The song played that is easiest to remember will be a hit. The politician that promises the most gets elected. The Youtube video which creates the strongest reaction in the least amount of time will become popular. What am I talking about? Memes.

Meme: Any idea or behavior that can pass from one person to another by learning or imitation. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, gestures, practices, fashions, habits, songs, and dances.

Memes spread through human culture similar to a contagious virus. As the meme is repeated and re-encoded in the minds of other individuals, it evolves. Memes that do the job with the least amount of energy will survive.

Meme evolution is not necessarily to our benefit

Memes have a life of their own, and the means by which they evolve is not necessarily in our best interest- the successful meme is copied and spread whether or not it’s in the interest of the meme creator. A good example of a successful meme is the evolution of projectile weapons, which started with arrows, then bolts, catapulted stones, cannonballs, explosive bombs, and nuclear bombs. The amount of destructive power has increased exponentially over time, but there is no evidence that a new weapon actually enhances the survival of the people who created it.

Memes can **** you up and infect your mind if you let them

Technology is helping memes evolve and spread at a more rapid pace than ever before. Successful memes are more easily copied, while unsuccessful memes are not copied. Due to technology, the modern day man is more vulnerable to being infected by memes. Here are 3 ways this happens:

1) Internet Memes

Dancing baby. The hamster dance. LOLcat. These are all examples of Internet memes. Are they a fun part of Internet culture, or a parasitical waste of your time? To answer this question, you must first ask yourself how much you value your time.

As your time is limited, it is important that you are using it to get what you want out of life, versus letting memes use your time to propagate themselves. If you could look back at your life, how memorable would your time spent on Youtube, Wikipedia, Twitter, or this blog post be? When you follow Internet memes for hours, how much of that time is contributing to your well-being, versus parasitically draining your energy?

Musician and Internet sensation Tay Zonday (creator of Internet meme Chocolate Rain) sings about the time we spend on the Internet:

So every day I swear
I’m gonna go to bed at like eleven.
And all of a sudden its 4AM . . .
And I was just watching Youtube and
reading Wikipedia for five hours.
It’s like MAN . . . you ask me the
next day. I can’t even remember
what I was doin. Crazy.
-Tay Zonday

2) Television Memes

Sensationalism. Sitcoms. Soap operas. With television, memes can be transmitted almost instantaneously to people throughout the world. Generally, television makes viewers feel very relaxed, but also significantly less active, alert, mentally focused, satisfied, or creative compared with other ways of spending time.

Like a drug, television initially provides a positive experience, but research suggests that the longer one watches it in one setting, the worse one’s mood progressively gets. 90’s hip-hop group Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy sing about this in “Television the Drug of the Nation”:

How do you feel after watching television? Was your time spent doing something rewarding, or wasted? Do you use television to get what you want out of it, or do television memes use you to propagate themselves?

3) Materialism Memes

Houses. Cars. Clothes. As man looks on his material possessions, he becomes deluded into thinking he’s a big deal- the objects become symbols for expansion of the self. It is easy for man to spend his whole life accumulating property without end just to feed his ego.

Each of us has needs for shelter, food, and clothing. But this doesn’t explain the houses of today, which represent more of the evolution of memes than to our personal well-being. Similarly, expensive clothing and restaurants are used to make an impression on the minds of other people, versus the simple needs of keeping us warm and replenishing our energy.

A powerful example of a materialism meme is the automobile. After first buying a car, you have positive feelings, such as freedom, power, and pride of ownership. The car becomes a symbol for the expansion of the self. Then the car ownership begins to drain your energy- you worry about payments, upkeep, insurance, accidents, and so on. But still, the meme continues to evolve and replicate, with new car models coming out each year for future owners.

A scene from the movie Fight Club discussing how “the things you own end up owning you”:

Do you use memes to get what you want, or do memes infect your mind and replicate themselves?

