Cultural Self Delusions
So much of the bafflement regarding human indifference to important matters can be traced to self delusions. Each group believes, and many in the most emphatic way, that the God of their inherited religion is the true God, just like every other group believes their inherited God is the true God. And nothing, absolutely nothing, except sometimes marriage, is going to change their mind. Same as people will seriously argue over music or art, or food or which sport is best, etc.---another delusion that one's own preference in any of these areas has some sort of validity. All I really know is that old people seldom like the music of the young. And older people who find it harder to always understand what others are saying become deluded into insisting that they can hear fine if people will just stop mumbling. Back in the old days people didn't mumble. Yeah, sure. I can now attest to that. Huh?
Some delusions are more serious than others. Currently, few people are willing to acknowledge most of our planet is seriously overpopulated. Most of us are smart enough to understand this, but most of us would rather not seriously believe it. Many people still insist birth control is wrong, or that God still wishes us to go forward and populate the earth and have dominion over other animals, and plants, and the environment in general. We pass laws making it illegal to give financial aid to any country utilizing any population control measures. Just amazing. We are about to pay a severe price for this delusion. Many already are paying the price in some parts of the world. While there is plenty of evidence God exists---if you receive a gift (in this case life and a planet for life) then there must exist a giver of the gift. But there is zero evidence God made man in His own image, or that God is directly involved much, if ever, in His created evolutionary process, or that God favors man over other forms of life. These are just our common cultural delusions. Self serving, self grandisizing, self deceptive delusions.
We also have deluded ourselves into believing the natural resources of our planet are inexhaustible. These resources have already have been depleted in many parts of the world. We are surrounded by bright souls who delude themselves into thinking that we can drill our way out of the energy crisis---the environment be damned, that some how all the people in this overpopulated world can find enough of the needed natural resources to thrive in a lifestyle so many of us currently live. In the absence of our delusions we would take this stuff more seriously. Family planning would not be a choice, but required by law. Resources would not be squandered away as part of unregulated capitalism. Natural resources would be owned by the people and protected by an educated public. Overpopulation, protection of natural resources, and pollution control are the real factors determining the future of humanity. But we delude ourselves into thinking we are some sort of protected species, that evolution is all about us as a species, and even delude ourselves into thinking that God, given the appropriate posturing via rituals, prayers, and energetic persecution of 'heathens', will walk by our side and provide a loving earned protection of our individual lives---if not now, in some afterlife. Humanity is enveloped by delusions. Except you and I. And sometimes I wonder about you.
Each Christmas Eve the Pope prays for world peace. Every damn Christmas Eve that is the headline: 'Pope Prays For Peace'. Of course there is zero evidence this senseless ritual has ever produced any result. Other religious leaders are guilty of the same thing, just don't make the headlines. I fail to understand the logic behind prayer. It really amounts to suggesting God waits on our begging---via prayers to do good for us or others. I have known students to pray for getting a good grade on an exam, for applicants to pray they get a particular job, for people to pray that they or someone else get cured from cancer or whatever, for athletes to pray they perform well, and the list goes on forever. Many think if they pray for the poor, the sick, the homeless, soldiers fighting in a war (a war of course blessed by God), that God at least sometimes hears our prayers (which are really orders) and thus any duty has been done, entitling them pious status. Prayer said (preferably in a gilded cathedral by a large number of people), duty done, matter settled---it's in God's hands. Amen. Prayer reduces God to some kind of cruel idiot. Those 100 million people predicted to starve to death in the next few years across the globe---God will let them starve to death unless we pray for them, and even if we do, He will let them starve anyway but reward us for the kind prayer. Okay. I guess it is the effortless praying that counts. But the real energy in action are things like who marries who, whose religious beliefs can become the law of the land, and just whose families get what kind of tax breaks, what kind of education facilities, etc. I guess it never dawns on most people that the Creator of this Universe hardly needs our prayers to do the right thing. I don't know too many parents who tell their children, "if you want or need anything---come before us, kneel and pray for it. We will then think it over and maybe you will get it, mostly you won't, and you may die wondering why I would not help". Whenever someone tells you their success or health or whatever is a reward from God (His intervention in the evolutionary process on their behalf), therein is a picture of a pompous self deluded fool. God created the process of evolution, a process which we know more and more about as time goes on. This process is run by the laws of evolution. Whether God ever tampers with this evolutionary process cannot be known, but it would be extremely self serving for any individual in any species to think that God tampers with His amazing evolutionary process just to meet any individual's needs or demands (prayers). The evolutionary process works, has worked for billions of years, and the direction, albeit with periodic upheavals, eliminations, reverses, and turns, has always evolved upward in complexity, specie abilities, including mental capacities. Each of us exist as part of this created process, and we don't control it---not through prayer or any other means---and we play the game with the cards dealt us with real, but limited ability to control our own welfare during the miniscule time we, as a person, exist. That, to me, is the reality. It doesn't detract from the greatness of God or the beauty of the created process. It does remove us from the delusion of how self important we are as individuals.
