If I were going to write fake news I think I would begin with some good old fashioned wish fulfillment. Psychotherapists use the phrase ‘wish fulfillment’ to describe the type of dream that pictures what the dreamer is wishing for but unable to attain in waking life. My first headline might be something like this, Surge in Giraffe and Cheetah Populations Confound Scientists. Or perhaps, Widespread Tiny House Movement Reduces Carbon Footprint. Unsettling as the fake news phenomena might be, it is also an opportunity to be creative. As I gather my wish fulfillment headlines, I would throw in: Artists to Receive Annual Grants and Artists to be Given Tiny House Retreats on the second page of my newspaper.
Writing fake news is a wonderful assignment for a writing or therapy group. One option would be to describe your fear in the form of news, say Protectionism Leads to the Return of the City State, or Man Jailed for Cloning Tyrannosaurus. Imaginative exercises give us the opportunity to track the voices of our unconscious, and mine them for the jewels they shelter. There is great mystery to intelligence. We ourselves, while we take ourselves to be the source of intelligence are actually more like the recipients or witnesses of Intelligence. Of course, we quickly claim to be the cause of the wonders that unfold within us, but in truth we are no more the source of them than we are the source of the color of our hair or the height of our bodies. These gifts are granted us with human birth.
I would write headlines of a mystical nature. Woman Discovers that she is Emptiness, or Second Childhood Holds Key to Wisdom. Describing incidents occurring during live news on TV, I might say: Hit by Insight, Reporter Walks off Set. While I’m at it, I would revise commercials to say what they really want to say. The real message of every advertisement is that buying a particular item will grant you Infinity (like the car) or Inner Peace, (like a vacation) or Satisfaction (like coffee). Are we not better off when we drop the material representations of our psychic requirements and attempt to describe that which we truly crave without reduction?
The real questions, the ones which are answered pre-reflectively by what we are sold or induced to buy are profound spiritual and philosophical questions. What is Infinity, and can a human attain it? Can satisfaction be found within the contingencies of Space and Time? What is Inner Peace, and if it cannot be purchased, how is it to be attained?
Intelligence, the Intelligence that we are, has infinite creativity. While we take ourselves to be the source of this creativity, we are actually the recipients of it. Once, while walking along a stream and marveling at the rocks and the water-the water shapes the rocks over the aeons while placement of the rocks determines the flow of the water-I contemplated the muse. The way I experience inspiration is always as an interest and then as a question. My interest in this case was the mutual determination of the rock by the water and the water by the rock. Mystified, I began as series of sculptural vessels replicating this mystery in a multitude of incarnations. On this particular day my soul resonated with the qualities of the near eternity I saw in the rock, and utter fluidity of the water. My muse led me further and further upstream both in my reflections and literally along the water’s edge. What intelligence my muse has, I thought, what magnificent depth!
Then it dawned on me. I am the muse! This voice of mystery is mine; not as a finite individual ridden with flaws and torments, but as the Self which seeks to wake up as me.
New headlines flower forth. Waking Up is Natural if One Steps Out of the Way, and Woman Discovers She is Not What She Took Herself to Be. I continue my journey upstream. It leads me to read, in the symbolism of our activities as humans, all the barely hidden mysteries of ourselves as Self. Each advertisement is presented as if it is an answer to a koan. Each psychic complaint that my clients bring me are poorly articulated and yet perfect descriptions of their disconnection from Self. I can’t bear that I have to die, or I must be perfect but I always make mistakes, and I wish I didn’t need anyone. The study of our representations of freedom and self-sufficiency, whether in advertisements, our dreams or our made up fake news all lead us inward to self- discovery.
Still Point Arts Quarterly.
Writing fake news is a wonderful assignment for a writing or therapy group. One option would be to describe your fear in the form of news, say Protectionism Leads to the Return of the City State, or Man Jailed for Cloning Tyrannosaurus. Imaginative exercises give us the opportunity to track the voices of our unconscious, and mine them for the jewels they shelter. There is great mystery to intelligence. We ourselves, while we take ourselves to be the source of intelligence are actually more like the recipients or witnesses of Intelligence. Of course, we quickly claim to be the cause of the wonders that unfold within us, but in truth we are no more the source of them than we are the source of the color of our hair or the height of our bodies. These gifts are granted us with human birth.
I would write headlines of a mystical nature. Woman Discovers that she is Emptiness, or Second Childhood Holds Key to Wisdom. Describing incidents occurring during live news on TV, I might say: Hit by Insight, Reporter Walks off Set. While I’m at it, I would revise commercials to say what they really want to say. The real message of every advertisement is that buying a particular item will grant you Infinity (like the car) or Inner Peace, (like a vacation) or Satisfaction (like coffee). Are we not better off when we drop the material representations of our psychic requirements and attempt to describe that which we truly crave without reduction?
The real questions, the ones which are answered pre-reflectively by what we are sold or induced to buy are profound spiritual and philosophical questions. What is Infinity, and can a human attain it? Can satisfaction be found within the contingencies of Space and Time? What is Inner Peace, and if it cannot be purchased, how is it to be attained?
Intelligence, the Intelligence that we are, has infinite creativity. While we take ourselves to be the source of this creativity, we are actually the recipients of it. Once, while walking along a stream and marveling at the rocks and the water-the water shapes the rocks over the aeons while placement of the rocks determines the flow of the water-I contemplated the muse. The way I experience inspiration is always as an interest and then as a question. My interest in this case was the mutual determination of the rock by the water and the water by the rock. Mystified, I began as series of sculptural vessels replicating this mystery in a multitude of incarnations. On this particular day my soul resonated with the qualities of the near eternity I saw in the rock, and utter fluidity of the water. My muse led me further and further upstream both in my reflections and literally along the water’s edge. What intelligence my muse has, I thought, what magnificent depth!
Then it dawned on me. I am the muse! This voice of mystery is mine; not as a finite individual ridden with flaws and torments, but as the Self which seeks to wake up as me.
New headlines flower forth. Waking Up is Natural if One Steps Out of the Way, and Woman Discovers She is Not What She Took Herself to Be. I continue my journey upstream. It leads me to read, in the symbolism of our activities as humans, all the barely hidden mysteries of ourselves as Self. Each advertisement is presented as if it is an answer to a koan. Each psychic complaint that my clients bring me are poorly articulated and yet perfect descriptions of their disconnection from Self. I can’t bear that I have to die, or I must be perfect but I always make mistakes, and I wish I didn’t need anyone. The study of our representations of freedom and self-sufficiency, whether in advertisements, our dreams or our made up fake news all lead us inward to self- discovery.
Still Point Arts Quarterly.
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