Do you use memes to get what you want and meet your personal goals? Or do you become a meme replicator, with hours of your time being wasted as the outcome? Internet, television, and materialism memes are really just the tip of the iceberg- memes can drain our energy in all areas of life. After capturing our attention, memes will continue reproducing themselves whether it is good for us or not. If we are to take control of our lives, we must get out of autopilot mode and use memes for our own ends, versus letting them parasitically drain our energy.

photo credit: cjbnc

João Gilberto simply is music. He plays. He sings. Without stopping. Day and night. He is very, very strange. But he is the most fascinating being, the most fascinating person, that I have encountered on the surface of the earth. João, he is mystery. He hypnotises.
-Maria Bethânia

João Gilberto has been called many things throughout his ongoing career- a genius, a reclusive eccentric, the father of bossa nova, and the most enigmatic Brazilian alive. But one thing is certain- in 1958, this man changed Brazilian music forever. During this year, João invented bossa nova- a style of Brazilian music which evolved from samba, but is more complex harmonically and less percussive.

João’s signature piece, Chega de Saudade, is universally acknowledged as the song that launched his career and the bossa nova movement:

Here are 5 lessons for following your passion from the creative musical genius João Gilberto:

1) Stay focused

From an early age, João was interested in only one thing- music. He was given a guitar at the age of fourteen, which soon became an extension of his body. João played day and night, often the same chord repeated innumerable ways. Even when João’s family thought that he was mentally disturbed, and sent him to a psychiatric sanatorium, he kept up his musical experiments.

2) Never give up

For seven years, João’s career seemed at a standstill- he rarely had work, was dependent on his friends for a place to live, and was chronically depressed. João did not give up, and eventually, he was helped by friend Luiz Telles, who took him to southern Brazil, where he blossomed.

3) Work on your own schedule

Early in his career, living with his friends in Rio de Janeiro, João was a Night Owl, and would sleep during the day and play at night. Even though his hosts had day jobs, when returning from work, they would keep him company until early in the morning, listening to him play. When João moved to Porto Alegre, he single-handedly altered the city’s nightlife. People who normally went to sleep early stayed up late, adapting themselves to João’s sleep schedule, to hear him play.

4) Refuse a “normal” job

Although João’s family wished that he would consider a “normal”, non-musical job, he refused. Even when João had no money and work, João would not take jobs which he considered demeaning, such as singing in clubs where people talked during the performance, or recording commercial jingles.

5) Isolate yourself to develop your own style

João spent eight months with his sister, where he secluded himself from others, playing guitar day and night, developing a personal style for voice and guitar that would later be called bossa nova.

Are you following your passion, on the verge of creating a “bossa nova” in your field?

João is an inspiration for all of us. Imagine if he had taken a non-musical job, instead of focusing on his passion- would João have invented bossa nova, and been as successful as he is today? What if João had listened to his father, who disliked his songs, thinking João was mentally disturbed? The same songs that João’s father disliked were later considered by music critics to be zen-like, and works of pure perfection.

The most important lesson we can learn from João’s career is to pursue our passion relentlessly, whether or not our family or friends support us. Like João, each of us must focus on what we are most passionate about. We must focus on what makes us come alive:

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.
-Howard Thurman

photo credit: t_a_i_s

What does it benefit to man if he gains the entire world, but loses himself?

-Jesus Christ

Social programming is the set of instructions each of us learned to fit in with society. Our family members, school teachers, and peer groups were all part of the socialization process. The long-term affect of this socialization is that we seek external approval and external goals in our lives. If we are to take control of our consciousness and pursue our own goals, we must learn to break free from social programming:

Caught in a treadmill of social controls, that person keeps reaching for a prize that always dissolves in his hands. In a complex society, many powerful groups are involved in socializing, sometimes to seemingly contradictory goals . . . Schools, churches, and banks try to turn us into responsible citizens willing to work hard and save . . . merchants, manufacturers, and advertisers to spend our earnings on products that will produce the most profits for them . . . gamblers, pimps, and drug dealers . . . promise rewards for easy dissipation- provided we pay. The messages are very different, but their outcome is essentially the same: they make us dependent on a social system that exploits our energies for its own purposes.

