I can keep immobilized in front of the tv by showing reality soaps that are far from reality. Letting the monkeys watch the monkeys is the cheapest way of keeping them dump, speechless and in their cages. 

This is my third recession and in every one of them I have worked for companies that did not survive the periods of economic downfall. It's so painful to see the amounts of energy and suffering that is created in order to make money. There is enough money in this world to make  everyone a millionaire. If 10% of the worlds population would stop participating within these standard operating procedures we would create enough critical mass to destroy them. The question is how do I remain part of that 10%? Instead of that monkey on top of a rocket.

Day-031-"hiding in the shed"

I want to change direction professionally and to do that I have to find a new way and expand on my existing area of expertise. I know about marketing, advertising, branding, photography and I have always 'loved' everything that involved bikes. More specifically mountain bikes. So if someone would ask me what I would love to do most proffesionally? It would be working in or around the bike industry. To me the bicycle is the best mechanical invention ever. Riding a bike even in its most simple form gives one a direct physical experience of every mechanical law in nature. In it's raw form it has no more parts than it needs to function. Using the same force as it would take one to simply walk, a bike  moves you 4 times faster. 

I was pondering on these perspectives as I was looking back on my career and I noticed that I had a few opportunities a long the way that could have been life changers but I did not use one. Not one! I kind of blocked those memories. Due to my present situation these images came up and forced me to take a self honest look at why I did not use those opportunities at the time and why I find it so extremely hard to get myself moving towards self change within these point.

Primarily it was fear. I remember the first time an advertising agency contacted me as I was just moving from on job to the other. Everything was already sort of arranged and more importantly I had a new relationship going with a girl in that new town I was moving to. Nevertheless I talked to the guys from the agency and looking back I see myself behaving cocky and arrogant. I was in a safe position to behave like that so like most overconfident 25 year olds I did. Hormones and a complete lack of humility probably.

They made me a great offer and I refused. Why?  Maybe because I already had a new job and most importantly a relationship. Relationships are the best way to distract one from reality. Furthermore their job would mean taking full responsibility for 2 brands. Two clients where I would have full creative responsibility for end results. So beneath al the bravura I was actually scared shitless, suppressed that fear and took on that cocky arrogant character. I moved away from Arnhem and landed in an office where I would eventually experience a burn out. The offer I got in Arnhem would have landed me with one of the biggest bike brands in Holland at the time. It would have given me the opportunity to meet people in the bike industry, build a network and move from there. WTF was I thinking....

This was not the first time I saw myself do this. My whole life is filled with moments where a seemingly simple decision means a different direction that completely alters ones coarse in life. Small moments big effects. A moment, that would require a little risk and pushing myself to learn a few new skills or fail within it. That's all I had to do. But I didn't and I choose to remain in my comfort zone. A zone where less opportunity presents itself. In retrospect I can say that less opportunities will start to present themselves and the route will become more dusty and less profitable as one gets older.

The past week I noted somewhere I was 'mindless' within not taking the risk of failure at the same time creating a change to grow and learn something new.

So the prime point here was taking risks... 

Interesting, in my upbringing taking risks especially those with financial consequence where considered 'mindless'. And since the first startup I was part off was not a success I sort of surrendered to that believe. But what I saw was that the way I generally use the word 'mindless' actually means the opposite? In general we tend to use the word 'mindless' when our behavior or that of someone else is not thought out. In other words someone is doing things without planning or a pre determined strategy. 

Look at how often we speak to our children like that. "Stop that mindless bullshit and so forth". However... Observing myself and my behavior as my mind and what I have accepted and allowed and decided to become as such gives a whole new meaning to the word 'mindless'.

Never in my thinking existence have I ever been mindless. In fact all my actions derive from myself as my mind even in my sleep in my dreams is it me as the mind that occupies my being. So from that perspective it's rather pathetic to judge myself or other peoples behavior as mindless because it simply never is, not even when we sleep.

