From the June 2002 Idaho Observer:

Wake up!

Hypothesis: People have a tendency to subject themselves to activities and substances that prevent them from seeing the world for what it really is. Ceasing to engage in these activities and/or refraining from consuming these substances increases ones ability to see the world for what it really is.

If you have ever seen the movie, “They Live,” you are priviledged to know in advance where this month's column is going. For everyone else, either find They Live at your local video store and watch it before reading the rest of the text in this gray box or appreciate the following statement at face value: If you cannot see what is happening then something you are doing has kept you asleep and you had better stop doing it and wake up.

The world is changing very fast right now. One could convincingly argue that at no time in history has the entire world seen socio/political/economic changes occuring on such a massive and seemingly all-inclusive scale. It feels as if most everything is hanging in the balance of whatever may happen any second now.

For some we are in the midst of the Last Days of Biblical prophecy. For others we are on the verge of reaping the whirlwind of secret societies' greed and power-driven chaos. The vast majority, however, believe that we are in the middle of a natural chain of unavoidable cause-and-effect events.

Regardless of which category your mindset places you, how can you logically defend your interpretation of contemporary events if you are asleep while they are occuring?

Just as not every “equally exposed” person will catch a cold, we are not all susceptible to the same “sleeping pill.” But, there are so many of them out there and one or any combination may be doing the trick on you.

It stands to reason that we can never know if we sleep our lives (and headlines) away until we awaken. Unless we eliminate certain sleeping pills from our daily lives we may never wake up and see the world for what it really is. Contemplate the following list of sleeping pills and take an inventory of which ones you voluntarily partake:

Aluminum: Do you regularly cook with it, drink or eat products canned in it, take medications or use soaps that contain it? Aluminum is a known neurotoxin that has been linked to numerous brain conditions that could keep you from waking up.

Fluoride: Do you drink or bathe in fluoridated water? Do you brush with fluoridated toothpaste or take fluoride treatments from your dentist? Is fluoride in your food? Fluoride is, among other things, a neurotoxin that has been proven to, among other things, dull the senses (keep you from waking up).

Drugs/Alcohol: Do you smoke, drink, absorb or inject any drugs of any kind for recreational, habitual or prescribed reason? Drugs of any kind, by their very nature, alter the chemcial balance of your brain, reduce its ability to function at peak performance and, therefore, could prevent you from waking up.

Entertainment: Does your life revolve around music, fiction books, art, movies and TV programming, sex, sports, or any other preoccupation that immerses you in a fantasy world? If you are in a fantasy world for many hours of your daily life then you are effectively sleeping while the real world happens all around you.

There is an infinite number of sleeping pills we could be taking, but the list above covers most of them. If you subject yourself to inordinate amounts of any of them you cannot claim to be fully aware of the world around you which, at this time, is more desperate than usual.

The beauty of the paragraph above is that disagreeing is of no value unless you can prove otherwise and to do so would require a conscious effort to stop “taking” your “sleeping pills” -- for at least a week.

In the movie, They Live, a few people could see that their world was being run by discompassionate aliens masquerading as humans because of some special sunglasses. They were then able to discover that the masses were unable to see the aliens due to electromagnetically-induced brain jamming signals emanating from TV stations. Once the signals ceased, the aliens were obvious.

If enough of us stop taking sleeping pills we would wake up and see the world for what it really is and realize it isn't capable of supporting quality life.

~DWH