TrueLife - The Language of COVID: How Words, Media, and Fear Shaped the Pandemic Narrative

Episode Date: September 22, 2021

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/The pandemic wasn’t just biological — it was linguistic. In this episode, George Monty examines the language surrounding COVID-19, vaccine messaging, and media framing, exploring how words shaped fear, compliance, and collective consciousness.From semantic framing to social psychology, we analyze how narratives influence action, perception, and policy — revealing the hidden power of communication in times of crisis.In this episode:How language shaped public perception of COVID-19Media framing, fear, and behavioral influencePsychological effects of pandemic terminologyThe interplay between science, politics, and narrativeLessons for communication, critical thinking, and awareness One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Fearers through ruins maze lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I hope that your day is going well. I hope that you've taken some time to tell the people around you. How amazing they are, because they are. I hope when you look up, you see a silver lining instead of a partly cloudy day.

I wanted to just come and chit-chat and do a quick little podcast today on some disturbing ideas about education. I recently had a meeting with some parents and the teachers at my kids school. And I'm really fortunate that we were able to have the Zoom meeting and that we were. plenty of parents and we played some games and got to see some of the kids and stuff. However, I have for quite some time been wondering what the long-term psychological effects are on children with masks. I've also been wondering, what is it that this COVID madness is doing to the youth and to our education system? And it's that that I want to probe deep into, day. There are a lot of kids not even going to school. There are some that are going to school.

When kids go to school, normally they have masks or a face shield or I realize that there's some parts, some places where no one's wearing that particular type of muffle, I guess. And while that's part of the problem, I think there's a bigger issue. Let's talk about our language. So we're tying this to all together. The future of education, children's psychological makeup and language. The words we use are so important. And think about it like this. Have you ever spoken with someone and they have a quick temper or they are quick to turn towards violent words or violent behavior?

Most of the time, not all the time, but a lot of times, people tend to become emotional when they cannot express themselves through words, through their language. Oftentimes we see people talk with their hands and I believe,

I believe that the degradation of our language is a huge problem. Because the degradation of our language, because the degradation of our language leads to the degradation of our planet because it leads to the degradation of our relationships. Imagine if you do not have the ability to speak clearly or have a large enough vocabulary as to thoroughly explain to someone else how you're feeling.

If you just think for a moment about all the conversations you have and all the people you speak with, what are the chances that when you speak to someone, they're thoroughly understanding what you're telling them. There's a lot that goes on there. You could be telling someone about a beautiful hike that you were doing and you were surrounded by these giant trees with the burnt brown bark climbing up them.

And as you looked up, you saw the beautiful pine needles that were sharp but at the same time soft. You could look up, and realize that you're in a tall, grassy meadow with some yellow flowers and a few bees coming by. You can feel the little bit of wind on your face. You can really get descriptive with how you speak about the environment you're in. But how often do you do that?

Not as much as you should. At least I don't do it as much as I should. Now, let's think about if you're... two, three, four, five, six, well, maybe not two or three. Let's think about five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. If you don't have the ability, if you don't begin to develop the ability to understand language for what it is,

a tool to solve problems. If you don't begin to develop that particular set or that particular tool or that set of tools, you're going to be worse off later in life. Most of the time, well, I think all of us know a lot of people that maybe ended up in a, they went to jail or maybe they ended up in prison or maybe they was getting in trouble a lot.

A lot of times those people were just, they're unable to express themselves. It's not that they're dumb or it's not that they're bad people. It's just that the frustration of not being, able to express yourself accurately lead you to act emotionally, right? Because our emotions are kind of a way

of communicating as well. It's like the quiet way of communicating. So let's look at what's happening right now in our kids' schools. In kids' schools if your kid's not going

to school, they're not learning how to communicate. They're not learning how to speak with other people. They're not learning how to speak with other kids. They're not learning any of these developmental skills that are going to help them in the future. On a side note, think about it

this way. The language you use allows you to develop ideas that can be beneficial to you or your community. The language you use is in fact the way you see the world. And if you can't speak well, if you're unable to use the words in any given language to express yourself fully,

your world narrows. It becomes much more difficult to get around in the world. And here's where I'm going to go out on woo-woo a little bit, a little about on the woo-woo tree. It kind of seems to me like it's being done on purpose. We're so divided with the news about different vaccines and, the stock market crashing, you know, is the U.S. dollar going to be deflationary or inflationary? There's so much stress out there right now for so many people and families are fighting and it's just chaos. It really is. Everybody should just turn off their TV and not try not to watch

too many videos or try not to watch too much of that. Because if you look at the world to the lens of your screen, be it a phone, an iPad, or a television. It's a very different world than if you just look at the world through the lens of your eyes. Let's say in 15 or 20 years, what happens to this giant group of children that never learned to speak well, that never fully develop their cognitive toolkit in order to see the world or express how they see the world? That would, I believe, that that will fundamentally create a class of people that will never be able

to reach a certain level. I think it will widen the wealth gap to a point that a chasm so deep, a wall so high, that they'll be forever barred to the outer gates of a life worth living. It doesn't mean you can't learn to speak better later in life if you teach yourself. However, it's much more effective and efficient.

And the children that are able to learn to speak well at a young age have such a critical advantage over those that don't. So that was my major point. I mean, I just can't help but think that that is going to be one of the worst effects of this pandemic. it is the dumbing down, the continued dumbing down of a large number of people, forever, forever. Lord knows what kind of side effects, you know, the vaccine or the gene therapy or the pandemic are going to have. However, I think that that's one education is going to have and it's going to be brutal. So if you have a kid that is going to be, that is going to be, to school or not going to school, I think you should be doing your best to sit down with them

and have long conversations about the words they use and why they're important or looking online for a mentor, which there's tons of. All you need to do is just go on to maybe Google and look up mentor elementary school kids. So yeah, I would recommend doing that. If you have an opportunity or if you have a few minutes to do it, then please do yourself a favor and and help your child have the ability to speak well. So shifting gears a little bit, but staying with the language motif, has anyone ever thought about, here's an interesting way to look at language. Can you think about the letter as a symbol?

Think about the word as a symbol for the object. For instance, if I see tree, if I say tree, do you picture a tree? Probably, right? But here's something else. You can kind of flip that on its head. Walk out, go outside and just take a look and look for a tree. Now, usually the word tree is a symbol of the picture tree.

But people who tend to be artistic or poets have it the other way around. They see the actual tree is a symbol for the word. I know that that's a little confusing, but just take a moment to mow that over in your head. Most people see the words as symbols or most people see the objects as symbols for the words.

But I think your life can be better if you see the actual objects and the words are the symbols of the objects. Does that make sense? I might have to flesh that out a little bit more. I'm working on it. Here's another thing to getting into the fractal nature of the world in which we live. So let's say that our language is like our environment.

Each individual may be a letter. The letter represents a sound. So, like think of vowels. A, A, B, C, D, E, you know, or A, E, I-O-U. Each letter represents a sound. Each individual, if we're going to combine them, each individual represents a letter. Every family represents a word.

Every community represents a sentence. Every county represents a paragraph. Every state represents a chapter. Every country represents a part. And then the world would represent the entirety of an ever-changing story. What would your letter be? What would your family's word be? What would your community's sentence be?

I've been working hard on a... I've been gone for a while because I've been... Are you guys ready for this? I have been writing a... book you believe that it's going to be awesome and it's on language and so these are just a few of the ideas that i'm kind of toying with a little bit mostly about language and the fractal nature of our planet well that's what i got for now i hope you guys all have a great day and take time to work on your language skills especially if you have some little curtain climbers running around

I love you guys. Aloha.