How to use cannabis to escape your curated, matrix-like existence

This article originally appeared on Cannabis.net and has been republished with permission.

Are you living in a loop? Are you tired of the worldly cyclical events happening in your life? Do you want to spice things up and discover your full potential? Then maybe it’s time to escape your curated existence.

But what exactly is a “curated existence”? Some call it a “cookie cutter reality,” or in other words, a preconditioned set of rules and behaviors that dictate your choices.

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Everyone is given a “core belief system” that contains their values, aspirations, and do’s and don’ts. Many people work within the parameters of their core programming without too much difficulty. This is especially true when they exist in an environment that encourages their core programming.

For example, if you are an Orthodox Christian and live in a city where that religion is dominant, you will encounter fewer conflict situations than if you lived in the “hardcore atheist part of town”. There would be a misalignment of values ​​that would constantly break your core programming.

Your curated existence is the reality you deal with without question. It’s the assumptions you make about life that make you feel “safe” but have never really questioned them. For the religious man, this would come in the form of a question relating to the existence of good and the hereafter. For the atheist it would be a similar struggle but from the other side. When you consider that this world is quickly becoming a global melting pot of all cultures, our inner value systems are increasingly clashing.

The invention of the internet and especially social media sites – also play a part in your curated existence. Telling you what to hate and what to like, all wrapped in the illusion of choice. But if we’re really honest with ourselves, we know that our choices are limited, and that algorithms influence those choices—they decide for us what we like or don’t like before they give us a chance to choose.

This curation is a closed loop designed to keep you in place – to take possession of your most precious resource.

are you after my time?

People think time is their most valuable asset, but that’s not true. The truth is that time is only there to measure your most valuable resource – your attention! This is where the money is – this is where advertisers will spend $836.9 billion in 2022 to capture your attention.

That’s essentially what each of you wants – your attention. Your energy, your mind, your actions… they want to hold you tight because if they have your attention, they can continue to exist.

For some, that kind of life is okay. They do not find themselves in too much conflict and bend to the rules of a previously configured game. However, we are seeing more and more people rising up and individualizing their reality.

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The cookie cutter approach is no longer acceptable or satisfactory for their internal growth. This is partly why esoteric practices have grown in popularity in recent years – a deep need for individual expression.

Maybe you are one of those people who no longer want to stick to the rules of the norm and would rather live “manually”. If that’s you – you’re in luck! We’re going to talk about a few techniques to break through automation and step out of your curated existence.

We’ll start with a little “cerebral disturbance”.

mindfulness smoking

I wrote about this some time ago, and this is exactly the first step. Of course, you could do that without cannabis—but you could also use cannabis as a vehicle for consciousness exploration. The choice is yours.

Regardless of how you approach this first step, it’s important to become mindful. You must begin to train your awareness to become “objective” within its participation. You must look at yourself as much as you look at the outside.

RELATED: Why you should practice mindfulness while smoking

For this reason, mindful smoking is a good thing. It’s something you can do at the end of the day before you go to bed and incorporate it as a meditation. All you have to do is turn on the ignition, turn off all appliances – and sit quietly and just watch the effects of smoking weed. Pay attention to what is happening to your body, how your condition is changing, the concentrated areas of “altitude” and so on.

This will help you become aware of your consciousness. You will find that your consciousness “rests” in certain places, but as you try to observe it shifts and moves to seemingly random places.

Once you become comfortable with this type of self-examination, you will begin to apply it to other areas of your life.

Expanding to the world beyond smoking

Ideally, to break the curation, you should avoid things like social media. However, it is also understandable that some people need social media for communication, work, etc. In this case, delete all social media apps from your phone and access social media only through your computer or your phone’s internet browser.

RELATED: Social Media Vs. Cannabis: Which Is More Dangerous?

Much of the “attractiveness” of using the platforms is lost by simply surfing via the Internet browser. It’s chunkier, less flashy – the user experience is severely impacted.

When mindfulness practice is in full swing, you will start noticing how you feel when you access social media. You’ll notice when you get excited or angry, when you decide to get involved, and how long stranger scolding affects your happiness.

Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels

As you begin to recognize these things, you begin to escape curation. You can decide how to deal with the external stimuli or simply the artificially created ones such as e.g. social media.

We’re already seeing a massive debasement of Facebook, and the same will happen to Twitter, but that’s still part of the curation. Only when YOU switch off and take a more active role in what you mentally consume will you be able to escape “a curated existence.” Of course, we cannot completely escape this if we choose to live in society, but at least we can choose the curation ourselves.

This article originally appeared on Cannabis.net and has been republished with permission.