How You've Become Addicted to 'Bread and Circuses'

The hidden system of distraction, comfort, and repetition that's shaping your thoughts, behavior, and reality

From ancient Babylon to Rome, the few have controlled the majority through covert tactics in plain sight. This has not changed; it has only become more systemized, effective, and widespread. Kings and emperors oppressed and controlled their nation without revolution because the majority did not fully understand they were being oppressed and controlled. Today, invisible emperors use the same tactics to control multiple nations simultaneously across the globe.

No matter which part of the world you live in, you are living in Roman Babylon. There are a few nations that are honest and open about their oppression, where proud dictators make it clear that citizens obey or perish. Most nations’ leaders are controlled by shadow puppeteers who orchestrate systems of control from the cover of darkness.

Babylon and Rome shared some similarities in their methods of control; however, their primary focus differed. Though we see both systems at play today, the Roman system has domination over the majority of the masses in a way that the Babylonian system of cultural immersion and spiritual deception affects pockets of people; a prime tool for dividing and conquering.

Rome ruled the majority without much opposition through pleasure and distraction. Today, shadowy globalist emperors continue to subdue and control the citizens of most every nation through panem et circenses. This is a Latin term coined by the first-century Roman poet, Juvenal, meaning “bread and circuses.” The Romans would provide food and entertainment to keep their citizens passive while they carried on with corruption and self-serving interests in the background.

The human mechanism has been studied for thousands of years. I would imagine this exploration of understanding who we are stemmed from a natural curiosity. At some point long ago, the intentions shifted towards learning how we operate so that we can better be controlled. The Babylonian empires focused on using this knowledge to systematically change people’s personal identities. The Roman empires used this knowledge to numb its citizens to their identities. Today, both systems are in full effect. When you strip a person of consciously choosing and connecting to their self-identity, you strip them of their sovereignty.

The Roman rulers understood if they could overstimulate the people’s survival brain mechanisms, they would not have as natural access to the higher processing regions of their brain. The survival brain, the oldest regions, crave certainty, safety, and pleasure. This part of the brain prioritizes comfort over truth. It is the newer regions of the brain that desire complexity, truth, critical thinking, and can embrace constructive discomfort.

Roman rulers would satisfy these basic desires by providing bread and other cheap food. The citizens had certainty and knew that their safety was being met by being fed. As the Roman government made it difficult for its citizens to provide their own means to consistently feed their families, they provided free food, similar to modern food stamps or EBT cards. To receive this food though, you had to come to the gladiator events.

At these spectacular events, not only were they fed, they were also entertained. The government fed its citizens’ desire for pleasure through spectacular entertainment. As the people enjoyed their free bread, they sat and watched a variety of entertainment, including bloody gladiator fights.

There was certainty for the people that they would be fed and entertained because these events filled anywhere from one third to one half of the year, often scheduled around political events that needed to be covered up. Sometimes these festivals would last several days or weeks at a time. As long as the government consistently supplied the means to satisfy the people’s certainty, safety, and pleasure, the citizens did not possess the drive to overtly question or oppose the government’s actions, despite obvious corruption.

Ancient rulers have long understood how the brain works. They may not have had the scientific understanding that we do today, but they understood from thousands of years of observation and documentation how to activate the desired cause and effect outcomes they needed for serving their agendas. This ancient knowledge has passed through mystery schools to their initiates, and still does today. To rise to a position of power, you have always needed to go through these rites of initiation to receive the true secrets of power.

They may not have understood the specifics of how dopamine works, but it was working just the same. Dopamine drives us to seek rewards. These rewards may be a sense of accomplishment, nourishment, or pleasure. The bread and circuses system of control creates dopamine loops within the brain. Our brains reward novelty, stimulation, and quick hits of pleasure. This is why so many men get addicted to watching sports, and women get hooked on reality TV (yes, some women love sports and some men get hooked on reality TV also). The people subconsciously understood that by showing up to these events their brain’s reward circuits would be satisfied. Repetition solidifies certain functions within the brain, so it would start producing dopamine in anticipation of the next festival.

With the consistency of these events year after year, the Roman citizens became neurologically wired to avoid stillness, avoid deep thinking, and consistently seek stimulation. Sound familiar?

Deep thinking expends energy. Mindless distraction is quick and easy with no need for mental energy to be exerted. The food and distraction loop conditions the brain to lessen its cognitive load capacity. As this behavior becomes the new internal operating system, the brain defaults to surface-level engagement, passive consumption, and emotional reactions. Over time, the mental capacity for critical thinking and deep contemplation erodes.

The purpose of this essay is not to share a history lesson on Roman manipulation. The purpose of this essay is to hopefully illuminate the fact that nothing has changed.

Globally, most of us are addicted to bread and circuses more than Roman citizens ever were. The strategy of feeding our most basic needs and pleasures, while keeping us distracted with mindless and violent entertainment, is infinitely more prominent than it was two thousand years ago. They no longer need us to travel to the festivals. We carry the entertainment with us everywhere we go in our pockets. We don’t need to attend events for cheap food. There is a fast food restaurant on every other corner, and we can have it delivered directly to our homes.

We are inundated with fast food, mobile entertainment, and instant gratification everywhere we go. We have collectively become internally numb, externally dependent, and unhealthily comfortable. Most humans of the modern age are completely disconnected from and numb to their true authentic identity. Many believe themselves to be intelligent and wise, as they’ve consumed a plethora of misinformation and deceitful propaganda.

Civil discourse has been eliminated and replaced with self-righteous outrage. The media outlets, schools, and politicians we have been conditioned to trust as our primary sources of truth are now the most corrupt sources of purposeful disinformation.

Modern panem et circenses has us feeling safe and comfortable in a global environment that is volatile, dangerous, and quite the opposite of comfortable.

There is a saying that if you want to boil a frog, you cannot drop it into a pot of boiling water because it will immediately jump out. Instead, you gently place the frog into a pot of comfortable room temperature water. Then you very slowly turn up the heat. The frog will naturally adapt to the increased temperatures, remaining comfortable at ever more dangerous temperatures. Eventually, the frog will stay comfortably in the water until it ultimately boils to death.

We are the frogs that were born into the room temperature water. As we grow older and enter adulthood, while at the same time the shadow masters slowly implement new stages of their plan for global control, the water temperature is slowly being turned up. As we feel the discomfort of the higher temperatures, we subconsciously react to create comfort within the new environmental conditions. As the temperature is slowly turned up, we slowly increase our dependency on chemically enriched foods, alcohol, marijuana, prescription and otc meds, binge-watching shows, video games, porn, shopping, celebrity idolatry, promiscuity, traveling (escaping), relationship drama, social media outrage, political party loyalty, defending false identities, and all other matters of dopamine-addictive behavior. To me, it feels like the collective boiling point is near.

How can you personally begin to break free from your addiction to bread and circuses?

If you resonated with this article and would like to go deeper, I shared a video commentary below with our paid members where I expand on this article in much greater detail.

By becoming a ‘Question Everything Member’ you are invited to join us in our members only chat, DM me directly, and receive extended video commentary on most articles. Click the link to upgrade your subscription today:

With your Upgraded Subscription you receive Unlimited Access to the entire Question Everything Archive: https://patrickryan333.substack.com/archive