This is such a different way of looking at humanity, and hopefully, as a seeker, I will be able to have more empathy for the hiders. I freely admit that at times I have felt huge amounts of animosity and derision toward them. My heart knows that I should feel more love and kindness, but my head can't understand their ignorance of facts and their absolute devotion to obedience to authority.
What is not explored in this article is the pathology of those who enjoy using their power, the Anthony Fauci and Matt Hancock types, to control and induce stress in others. My empathy does not and will not be extended to them.
Yes, I agree their response is pathological, so isn't covered by this. They are also the predators/parasities, who have different stress responses than those they prey on, and they delight in causing stress in others, as you say, I have written articles more focussed on them, e.g. https://garysharpe.substack.com/p/how-to-avoid-a-hybrid-orwellian-huxleyian
Mar 11, 2023·edited Mar 11, 2023Liked by Gary Sharpe
I can't help but laugh at myself, but as a seeker you knew I would click on and read that excellent article. Now the question is how many more rabbit holes I will explore today!
The last three paragraphs, in particular, are poignant, and quite accurate.
“ When something major and traumatic happens which challenges our worldview, we can see both responses manifest at different levels in different people. One response is to hide from the truth, and adopt an “I don’t want to know” attitude, and the other is to constantly seek confirming or dis-confirming information, and an urgent “I need to know” stance.
These two opposing strategies have not only been starkly manifest in the past couple of years, but they have also come in to conflict. Those who defaulted to hide and wait for the danger to pass, felt endangered by those seekers of relief through questioning and problem solving, as this felt like being forced to confront, and being exposed to, the very danger being hid from. Meanwhile, those who defaulted to seek answers and solutions felt endangered by those who escaped through hiding, as the seekers then couldn’t find enough of a feeling in safety in numbers.
In particular, I have seen very negative reactions when seekers attempt to bring more and more data and information to try to get the hiders in their family and friends groups, to face the problems. Unfortunately, this just sent them further into hiding, and they became ever more avoidant of the seekers, eventually ending up as ostracization, silencing and censoring. This, in turn, just ratcheted up the sense of danger for the seekers, who tended to double down on the bombarding with data, and in an increasingly raised, frustrated tone of voice. So each “side” ended up defeating each others strategy for relief, and everyone remained stressed.”
Hide and seek is the game of choice between me and my daughters. As I read the article and saw us “playing” this...a big AND, came to mind--AND now how do we stop playing? Maybe there is an OR? Or how do we acknowledge the others path to safety and still stay connected ?
I am hoping this lens of stress responses helps everyone to understand how people autonomic nervous systems react differently, and hence folks have different automatic programs which get deployed under stress. If we can a) see the different strategies playing out and b) understand that we tend to have little choice, unless one has done a lot of inner work, over our stress reactions, that we can be more forgiving and understanding of each other.
Putting this into our "dangerous" world today. I think the seekers (like me) get frustrated with the hiders, because, although there is safety to be found in the burrow perhaps, how is hiding going to help in the long run? Are the seekers kidding themselves that they will find the "answers?" Also, I have great faith in the idea that everyone has their purpose "under heaven," and that perhaps these various responses serve some sort of grander scale plan as things devolve and evolve. The uncomfortableness comes with what you say, understanding and forgiving. We feel some danger when our clan does not share the same strategy for safety.
(Un)fortunately, this just sent them further into hiding, and they became ever more avoidant of the seekers, eventually ending up as ostracization, silencing and censoring. That's what happened to me! Over and again!
Fortunately now I have my own thoughts. A funny one (thought) is those unprepared types afraid to access the risks will get what they are hiding from.
Yes agreed that sometimes one stress response strategy is not optimal for a given threat, especially when the response gets stuck on way past the danger has passed. I do think that everyone going into hiding from a respiratory virus was the wrong idea, as everyone will catch it eventually anyway.
Yep. Am a "seeker". I did "hide" on two occasions during the nonsense horror show of past 3 years. At the beginning when MSM and Sky news in particular were given "access" to wards full of dying people ( my mental health training and knowledge of trauma and dissociation and paricularly MK ultra tactics and I stopped watching MSM). And then in September 20 when they ramped up the fear tactics prior to the "jab" propaganda. I hid in my own safety of ignoring all "stay safe" mantras, travelled where and when I wanted amongst the open intensive psychiatric care ward that the world around me had become. Great to see it all articulated here and further explains my anger at mask wearers.
Really helpful Gary, and I'm sure we are all seeing ourselves in it. I did recognize awhile back that I had become addicted to information-gathering and needed to break that pattern.
