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What is the opposite state of full and constant awareness (mindfulness)?

Many years ago, I learned that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference, because in hate there is still a (negative and destructive) relationship between the people involved, while in indifference there is no longer any relationship. For this reason, among the daily expressions there is that metaphor of “killing with indifference”.

And recently I learned that the opposite of a state of full and constant awareness (“mindfulness”, a term as devalued today as “love”) is not being distracted, because during distraction there is always the possibility of stop distracting ourselves and return to what we were thinking before, that is, to become aware of our thinking.

The opposite of full consciousness (self-consciousness that is recognized as such) is irresponsibility, that is, not accepting the consequences of our actions and words, nor assuming the responsibility that falls to us as people and as individuals towards ourselves and with each other. others, both in the present and in the future.

In short, the opposite of full consciousness are not those distractions into which we fall so frequently due to the multiple traps of the media and social networks, but that state of being and living that simply consists of believing that everyone the others are responsible for what happens to us and that we are victims (not creators) of life.

It is clear that the person who lives without taking charge of his own life will look for all possible ways to avoid assuming his own responsibility and will use all the defense mechanisms at his disposal to avoid listening, much less accepting invitations to put aside that immature position.

This subject, obviously, is as old as Plato's famous Allegory of the Cave (where those chained inside the cave refuse to leave it) or as the dialectic between master and slave that Aristotle already spoke of, in which, As he well said, the worst slave is not the one who knows he is a slave, but the one who believes he is the master, because then he will never try to free himself.

And so we are, living inside a techno-scientific cave of our own creation and believing ourselves to be masters, lords, and owners of our lives when in reality we have little or no control over our actions, thoughts and desires.

And this irresponsibility towards ourselves (and towards the planet) has reached such a level that we have begun to delegate decisions to artificial intelligence that were previously the sole and absolute responsibility of human beings, with all our shortcomings and virtues. Now, you can’t even play a professional soccer match with AI telling you if a goal is valid or not. 

Instead of being people, we have become a sounding board (per-sonare) with no awareness of what we are or what we can become. As Byung-Chul Han rightly says, now we exploit ourselves and we call that "self-improvement". Therefore, the new "Like" replaced the old "Amen". And to make matters worse, our irresponsibility is already intergenerational.

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