I’m going through a trust crisis, and I wondered what the conclusion of this would be if i lost trust in absolutely everything, and so did everyone else!
I’ve written before about how the world seems inverted and how the way now to process any information from an establishment authority, either governmental, medical, political, financial, educational, legal, journalistic, relationship-wise is to take what they are saying and flip it 180 to find the truth.
While this may be a short term way of navigating the field of lies that we see before us daily, it is not sustainable long term. It’s just way too depressing believe there is no truth out there at all, and that everyone is just saying what advances their own agenda at the expense of their reputation.
Clearly some will go along with all the lies and bend with the wind as the direction of lies changes to state the opposite side was always the case a week later, in full confidence and without so much as a smirk. Why did they do this? Well I believe it is about staying with the majority so that one does not stand out. It’s a protection tactic to ensure ones safety, both because the herd must know something that the individual doesn’t, and so one doesn’t stick out and risk separation from the flock. This mindset is one of collective fear, not only of ostracising but fear of not being able to cope on one’s own.
There are the middle group who will go along with some of the collective delusion as long as it suits them, and then opt out of some other parts that do not suit them.
Then there are the Jonathan Livingstone Seagulls who reject the nonsense and go it alone, outcast from the group, but also stay an adherent to truth. I’m clearly in the latter category, but even Jonathan only rebelled on one point of flight, and shared other common views with his species such as colonising.
To go the whole hog and reject all the teachings of one’s peers in all areas of life is a different thing, and one that I am facing. To not believe anyone on any point is truly maddening, even when one knows the lie from the truth. To reject one’s own species and watch it fling itself from one bad position to another is a tough choice to make and to maintain over a long period. One might be in the right, and one might be saving themselves, but they are also the only one in the Desert of the real.
There is in each of us a need to belong to some number of fellow humans in a shared understanding. I believe this is why people do it. This is why those who don’t just have a preference for many friends/followers/admirers choose to believe the lies, but it is perhaps the only thing that keeps them going. To be in the wrong, but to be with others who you can commiserate with, fills that human need for belonging, even if it is in falsehood. And so these tribes of wrong humans blunder around together failing in one endeavor to the next, maybe losing members as they stumble through terrible mistakes, but console with each other on their loss, and find meaning in their shared idiocy.
Like the proverbial ant “trapped” in a salt circle which it could easily leave, humans are also constrained by their own stupid beliefs within their tribe. There are warnings about stepping outside of the circle and what happened to others that did the same. There is of course no truth to the tales but they stop people from straying too far from the crowd in this mass hypnosis of humanity. There are no physical barriers to stop them, and the only barrier is a mental one, a shared psychosis that friends, family, peers, authorities, and even enemies reinforce to prevent others leaving the imaginary boundary.
Humans are as it turns out far more controlled than they believe they are and while they may state that they are not afraid with slogans like “No Fear”, they fear greatly! This fear is instilled first by parents on their children, then schools and universities, relationships breed collective lies, then workplaces and government perpetuate this idea on the populace.
Do this. Do that. Don’t go there. Don’t think that! If you don’t go along with us, you’ll be out, but if you do what we ask then you’ll be on easy street!
And so those who do what they are told, and in some cases what is only hinted at (because there is still a law you know) do very well for themselves, to a point. If doing everything you are told worked all the time there would be an equality and not the class system we see, however as we know there are those who try to do all that is asked of them and they still fail, and maybe commit suicide as a result of that failure. Others will seemingly not do as the same at all and still come out smelling of roses. There must still be winners and losers, tribes within tribes! Hierarchy drives ambition, and ambition leads to horrors being done in the name of progression in the inner tribe.
If only these murmurations of humans could see that their safety could be achieved elsewhere, but then we come to the other great human leaning in the form of laziness. Why should they put in the effort themselves? It is much easier to let someone else to the work on your behalf than to learn how to do it yourself!
They are of course missing the point and I’ve sort of talked myself out of joining any of these tribes after thinking it through. If there is such a thing as a soul, then I have kept mine while all those around me lost theirs. If they were all to think like me then I think civilization such as it is would quickly fall apart. If everyone failed to trust everyone else, I think supply chains would fail, lawfulness would totally cease, politicians and lawyers would have no purpose, the world would simply stop functioning and war would likely follow between tribes within each country, and a collapse of society and civilization with a return to some prior age of man would likely follow.
In a sense then I need these humans to exist outside of their bullshit, however it doesn’t stop this loneliness. I guess for now I will remain in a tribe of one, with no sign of others with the same beliefs anywhere near. I won’t ever regret climbing over that salt wall myself, at the expenses of material gain because while I may be alone. I do have a clean conscience, and more freedom than many, and what is more I have a place to perch and watch the other ants running in circles trying to be the leader and int he process breaking the world that they profess to love so much.