I like your take on getting 'stuck' in hide or seek behaviors. I tend to think of behaviors that don't serve us anymore as stuck personalities. (Or parts of). Even when we see them and want to do something different they hold on. With awareness and a desire to move past them, they tend to dissolve - my experience anyway, though it's not an overnight thing and the endangered stuck part will feel in existential threat - because, well it is.
Yes, I think that addiction to going down information rabbit holes is very common these days, and few realize that they are causing self-stressing. Like many things, moderation is key, and avoiding the infinite scroll traps. On the parts aspect, I was pointed the book Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors by Janina Fisher, who has apparently written on topics related to my post.
Great piece, fabulous explorations. And YES, your concluding points: "very negative reactions when seekers attempt to bring more and more data and information to try to get the hiders in their family and friends groups, to face the problems. Unfortunately, this just sent them further into hiding, and they became ever more avoidant of the seekers, eventually ending up as ostracization, silencing and censoring. This, in turn, just ratcheted up the sense of danger for the seekers, who tended to double down on the bombarding with data, and in an increasingly raised, frustrated tone of voice. So each “side” ended up defeating each others strategy for relief, and everyone remained stressed." I come to 2 questions: ONE: Was this somewhat induced by the Predator Cohort? And much more important. TWO: What are the most effective strategies to stop this. One thing is obvious: to let go, if you're in information giver.
One thing the predator class does really well is sow division and keep us at each others throats. so, yes, definitely think they had a hand in this. I'm hoping these sorts of understandings of different stress responses, and that unless we have done a lot of inner work, we have little choice over the type of stress response we react with, will allow us to be more forgiving and understanding of each other.
Mar 11, 2023·edited Mar 11, 2023Liked by Gary Sharpe
1. "I believe we all witnessed and experienced a mass “hide” stress or fear response during the pandemic."
2. "Conversely, the “seek [help]” stress response occurs when someone can’t escape a dangerous situation on their own, yet the danger isn't so imminent that a full freeze response is required. "
Thank you Gary. It is interesting to me to observe this post that essentially deals with what in India is called Chitta. This refers to the aspect of our nature that is "feeling" or emotion. My father for instance is 96, suffering dementia and prostrate cancer, yet the feeling nature is fully alive, and emotions rule his responses. (He used to say "women are a bundle of nerve and emotion" ) Yet that is essentially what is manifesting in him now, and coloring all his perceptions. I am thinking that in general yes, these are always active, and most often subliminal in most people.
Unfortunately I also think the Ivy League educated WEF type politicians understand this very well, and have manipulated 1. and 2. to great effect. In my post on the politics of global warming I talked of the various factors that created a global fear of "Climate Change" , and the "Seek help" response that allowed and demanded the very Statist policies they wanted.
We know they have virtually unlimited funds, and we know their methods. They have perfected the manipulation skills over the decades, and if you study one area of their success, like "Global Warming" you see this... ( CAGW is global warming, yet just insert COVID in its place (as I did below) and you will see how it flows and applies equally well.) From the Post... https://open.substack.com/pub/anderdaa7/p/global-warming?r=slvym&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
""Yet these proposed CAGW (COVID) remedy laws do greatly increase government power and wealth for some international bodies, some nations, as well as individual wealth for some corporations. However this increase in wealth for some is at great expense of many more. (One to two trillion dollars a year) Energy tax is always a tax on the poor. And it is this lure of global political power that is so seductive to souls in delusion seeking power. Does Power Corrupt (link)
Political proponents of CAGW (COVID) clearly state, in their own words, their political motivation. That motivation is support for socialism and by extension, statism and world government. While many are influenced to support the CAGW (COVID) agenda by different factors, the proposed solutions ALWAYS engender the political goals of statists, while having an immeasurable effect on atmospheric CO2 concentration and G.A.T. (immeasurable effect on preventing viral spread, or actually a negative effect)
Beyond political power objectives, the disparate factors which influence many to accept CAGW (COVID policy) are well studied social phenomena such as; personal wealth, and Institutional wealth. Researchers in many fields know that funding is available for their department if they can attach theoretical CAGW (COVID) harm to a paper. (There is hundreds of billions of dollars a year available for research and industry) As often quoted Upton Sinclair said “'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Other known and studied bias factors are peer pressure, social and professional shadow-banning, confirmation bias, noble cause corruption, misuse of the precautionary principle, and effective propaganda of repeated and false warnings of doom by many CAGW (COVID) proponents.
“The terrible truths of these experiments in human compliance and propensity to be beastly stand testament to the nature of the problem.”
milgram showed us how people will harm people if pressured by authority
asch showed us that people will ignore their own senses and perceptions when pressured by peer group
stanford showed us how easily humans can be egged into abuse of power”
I understand Stanford study was government financed. I really appreciate the effort you are making towards understand psychological help and healing, as I think that is a very important barrier to individual misery, AND to the objectives of those that want to control everything.
