The secret to manipulation…

Aren’t you a little bit curious and slightly afraid of being manipulated? To be influenced in your thoughts, decisions, and who you are… To taste the venom of deceit and to relish the nectar of ruthless honesty in obliviousness?

• Is there any doubt that you can be influenced but not manipulated?
• What makes you “YOU”?
• How does the manipulation stop?

— Doubt. #recognize

If your blood surged in angst and your mind revolted in dismissal. You are on the right track.

A week in Italy, walking against ancient ruins. Drinking wine as if it was water and in some cases cheaper and still exquisite.

Navigating a siesta schedule to grab lunch before everything closes. And in between the wine, the ruins, and the siesta not particularly in that order, I am baffled how we still think we are immune to influence.

Or if we use its more nefarious counterpart: manipulation.

The Romans shined in the art of propaganda. In dancing the dance between godlike powers and control, they ruled.

And in the mundane accessible humbleness in sharing the pleasures of life in their most delightful means of entertainment they seeded their ultimate tactics.

In omission or inclusion, the story moves mountains and the focus drifts in and out of consciousness shaping our reality in every moment.

Two thousand and ten years after the death of a master in manipulation Augustus, the first Roman Emperor, the tactics remain intact with technology fueling it beyond measure and nothing has changed.

For better or worse probably nothing can so long we keep blaming technology, social media, and the fact that we are immune to it. The stage is set and the acting continues.

— The human factor. #understand

For what makes us human? What makes us gullible? What makes us immune? In defining ourselves we can glean into understanding why it is so.

If in our shell, we believe our expectations, autonomy, and separation are key to our identity and sense of control over that which manipulates us. We already have lost.

Our thoughts will deny it. Our sense of being will feel its discomfort. But even now as you read this, a part of you is melding into a world outside of it and that’s a good thing.

Curiosity drives us to dig. Fear drives us to shrink and hide. Between the digging, the shrinking, and the hiding manipulation reigns free uncontested because we are scared to admit that the melding, unison, or oneness are inevitable.

It is our most vulnerable realization when we stop believing we can isolate ourselves in a bubble that we control. The fear of losing that which we barely can define is ironic.

— The gap. #accept

”YOU” is the missing ingredient of this debacle — the unspoken gap that needs to get out of the way for your perspective to widen beyond the manipulation.

In defiance, we hold onto the limitations and boundaries in which manipulation lives. In fighting it, we lose, distracted by it. In trying to separate ourselves from others, our ego’s feeble attempt to hold a ground they think they can control makes it impossible to get out.

Losing the fight is the way forward. Heeding the words of another master in “influence” Winston Churchill: “If you’re going through hell keep going.” And that’s true here too.

The door out of manipulation is by going through it. By not resisting it but by accepting that it’s happening anyway.

The siesta came. The wine poured. And no one died on any hill overlooking the vineyards. From doubt, a gap was created to see through the senseless mind looking for assurances. And there the end to this nightmare was in sight.

Until next time,
Carlo