-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow

Society tries bribing us at every opportunity. People who submit completely to social programming, and mistakenly believe that their happiness is obtained only by achieving external goals, are “rat racers” who never enjoy the present moments of life.

Do you constantly delay gratification to the future? Are you always looking to others for approval, and setting external goals? If so, your social programming is being used against you:

Ways Your Social Programming Can Be Used Against You

Money- “I want to be rich”

• Falsely believing that you will be happy when you make more money
• Becoming a workaholic to make more money

Status- “I want to be popular”

• Falsely believing that “once I obtain status, people will like and respect me”
• Trying to “keep up with the Joneses”
• Becoming popular with lots of people, but not building close relationships with individuals

Approval- “I want to be liked”

• Working at a job you hate to pay for your family’s high consumption
• Pursuing a career path that Mom or Dad told you to go after
• Not speaking up at work when you have a good idea, for fear of getting shot down

Power- “I want to dominate”

• Using others only as a means to achieve your goals
• Trying to one-up others, dominate conversations
• Pinpoint other people’s weaknesses and failures

How to Break Free from Social Programming

The key to breaking free from social programming is not to eliminate all external goals. Instead, it is to create goals that are meaningful to you personally, and then enjoy the day to day process of realizing those goals. Here are some tips for breaking free-

1) Choose your own values, principles, and goals

To assume responsibility for choosing our values, principles, and goals, relying solely upon our own reason and understanding- to honor our internal signals to that extent- is to practice the ultimate form of intellectual independence, the one most difficult for the overwhelming majority of human beings and for which their upbringing has least prepared them.

-Nathaniel Branden, Honoring the Self

It’s easy to adopt external goals that society gives you- after all, those are the goals you were programmed to adopt. It’s more difficult to create your own set of values- this requires intellectual independence and aloneness from society.

2) Follow your own vision

You follow your own vision by moving forward with your own personally selected goals, and not letting any external circumstances circumvent who you are. Following your own vision can leave you feeling alone in the world, and requires courage. But the more you are able to become independent and think for yourself, the higher your own self-esteem will be.

3) Accept your aloneness

You must accept your aloneness in order to truly be free of social programming:

We can learn from one another, but we cannot share the act of being conscious or of thinking. We can share the results- namely, our thoughts and perceptions- but consciousness, awareness, thinking, reasoning is, ultimately, an individual, solitary process, not a social one. And many people dread independent thought and judgment precisely because of this factor of inescapable aloneness; it makes them aware of their own separateness as living entities; it makes them aware of the responsibility they must bear for their own existence.

-Nathaniel Branden, Honoring the Self

4) Be honest with yourself

Here is a poem which emphasizes being honest with yourself:

The Guy in the Glass

When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf,
And the world makes you King for a day,
Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,
And see what that guy has to say.

For it isn’t your Father, or Mother, or Wife,
Who judgement upon you must pass.
The feller whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the guy staring back from the glass.

He’s the feller to please, never mind all the rest,
For he’s with you clear up to the end,
And you’ve passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the guy in the glass is your friend.

You may be like Jack Horner and “chisel” a plum,
And think you’re a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you’re only a bum
If you can’t look him straight in the eye.

You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears
If you’ve cheated the guy in the glass.

-Dale Wimbrow

Note: The word pelf in the first line means “wealth.”

Breaking Free is a Life-Long Process

Your genes instruct you on what feels good and bad, and society bribes you on how to expend your energy. To take control of your consciousness, you must be fully aware of social and genetic programming, and make yourself independent of it as much as possible. By taking control of your consciousness, and following your own vision, you will become better at thinking for yourself and more independent of others.

Breaking free is a life-long process, not a one-time effort. But I promise you, based on my own personal experience- the quality of your own life will improve drastically when you begin the process of breaking free.

Part of the Breaking Free Series

photo credit: Arbitrium