Thanks David,... this is indeed a "double whammy" effect I'm trying for - to help people understand their own psychology, and be kinder to themselves and each other, but also as a shield against those who seek to weaponize our own psychology against us.
Excellent insights as usual, Gary. I feel like part of what set truth-seekers apart from our family and friends during the initial fear phase is rather than accept a state of cowering in fear we started to hunt for information. And with that mindset, we quickly came across stuff that just didn't make sense... which set off the skeptical alarm bells, and the rest is history. But it all started with that initial response: hide, or seek.
Yes, and I do feel that while hide has its place, it was entirely the wrong response to a virus, which everyone is going to encounter in the end, so it was just putting off the inevitable.
Mar 26, 2023·edited Mar 26, 2023Liked by Gary Sharpe
This article was - well, exciting! It clearly explains so much of my own behaviors in addition to my friends' behaviors over the past three years and how the need to know and the need not to know became such a conflict. And actually, in myself, this need to know, utilized for protection, predates the pandemic by many years. Just brilliant. Thank you for writing this.
I'm sure you're right about the seeker vs hider. I have been astounded by friends and relatives who actually believed the lie that we were in a pandemic when a bit of seeking proved that we never were. Good example being the official 99.7% survival rate for the virus Fauci created in Wuhan, now proven to be 99.9%.
I've also seen for myself some of the behaviors in nursing homes that you describe. There was a demented woman across the hall from my mother's room. She called for help all day, and was mostly ignored by the staff. At first, of course, I tried to help her, but she could never tell me what was wrong. I think that what was wrong was that she was alone in a room.
This is such a different way of looking at humanity, and hopefully, as a seeker, I will be able to have more empathy for the hiders. I freely admit that at times I have felt huge amounts of animosity and derision toward them. My heart knows that I should feel more love and kindness, but my head can't understand their ignorance of facts and their absolute devotion to obedience to authority.
What is not explored in this article is the pathology of those who enjoy using their power, the Anthony Fauci and Matt Hancock types, to control and induce stress in others. My empathy does not and will not be extended to them.
Yes, I agree their response is pathological, so isn't covered by this. They are also the predators/parasities, who have different stress responses than those they prey on, and they delight in causing stress in others, as you say, I have written articles more focussed on them, e.g. https://garysharpe.substack.com/p/how-to-avoid-a-hybrid-orwellian-huxleyian
I can't help but laugh at myself, but as a seeker you knew I would click on and read that excellent article. Now the question is how many more rabbit holes I will explore today!
Thank you for sharing this.
The last three paragraphs, in particular, are poignant, and quite accurate.
“ When something major and traumatic happens which challenges our worldview, we can see both responses manifest at different levels in different people. One response is to hide from the truth, and adopt an “I don’t want to know” attitude, and the other is to constantly seek confirming or dis-confirming information, and an urgent “I need to know” stance.
These two opposing strategies have not only been starkly manifest in the past couple of years, but they have also come in to conflict. Those who defaulted to hide and wait for the danger to pass, felt endangered by those seekers of relief through questioning and problem solving, as this felt like being forced to confront, and being exposed to, the very danger being hid from. Meanwhile, those who defaulted to seek answers and solutions felt endangered by those who escaped through hiding, as the seekers then couldn’t find enough of a feeling in safety in numbers.
In particular, I have seen very negative reactions when seekers attempt to bring more and more data and information to try to get the hiders in their family and friends groups, to face the problems. Unfortunately, this just sent them further into hiding, and they became ever more avoidant of the seekers, eventually ending up as ostracization, silencing and censoring. This, in turn, just ratcheted up the sense of danger for the seekers, who tended to double down on the bombarding with data, and in an increasingly raised, frustrated tone of voice. So each “side” ended up defeating each others strategy for relief, and everyone remained stressed.”
You have just described my marriage.
Hide and seek is the game of choice between me and my daughters. As I read the article and saw us “playing” this...a big AND, came to mind--AND now how do we stop playing? Maybe there is an OR? Or how do we acknowledge the others path to safety and still stay connected ?
I am hoping this lens of stress responses helps everyone to understand how people autonomic nervous systems react differently, and hence folks have different automatic programs which get deployed under stress. If we can a) see the different strategies playing out and b) understand that we tend to have little choice, unless one has done a lot of inner work, over our stress reactions, that we can be more forgiving and understanding of each other.