I did not write for quite some time. I just didn't. Yuk! Fed up with being confronted with the vastness of these points at the moment. Normally I would say I'm depressed but what's a depression more than giving myself another reason to do nothing about it. 

I fear change and I fear changing myself. There it is. At the same time I must. The illusions of backdoors are gone there are no more exits. Like the banking system the facts are here for me to face. I'm also having these strange lower back problems. So something is happening at my base so to speak. I find it very hard to keep my back straight at the moment.

I can stabilize myself a little by doing sports so I started doing sports again and that involves a bike. My old bike was in pieces so I looked what was lying around and enjoyed building a bike from the materials I had and getting everything dialed inn. Being in my shed working with my hands calms me down. It helps me to stabilize and remain in the moment with what I'm physically doing. I also started training again on a regular basis to support my back. I have some indicators to why my back behaves like it does. Besides the psychosomatic causes there is the simple physical fact I have been sitting behind a desk my whole working life. So that's another thing I want to change. As little desk as possible.

Anyway looking back I was judging myself and my behavior in the past as reckless and mindless. Reckless-mindless. Where did that judgement come from? In sports I took risks (reckless). In my career I didn't (mindless). But isn't it strange that I use these thought constructs and eventually end up and decide to follow the path to self diminishment. So perhaps instead of mindless it's the opposite. It's within my participation as the mind I determine my actions. It's all mined from my mind.

So from that perspective there is no action in this world that can be mindless. Then it would be mindless thus without self interest. A long time ago as I sat in yoga class doing my best to become 'mindless' and enlightened it was in fact the realms of my mind I was exploring. There is no way out!

In that sense yes, being lost in and as the mind is an out of body experience but more as total denial of the body/this physical reality. If not for the fact that the same mind mines the body for energy thus holding the body enslaved thus cannot allow itself to leave. I suppose it would be possible to go nuts on purpose and become a famous mummy. Or set yourself on fire or something. History has plenty of examples of minds that do crazy shit in order to get attention.

Interesting the behavior I address as mindlessness is in fact always a point of self interest. Doing what I want to do whatever the consequence. Ego-nomics of some sort. Getting it according to my will and not take anything or anyone in consideration. How genius to call people 'mindless'. It completely camouflages my own responsibility of seeing a mind at work and instead of doing something about it I judge it. By doing so I'm in fact judging myself. Wether I'm a binge drinker, a heroine addict or an adrenaline crazy sports fanatic or soldier in Afghanistan. Calling myself or others mindless is acknowledgement of seeing the mind in action and not taking responsibility for it. 

Looking at myself I can say for sure that the most crappy shit I pull in life requires total denial of the physical reality meaning to lie to myself with absolute involvement of my mind especially in close collaboration with other minds because that makes my lies and behavior more acceptable and less conspicuous.

Eventually I find myself integrated with this bullshit to a point I start to identify with it as myself thus becoming the bullshit. And that's how I felt the last weeks. Slowly sinking back and very ashamed as part of all the bullshit and making it worse by allowing myself to sink further instead of giving myself some clarity about what I was doing. Writing it down in whatever way. I failed big time.

And it's within these small observations of using a word like 'mindless' I find a small peace of the nasty reality that I co create as the mind. True mindlessness would imply common sense and taking full responsibility for my physical reality in self honesty. I can say that that is something I proofed to myself once again how difficult this process can be at times. Ok I'm writing again but that does not change the fact that there is a lot on my list that makes me rather green around the nose. I created all of my reality based on assumptions coming from my mind. This can't be trusted meaning I have to take responsibility for it. Looting evolves from my mind that's why my evolution is nothing more than a story about robbing and steeling. I am an evil looter and I can see it because mindlessness does not exist until this reality become one as a reality that is not of mind.

The resistance to physical action towards writing myself out is really intense at the moment. It's kind of painful to see how much bullshit I'm is able to create in a few weeks. It's overwhelming at times to see that I really think and behave solely as mind not able to stop myself, completely controlled by the patterns and habits because I stopped writing. These few words kind of feel like an attempt to come out of my shed.