Written by Wes Annac, The Culture of Awareness

I wrote the following for the “reader’s question” section of The Culture of Awareness Weekly Newsletter.

In place of a reader’s question, I’d like to give my perspective on the importance of studying up on topics we’re passionate about. We can’t help change this world if we’re uninformed about the things that need changed, and before we join any movement that intends to change any aspect of society, we’ll want to research what we’re joining.

I just watched a video where people who claimed to be anti-GMO were asked about GMOs. They were asked a few simple questions, such as why they’re against GMOs and what ‘GMO’ actually stands for, and the results were disappointing.

This ‘test’ displayed that a lot of people will jump on a bandwagon and either support or revolt against something they don’t know a lot about. Personally, when I start to hear about a big issue that’s making headlines, such as GMOs, I do my own independent research about it before I draw any conclusions.

It can be easy to support the movement of people who believe GMOs pose enormous health risks without actually knowing about these health risks or what GMOs actually are.

For those of you who don’t yet know, GMOs are genetically modified organisms that are added to most of our food in the US, and they’re allowed in foods that are claimed to be ‘all natural’. Needless to say, we should look for the organic label if we want to find food that’s truly ‘all natural’, and luckily, organic foods can’t contain GMOs like ‘all natural’ products.

We need to be aware of the things we advocate and fight against. It’s too easy to love or hate something just because everyone else is, but the last thing we want to do in this day and age is conform.

Even though it’s important to find a political and philosophical middle ground with each other, we don’t all want to agree on the same things – especially if the majority of people who are agreeing haven’t done their homework on the subjects.

We run the potential of creating a boring, conformist society if we fall in line with crowds before we really understand what they’re about, and even though we’ve probably all done this once or twice before, we want to be more knowledgeable and diligent now than ever.

We want to have a sense of the things we’re fighting for. We want to educate ourselves on various issues that are important to our planet and society’s sustainability, and we don’t want to give our opinions on things that we don’t really know anything about.

We could fall into hypocritical territory if we take this route, and instead, we can take the extra time and energy to learn about the things we’re passionate about. Gaining knowledge is very important, and for those of us who want to change the world as opposed to just talking about it, it’s more important than ever.

The next time we want to give our opinion about something or join a crowd of supporters or naysayers, let’s learn some of the things they’ve learned. We might not want to learn from the naysayers or supporters because we could be given biased information, so we’ll want to do our own research.

The ideal world I envision is one where everyone’s educated about the various aspects of our society and the things we’re doing on (and to) this planet that could either sustain us or bring us under.

I envision a world where everyone passionately educates themselves and others about issues that are close to their hearts, and in this world, nobody’s biased opinion will spread like wildfire simply because it’s popular.

When it comes to GMOs, I’ve done my research and I’m convinced they just aren’t right for society and, in fact, they’re very destructive and could spell our undoing if we don’t put a stop to them. Call me biased, but I didn’t formulate this opinion overnight – I did my research and reached what I felt was the most sensible conclusion.

Admittedly, I’ll always be more in favor of things that are natural, healthy and uplifting over things that were made by people in a lab, because I see how destructive humanity can be and I trust my planet to feed me and provide things I need to survive more than I trust humans.

I’m not saying nature isn’t as destructive as it is beautiful, but I put my faith in a more natural way of life that embraces love and wholeness – in regards to food or anything else.

In the new society we want to create, I think GMOs will have long been outlawed.

This is just my opinion, and it doesn’t have to influence the way you think or feel, but I also think our new society will be based on education and the desire to learn about as many important subjects as we can, such as GMOs and the seemingly infallible reign of agricultural corporations who don’t have the best interest of the people in mind.

Everyone will be aware in our new, spiritually-driven society, and instead of following trend after trend, we’ll empower ourselves and each other to contribute to our conscious revolution in unique and independent ways. We can do this right now, and I think the first step is to become aware of the issues we face before we let our opinions fly free.

This concludes this week’s reader’s question.