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Are We Trapped In A Web of Myths
As you look around you, do you ever get the feeling that something is going on? Have you ever suspected that some gargantuan joke is being played, and that there are some people who are having a great laugh at our expense?
What if there was an artificial order imposed upon our random, chaotic existence? What if the architect of this order was not God, or Satan, for that matter? What if its creators were not Gods, or even Nietzschian supermen, but very ordinary human beings with a keen insight into the weaker side of human nature- people who were manipulators par excellence.
Our world is encapsulated in a matrix, an artificial structure, which has been imposed upon us all. However, if this is the case, how can it be so resilient? How can it survive all the tumultuous rises and falls of civilizations and empires throughout we have experienced over the last several millennia? The answer lies in its being firmly rooted in three basic aspects of human nature.
The first is a primal need for authority. Though every human being is born with an innate capacity to think, thinking for ourselves is something we only do as an absolute last resort. Most of the decisions that we make day to day are nothing more than automatic responses. This relates to our morning bathroom routine, our selection of routes to take to work, the choices we make during the workday. It even relates to the way we interact with those around us.
We live life exchanging one trance for another. Each activity, each environment, is associated with a different set of conditioned responses. The moment we encounter anything out of the ordinary, it forces us to wake up out of our trance and fully engage our minds. This requires effort, and we only do it when we have to. This innate tendency towards parking our minds in one trance or other is critically important in understanding how we are seduced by the players into buying into the grand illusion that conceals the game.
This disinclination to think creates a vacuum, which the players are very happy to fill. Of course, for this hypnosis to work it must be veiled, otherwise we would immediately rebel against someone trying to overtly take control of our minds. To get around this problem we are sold a meticulously crafted version of reality, which is framed by a collection of myths. These myths are bound together by one great meta-myth: the myth of linearity. This serves to seed the soil effectively in our minds for the other myths to be received. This societal trance is so expertly layered that it makes it extremely difficult to detect.
One great challenge in understanding this mountain of artifice is that it is so very, very dense. It is multi-layered and intricately interlaced. In this way it becomes exceedingly difficult for anyone to pull the strands apart and get at the truth hidden beneath.
On the individual level, there is the narcissistic trance. The underlying presumption of this trance is that we experience ourselves as being the nexus of the universe. Instead of seeing ourselves as part of a whole, we experience the whole as an extension of ourselves. Only pure narcissists, such as the players, experience the world literally in this way. For the rest of us, who are merely narcissistic, it represents a bias, which is in the background of our thoughts all the time. This bias is subtle, but nevertheless, extremely potent.
The zeitgeist of this century is narcissism. The world as it is today is not merely narcissistic; narcissism has become its defining feature. It captures the very essence of twentieth century man; the way we think, the way we relate to each other, the way we see the world. Ubiquitous, it has been integrated into our reality to such an extent that most of us are completely blind to the degree to which it permeates our lives. It has become the background to our existence.
To take it a step further, I would argue that what in the past was referred to pejoratively as narcissism, has been elevated to the status of a religious faith. The enlightened selfishness prescribed by the eighteenth century philosopher and economist Adam Smith has been distorted into a moral justification for wanton greed and personal indulgence.
The next layer is the group, or tribal, level of trance. Human beings, being social animals, have a natural need to organize into groups. Even the most individualistic among us begins to suffer withdrawal symptoms if we are separated from human contact for too long. Each group exerts influence on its members. Even in the absence of a defined set of rules the members of the group must abide by, over time the group will exert a homogenizing influence on those within it. This will impact how those within the group will see the world, and their place in it.
The next level is the societal trance. This is a collection of related myths, which frame the worldview of society. Examples of this are the myth of scarcity, law and order, the sanctity of science, etc. Individually, these myths can be challenged, but taken together they are daunting.
The myth of linearity is the meta-myth, which supports all the others. It is the belief that sequential logic rules the world. That everything is related by interminable chains of cause and effect. Linearity is the wellspring from which all the other myths emanate and this myth is the glue that binds all others together.
It is time that we as a civilization woke up from this trance we have been in, and reclaimed our lives. What the world we awaken to will look like is impossible to predict. But would it not be wonderful to find out?
About the Author John Berling Hardy is author of the e-book "Have We Been
Played?- The Hidden Game Revealed." The insights contained in this series give you the Edge. To find out more about the carefully guarded secret shared by all those who enjoy power and prestige visit Have We Been Played.com.
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