Putting this into our "dangerous" world today. I think the seekers (like me) get frustrated with the hiders, because, although there is safety to be found in the burrow perhaps, how is hiding going to help in the long run? Are the seekers kidding themselves that they will find the "answers?" Also, I have great faith in the idea that everyone has their purpose "under heaven," and that perhaps these various responses serve some sort of grander scale plan as things devolve and evolve. The uncomfortableness comes with what you say, understanding and forgiving. We feel some danger when our clan does not share the same strategy for safety.
Thanks for writing this Gary. Very observant. I'm seeing a bit of all you mentioned. I feel it was a helpful read. 🙏
(Un)fortunately, this just sent them further into hiding, and they became ever more avoidant of the seekers, eventually ending up as ostracization, silencing and censoring. That's what happened to me! Over and again!
Fortunately now I have my own thoughts. A funny one (thought) is those unprepared types afraid to access the risks will get what they are hiding from.
Yes agreed that sometimes one stress response strategy is not optimal for a given threat, especially when the response gets stuck on way past the danger has passed. I do think that everyone going into hiding from a respiratory virus was the wrong idea, as everyone will catch it eventually anyway.
Indeed.
Yep. Am a "seeker". I did "hide" on two occasions during the nonsense horror show of past 3 years. At the beginning when MSM and Sky news in particular were given "access" to wards full of dying people ( my mental health training and knowledge of trauma and dissociation and paricularly MK ultra tactics and I stopped watching MSM). And then in September 20 when they ramped up the fear tactics prior to the "jab" propaganda. I hid in my own safety of ignoring all "stay safe" mantras, travelled where and when I wanted amongst the open intensive psychiatric care ward that the world around me had become. Great to see it all articulated here and further explains my anger at mask wearers.
Really helpful Gary, and I'm sure we are all seeing ourselves in it. I did recognize awhile back that I had become addicted to information-gathering and needed to break that pattern.
I like your take on getting 'stuck' in hide or seek behaviors. I tend to think of behaviors that don't serve us anymore as stuck personalities. (Or parts of). Even when we see them and want to do something different they hold on. With awareness and a desire to move past them, they tend to dissolve - my experience anyway, though it's not an overnight thing and the endangered stuck part will feel in existential threat - because, well it is.
I will reread this.
Thank you.
Yes, I think that addiction to going down information rabbit holes is very common these days, and few realize that they are causing self-stressing. Like many things, moderation is key, and avoiding the infinite scroll traps. On the parts aspect, I was pointed the book Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors by Janina Fisher, who has apparently written on topics related to my post.
Thanks.
This is excellent thank you
Great piece, fabulous explorations. And YES, your concluding points: "very negative reactions when seekers attempt to bring more and more data and information to try to get the hiders in their family and friends groups, to face the problems. Unfortunately, this just sent them further into hiding, and they became ever more avoidant of the seekers, eventually ending up as ostracization, silencing and censoring. This, in turn, just ratcheted up the sense of danger for the seekers, who tended to double down on the bombarding with data, and in an increasingly raised, frustrated tone of voice. So each “side” ended up defeating each others strategy for relief, and everyone remained stressed." I come to 2 questions: ONE: Was this somewhat induced by the Predator Cohort? And much more important. TWO: What are the most effective strategies to stop this. One thing is obvious: to let go, if you're in information giver.
One thing the predator class does really well is sow division and keep us at each others throats. so, yes, definitely think they had a hand in this. I'm hoping these sorts of understandings of different stress responses, and that unless we have done a lot of inner work, we have little choice over the type of stress response we react with, will allow us to be more forgiving and understanding of each other.
1. "I believe we all witnessed and experienced a mass “hide” stress or fear response during the pandemic."
2. "Conversely, the “seek [help]” stress response occurs when someone can’t escape a dangerous situation on their own, yet the danger isn't so imminent that a full freeze response is required. "
Thank you Gary. It is interesting to me to observe this post that essentially deals with what in India is called Chitta. This refers to the aspect of our nature that is "feeling" or emotion. My father for instance is 96, suffering dementia and prostrate cancer, yet the feeling nature is fully alive, and emotions rule his responses. (He used to say "women are a bundle of nerve and emotion" ) Yet that is essentially what is manifesting in him now, and coloring all his perceptions. I am thinking that in general yes, these are always active, and most often subliminal in most people.
Unfortunately I also think the Ivy League educated WEF type politicians understand this very well, and have manipulated 1. and 2. to great effect. In my post on the politics of global warming I talked of the various factors that created a global fear of "Climate Change" , and the "Seek help" response that allowed and demanded the very Statist policies they wanted.
