Programmed by the Media

In recent years, I awoke gradually, to the realization that my thoughts were never my own as long as I fed my mind a daily dose of: television, radio, print, and Internet news for hours non-stop. When would I ever allow for time to simply think for myself—to draw my own conclusions about what I saw and read?

The people who I trusted to be my mentors and teachers were big TV watchers too. They offered me advice based on what they “heard or read somewhere.” I had been a victim of a plan for my life that included lies, pre-conceived notions, stereotypes, ignorance, and religious propaganda from both the good and evil sides. When I looked around at what I thought was my reality, reflected on my past, and envisioned what my future might look like, it was a hard-truth to swallow, that nothing was as it seemed, I like so many others, had been programmed to ignore me.

“Who was I really? How did I get here? Whose idea was it to create nature? What was my purpose? Why is one of the oldest books in the world still the most important—the Bible? Why should I care about the strangers in the media who live and then die? What did it matter that some statistic said one thing or another? Who told me that I had to go to college on money I couldn’t afford to ever pay back? Why is it that only select individuals are allowed to grace the cover of magazines, sell the top records, get the best acting parts and so on, while the rest of us could only wish? Why should I celebrate holidays?”

After all the questions, the tears and the fears, I had finally arrived to adulthood in my thirty-something years. There was no more going along just to get along. No more accepting everything and everyone because someone told me it was the “politically correct” thing to do. I no longer saw a need to act like someone other than myself! It was no longer necessary to join civic groups and religious organizations just to feel like I was doing something to make life better for my children and I! No more pressure to celebrate national holidays and commemorate the deceased year after year. I had broken some of the shackles that had stifled me from being a free-thinking human being. Being an African American, woman, mother, writer and every other title that I had been born into or became, wasn’t as important as it used to be.

I had to learn to acknowledge a Creator that wasn’t outside of me, but the one, some call Jesus, who left a gift that lives inside of me called the Holy Spirit. For years, He had had been whispering to me, since I was child, long before I studied a Bible. When I look back on my life, I know now that it was always in His plan to use me. Some of you are being called while you read this blog entry, here’s your word, “It’s time to put off childish rebellion!” Ask the Holy Spirit to come into your heart and use you. (Read or re-read the Book of Acts and the gospels in the King James or New International Versions to understand some of what I am talking about regarding the Holy Spirit.)

The Holy Spirit wasn’t my mother’s God, my grandmother’s Lord, my friend’s “daddy,” or a cousin’s Allah, He was someone that I had to make up in my mind, body and spirit to embrace. By allowing myself to be subjected to another world, beyond this one, the blinders would slowly come off and years of programming would gradually diminish.
Since 2009, I have looked at our world in a different light. There is no more going along with the TV and radio “programming” any longer. Before that year, I had zero interest in digging for news outside of what was fed to me. It took a simple search for a musician’s name and a short reading of her lyrical content to show me that I had best stop polluting myself with lies.

I am not so trusting anymore about what I see and read. I question everything now more than I had back when I was a journalism student in high school and college. I’m not interested in sharing someone else’s account of things like: religion, health, finances, culture, art, and more like I once was without finding out more and sharing my own personal testimony if necessary. It is more important these days to do your own research and formulate your own opinions even if typical protocol says, “Leave your opinion out of it.” Create your own printed materials, ie.) Nicholl McGuire Media.

Just as there are spirits who help, there are those we allow into our lives that hurt us! One such spirit I would like to call, “lazy.” I, like so many others, have been subjected to this lazy spirit for decades! It tempted me to just get the news from someone else, get your food from someone else, get your housing from someone else, get your counseling from someone else, learn about God from someone else and on and on and on until I grew dependent on someone else! The words that I heard from the media, our government, even relatives I accepted as fact; rather than question them deeply (you know beyond the surface knowledge.) I trusted others that the food they were making was safe for my body. I believed that as long as I had a place to stay, no worries. If a relationship wasn’t what I liked, I reasoned you just get someone else.

The lazy spirit didn’t want me to ponder too long on an uncovered misconception, a lie, or a deceitful practice, it just wanted me to do nothing more than listen and keep your opinions to yourself. The spirit always comforted me with, “It’s okay, don’t worry about it. If you say something, someone might get mad.” Even though I wanted to scream, “It’s not okay! Someone is lying! I need to know the truth.” The lazy spirit distracted me from the truth convincing me that my immature mindset couldn’t handle the truth.

Now that I have reached a place in my life where I see a small light at the end of the tunnel, I must not turn back now, I must keep going toward the light. The last time I saw a light was back in 1992, it was a false flag, I was lying in bed deathly ill at 18 years old from pneumonia and other illnesses. I wanted so bad to walk toward that beautiful light, but a small voice wouldn’t let me. When I awoke that night after sleeping for almost a day, I felt bad, but I knew I had to continue to live, not for me, but for Him, my Lord--he wasn't through with me yet.

A roommate drove me to the emergency room. The doctor said she brought me to the hospital just in time. He told me one wrong move on my part, a shove or a bump to my spleen at the time, and I would have been dead—that’s just how ill I had become, I could barely walk or speak at that time. “You are a very sick young woman,” the doctor said. But God is a healer and I have never been that sick since. When my Lord is ready to take me home, He will. In the meantime, I have things to do and one of them is uncovering lies.

Nicholl McGuire