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Entertainment

(Enter ~Taint~Mental?)

By, Shawn Harris


What if the word entertainment were an objective or a plan? What if entertainment really meant enter~taint~mental? The objective/plan being to enter & taint your mentality. Unbeknownst to us we are mentally fed a devilish dish filled stacked, packed, and loaded with murder, senseless acts of violence, drug dealing, rape, sexual perversion, and robbery.  As the old saying goes, “we are what we eat,” so on some level we are also what we mentally eat and feast upon.  After years and years, thousands of hours upon hours of watching TV and movies, playing video games, listening to music, and endlessly surfing the internet, we have become numb to violence and murderous acts. We have become bloodthirsty. When watching a woman getting her head sawed off in a movie, we deem it entertaining? Watching a young man get his guts blown out with a shotgun is entertaining? Yet we wonder why life tragically imitates art, as if we see no correlation.  We act as if we can’t understand why there’s so many killings and school shootings.  We practice murder everyday within each hour as we sit there playing that video game.  Practice makes perfect. Repetition is the mother of skill. Sometimes the appetite to hold a real gun grows inside some of us. That hunger further grows into a desire to shoot the real gun. Sometimes we yearn for a target and/or a reason to shoot somebody. (Enter~Taint~Mental?). We have become so desensitized to horrific scenes filled with the splatter of blood, brains, guts, and gore.  Whether on the movie screen, television, internet, or the nightly news, nothing shocks us anymore.  You feed on the constant displays of dysfunctional relationships. You start to think it’s normal to cuss out your boyfriend/girlfriend. It’s now normal to hit each other or fight your best friend over petty disagreements.  You think it’s funny or cute to be promiscuous.  It’s entertaining to watch couples insult each other in public, that’s just reality t.v. right? That’s just keeping it real right? Some of us aren’t mature enough to separate the fake from the real, a fiction from fact. Some of us aren’t mature enough to listen to “crime rhymes” without feeling and believing we have to live the life of a rapper. We don’t realize some of the rappers don’t even live the life they’re rapping about. (Enter~Taint~Mental?).  Stop mentally swimming in the t.v. or relentlessly surfing the waves of the web searching for violence. Stop bathing in bullshit movies wallowing in murder and mayhem. Guard your mind. Protect your imagination. Stop buying death, self-destruction, and dysfunction.  Does every movie you see, every video game you play, or every song you hear have to be laced with murder, violence, or sex? (Enter~Taint~Mental?). Thought is the cause of action. If you can think a certain type of thought long enough, persistently and predominantly then that thought can very easily become an act.  Your brain also has something called “mirror neurons,” which become active when we observe someone else doing something that excites us. These brain cells allow us to reduplicate/imitate that which we see in others that inspires us.  Once we see an act performed, whether that action is a person dribbling a basketball, a dancer dancing, a gymnast completing an intricate flip, or a criminal robbing a bank. We have the ability to observe and imitate, to mirror or mimic the act.  Psychiatrists, Behavioral Scientists, and Neurologists know this.  Movie makers, video game designers, and those in the entertainment industry are also aware of this.  Those producers and designers want you to keep coming back to buy their product, to buy their video games, to pay to see their movies, to download their music, to buy tickets to their concert.  They want you to be their customer so they enter and taint your mentality to make sure you’re addicted to what they’re selling. They understand the power of suggestion.  They understand the power of persuasion. They understand subliminal messaging.  So it is with great skill that they manipulate you.  They place pollutants before you and encourage you to purchase it.  They don’t care about the mass killings at your schools.  They don’t care about the murder rate in your city.  They don’t care about the rapes and sexual assaults on your campus.  Maybe they don’t care because they’re not totally responsible, but they are aware of the power they have to influence the culture. You also have to recognize your power, the power of choice.  Choice is an illusion only to the weak, to those who are undisciplined, to those who are ignorant and lack self-control.  You’re one of the strong ones.  You can think deeply and you can control yourself.  Slow down on the murder movies and crime rhymes.  Fall back from the 6 hour video game sessions.  Pump your brakes on the wasted hours tweeting and liking.  Press pause on reality t.v.  Focus on creating a better reality for yourself and for your loved ones.  A wise man once said, “We must become a living demonstration of a greater reality…,” please use this perspective and the info contained within it to protect yourself from all things having the potential to enter and taint your mental…