We know they have virtually unlimited funds, and we know their methods. They have perfected the manipulation skills over the decades, and if you study one area of their success, like "Global Warming" you see this... ( CAGW is global warming, yet just insert COVID in its place (as I did below) and you will see how it flows and applies equally well.) From the Post... https://open.substack.com/pub/anderdaa7/p/global-warming?r=slvym&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
""Yet these proposed CAGW (COVID) remedy laws do greatly increase government power and wealth for some international bodies, some nations, as well as individual wealth for some corporations. However this increase in wealth for some is at great expense of many more. (One to two trillion dollars a year) Energy tax is always a tax on the poor. And it is this lure of global political power that is so seductive to souls in delusion seeking power. Does Power Corrupt (link)
Political proponents of CAGW (COVID) clearly state, in their own words, their political motivation. That motivation is support for socialism and by extension, statism and world government. While many are influenced to support the CAGW (COVID) agenda by different factors, the proposed solutions ALWAYS engender the political goals of statists, while having an immeasurable effect on atmospheric CO2 concentration and G.A.T. (immeasurable effect on preventing viral spread, or actually a negative effect)
Beyond political power objectives, the disparate factors which influence many to accept CAGW (COVID policy) are well studied social phenomena such as; personal wealth, and Institutional wealth. Researchers in many fields know that funding is available for their department if they can attach theoretical CAGW (COVID) harm to a paper. (There is hundreds of billions of dollars a year available for research and industry) As often quoted Upton Sinclair said “'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Other known and studied bias factors are peer pressure, social and professional shadow-banning, confirmation bias, noble cause corruption, misuse of the precautionary principle, and effective propaganda of repeated and false warnings of doom by many CAGW (COVID) proponents.
“The terrible truths of these experiments in human compliance and propensity to be beastly stand testament to the nature of the problem.”
milgram showed us how people will harm people if pressured by authority
asch showed us that people will ignore their own senses and perceptions when pressured by peer group
stanford showed us how easily humans can be egged into abuse of power”
I understand Stanford study was government financed. I really appreciate the effort you are making towards understand psychological help and healing, as I think that is a very important barrier to individual misery, AND to the objectives of those that want to control everything.
Thanks David,... this is indeed a "double whammy" effect I'm trying for - to help people understand their own psychology, and be kinder to themselves and each other, but also as a shield against those who seek to weaponize our own psychology against us.
Excellent insights as usual, Gary. I feel like part of what set truth-seekers apart from our family and friends during the initial fear phase is rather than accept a state of cowering in fear we started to hunt for information. And with that mindset, we quickly came across stuff that just didn't make sense... which set off the skeptical alarm bells, and the rest is history. But it all started with that initial response: hide, or seek.
Yes, and I do feel that while hide has its place, it was entirely the wrong response to a virus, which everyone is going to encounter in the end, so it was just putting off the inevitable.
All important recognitions as we descend more deeply into the current matrix.
This article was - well, exciting! It clearly explains so much of my own behaviors in addition to my friends' behaviors over the past three years and how the need to know and the need not to know became such a conflict. And actually, in myself, this need to know, utilized for protection, predates the pandemic by many years. Just brilliant. Thank you for writing this.
I think I am doing both.
I have always been an over-thinking info junkie. The past 3 years hasn't changed that.
Only now, I have friends who think I am ghosting them. It is so hard to go out. To be social. I am working at it.
I was never afraid of the virus, but I think I have become afraid of people
Thank you for this.....I work in schools and with kids with trauma...this article hit home....
Yes, I think this is very related to kids and trauma too. Have you seen the fabulous book on this by Louis Weinstock https://garysharpe.substack.com/p/book-review-how-the-world-is-making ?
No, I have not...thank you for this.....I am book shopping tomorrow, as matter of fact! :)
Here is another, by Claire Wilson, on the topic https://garysharpe.substack.com/p/book-review-grounded-discovering
Wow...thank you....do you do workshops? ZOOM, of course..... our school district might be interested.....
Louis or Claire might be interested in offering this - I can ask them ?
Yes, please!!!
I'm sure you're right about the seeker vs hider. I have been astounded by friends and relatives who actually believed the lie that we were in a pandemic when a bit of seeking proved that we never were. Good example being the official 99.7% survival rate for the virus Fauci created in Wuhan, now proven to be 99.9%.
I've also seen for myself some of the behaviors in nursing homes that you describe. There was a demented woman across the hall from my mother's room. She called for help all day, and was mostly ignored by the staff. At first, of course, I tried to help her, but she could never tell me what was wrong. I think that what was wrong was that she was alone in a room.
Yes it is particular awful when folks ask for help, but don't get it, especially when all they want is company.