Knowingly or not, we all contribute to our own demise

Griz, I agree with what you just said wholeheartedly! Virtually none of us are innocent. One way or another, whether we know it or not, we all are contributing to our own demise in one small way or another. Across millions and billions of people, these small ways we each have tend to add up.

It is one thing for people to "not know" what they/we do. It's easy to not know. The world of illusion all of us have been born into and raised in is designed in ways to program us to not notice so that we never come to know. This is certainly furthered by the fact that most of us must spend a good 10-20 years, conservatively, from the time we are born into this world, to be programmed by it in numerous ways before we are set off on our own to have a chance to continue existing in this world however we may end up trying to do.

By one way or another, at least a few of we/us did/do/will manage to pierce some of the veils of this illusion. Piercing any particualar veil is good news... great news, one that eventually leads one to discover some more bad news - there are other veils to pierce! :( One way or another, many of us come to see and know certain truths that were previously well hidden from us. It's at this point that I always remember the words of one Icky who once posted regularly on CZ but has not in the past year or two; "once one's eyes have seen, they cannot unsee".

According to the rules of Cognitive Dissonance, we can certainly try to unsee. This too is part of the collective programming that nearly each and every one of us in this world has been indoctrinated with; beign engrained with the various mental hooks and mental/intellectual gymnastics necessary for one part of our brain/mind to fake out other parts of our brain/mind so that we can continue to go through life pretending that we did not pierce a particular veil, making believe our fantasy world is in tact, there is an easter bunny, and santa clause, and benevolent establishment always on the look out for our best interests. Keeping one such "mental ball in the air" in one's mind is one thing, but anyone who's at least approached the mid-point of life (roughly 40 to 50 years of age) knows that it does not stop at this. Realistically, if one wants to truly keep their head buried in the sand, over time, life in this world will require that one has a literal series/flock of mental balls suspended in the air "in one's mind" in order to continually prop up the illusion that becomes more difficult, by the day, to maintain. Some people probably go crazy, or perhaps die, from the stress of keeping themselves, their mind, and their world, insulated with all the mental gymnastics called for to do this.

This is where the real question is for those who's eyese have seen at least some snippets of the unvarnished truth; what are you going to do about it? What do you stand for? Do you stand for trying to put the cat back in the bag, the genie back in the bottle, the toothpaste back in the container, or putting Pandora's box further back in a dark, dusty corner of the attic.... in hopes of trying to cover it all up and pretend that one's eyes did not truly see what they truly saw?

This is not a judgement against everybody, this is just my observation that starting with myself, piercing veils, seeing and knowing particular truths are one thing. Going beyond the first pierced veil, and eventually the next, and the next, while trying to alter one's life to live in accordance with what one believes - which happens to be in direct opposition to how our world of illusion is designed...is a monumentally difficult task to pursue. It also happens to be a task for which the world of illusion we live also includes designs to prevent happening in large numbers.