Going Down The Rabbit Hole Of Perceived Reality: What Is The Truth Beyond Tyranny And Consumerism?

It began with a question... Why am I here? What is the truth behind this blue green ball flying through space? It felt like something new began when I started that question. I broke free from the 9 to 5 life, from the television, the bars, the social media, and all of that, and came into a larger world.

I began a journey. A journey into truth, and deception, lies and delusions, power structures, and beyond. And we'll see how this journey led me to two extremes: authoritarianism and consumerism.

The common phrase in college at the UW was "it's all relative." Hedonism is the lifestyle of the day. Living for pleasure is how the lifestyle was on campus. If it feels good, do it. Anything goes as long as you don't hurt someone.

What is society really? What is the nature of reality? Evolutionary biology, of course is the basis. There is the post-modern pseudo-intellectualism. And there is a general disregard for any ethic other than utter self interest or conversely, a fiery Spanish-inquisition style of social justice.

Anything spiritual seemed down right silly. That's what I was taught. Public school, college, all of it. I wasn't really encouraged to question anything outside the bubble. The bubble would be the universe. And I was always told to poke around all I wanted inside the bubble. But don't consider anything outside the bubble. Don't ask the question: Where did the bubble come? And God-forbid that you ever consider what the meaning of the bubble is!

But there was a common answer I was given by writers, elite social theorists, and the expert class of our society: You make your own meaning. You bring the meaning to the situation. And almost immediately I had to ask myself: Why would that be so?

That is moral relativism. The underlying belief then is that there is no objective, overarching meaning to anything. What a disturbing concept. Of course that is the required conclusion of a naturalistic worldview. The worldview is smuggled in behind the statement. But most people don't see reality from a purely physical standpoint. Most people would acknowledge that there is something beyond the physical, and almost everyone would at least acknowledge non-physical realities like, say, consciousness.

I felt suffocated by that limited view of reality. I felt it was being forced on me actually. I had always thought religious folks were such proselytizers, but I quickly discovered that naturalism is much more forcefully taught than that, it's a downright all encompassing indoctrination of our society. You are not allowed to question naturalism, evolution is undisputed fact, and if you believe differently you are a danger to our society and must be stopped. That is a scary concept. In fact it starts to become it's own sort of religious indoctrination, it's just a new religion, the religion of naturalism.

Nihilism was never particularly appealing to me. And those who profess it tend to be a little pushy about their dark nihilism. So that always bothered me. Reality is not as dark as you are perceiving it. Now I'm not saying all nihilists are cynics, and hedonists, but that trio does tend to walk together.

Around that time I was spending a lot of time at a house with a bunch of hippies and hipsters. And we all thought we were so slick. We had it all figured out. Peace and love. Go up on the hill, camp fires, drugs, hemp, and reading Hunter S. Thompson, and Abbie Hoffman. I thought I had found the moral high ground, here are the people who have the moral high ground. They're the "woke" ones. But very soon I discovered that just wasn't the case. We'd always sit around and talk politics, philosophy, and spirituality. But we'd usually be drinking and using drugs. I found out one of the guys in our circle had drugged and raped a girl. That sort of burst my bubble about the moral high ground thing...

It's astonishing how wide spread this sort of lifestyle was at the UW. And moral relativism seemed to transcend all the little subcultures, whether it was the intelligentsia, or the musicians, the hipsters, the sports people, it was almost universal. And I found it quite bizarre that there was no truth allowed anywhere. Everything had to be relative. Well, aside from the tuition fees, and the grades, and basically anything concrete. That's not relative, that's fixed and objective. Quite convenient.

I realized over time that I was being scammed by the university systems. The cost of tuition was so extremely high that fellow students were dropping into tens of thousands of dollars of debt. Something was very wrong there.

But I was locked in, so I continued. I was also locked in to consumerism and materialism. I didn't consider myself an atheist, or agnostic, I just pursued my material desires, pleasure, selfishness, and popularity. I desired approval from my little social circle. I took all sorts of prescription pills, trying to force my body and mind to accept reality as it was. But something was wrong with reality, that much I could tell. There was something terribly wrong with the world. Doctors try to diminish it through pills and prescriptions, but those inner aches are not extinguished by pills and benzos and anti-depressants, but seeking after that which is truth in a strange world.