1. It's easier to understand what's going on in the world when you mentally "mute" people's narratives about what's going on and just look at the material movements of wealth, resources, weapons, and people. That's how you separate what's real from the manipulations and empty narrative fluff, how you see who's doing the taking and hoarding, and how you figure out who the real aggressors are in international conflicts.

2. The three most overlooked and under-appreciated aspects of the human experience are consciousness, the extent to which conditioned thought patterns dictate our lives, and the influence of propaganda.

3. We live in a civilization that's so pervasively steeped in lies and manipulations that the only way to have a truth-based relationship with reality is to drop all your assumptions and premises about what's true and begin examining everything from the very beginning with fresh eyes.

Reading by Tim Foley.