I think delusions are a way of life, an obligatory way of life---as has been in all of human history. Delusions are clearly rampant. Our religion, our country, our ethnicity, and whatever, are all delusional prejudices which drive our emotions, loyalties, and politics. I think this is part of why I enjoy most being out in nature---ALONE---to sense the reality of my existence. Existence is an accidental privilege---an opportunity to be a part of the evolutionary process---God didn't pick my parents or guide a particular sperm to a particular egg---it was chance as driven by the laws of evolution. Being out in nature, with the proper mindset, enables one to sense the awe and vastness and complexity of life---life in the broadest sense, not in any individual or even species sense, but life as a most amazing process. Evolution seems directional---it seems to have purpose---but my own purpose in life is so miniscule in the whole scheme of things as to be insignificant. Did you know that for a short period of time I owned the Ryder Park crosscountry trail record? C'mon now, that is important. It's recorded somewhere in the archives of some newspaper. I am probably the only one in the whole world who gives a rat's ass about that record.
It is harder and harder to find the stillness of nature. Often, somewhere in the distance, is the droning of cars on an expressway, or planes, or some idiot on a cell phone walking through a forest talking about dumb ass bullshit. But when everything is really still, and my mind relaxes and wanders, I can sense, in some indescribable way, the wonderment of the evolutionary process and the still, sad quiet desperation of the less fortunate. Evolution does not seem overly efficient---it takes a lot of dead ends, a lot of misfortune, a lot of wasted lives and species to move the process ever forward. Overall, it is a good process, an endlessly good process and I feel a part of the process as surely as all the other living things in nature are too a part. The trees and plants and different animals are all amazing creations of a wonderful process, not one superior to another, just different---the components---TOGETHER---comprise God's masterpiece. ,
I have lived long enough now to have experienced a miniscule snippet of the past, spend the present trying to decipher all these past and present experiences, and yet, like everyone else, I know absolutely nothing about the future. Some claim they do, and tend to be real arrogant, even obnoxious about their beliefs. Beliefs about the future, posed as facts, have created havoc throughout history. I suspect many of us, having lost parents, friends, spouses,lovers, offspring, treasured pets, colleagues, neighbors, etc--- wonder if we will ever see them again in some sort of afterlife. I don't waste much time contemplating the particulars of any afterlife or whether there is one. Like which spouse or pet or friends will be your companions in any afterlife and at what age will you be in this afterlife? An after life seems a bit of a stretch, a bit illogical, but then I hardly have the intelligence to comprehend life as I have known it, let alone have the intelligence to understand an afterlife. I know a lot of people worship and treasure the body in addition to the 'person' but I am not one of them. When 'grandma' is in a vegetative coma, she is gone---Period. Her body is irrelevant to her 'person'. We aren't even the same person throughout or own lives. If we were, more marriages would last, more friendships would last, and we could precisely describe ourselves or others as a specific persona. Hell, I am not even the same persona in different situations. I guess we all have multiple personas. Humans have an innate sense of ethics. Most everyone knows right from wrong on major issues. We just have a hard time doing the right. But if ethics exists, then it does seem there may be consequences for doing wrong instead of right. What these consequences are I just don't know. Maybe it is self rewarding (mentally) or maybe there is an afterlife.
Much of life is some sort of out of sight, out of mind exercise. Well, not always. There are some people, some known and some not known personally to me, whose influence permeates much of my thoughts and actions. People build people. People can also tear down people, even kill them. In my 'terminational years' stage of life my end 'product' is kind of finished, for better or worse, and all that is left is the time to sort things out, reach some sort of summary, be thankful for the good experiences and blessings of the past, enjoy whatever good health left, get out of other people's way---especially those in their productive years---- but in any case just get out of the way, and figure out how best to help those most in need with whatever meager or substantial wealth I have accumulated. The terminational years should be organized to be peaceful, pleasant, independent, grateful---while noninvolvement trumps involvement. I think we should always act our age. We have all observed, when younger, some older jerk in a nightclub trying to act like he is young again or still is young. It is the same sort of thing when someone in their terminational years tries to run the show, whatever the show is at the moment. Of course the young are dumb, and of course change is often incompatible with our own comfort level, and that is just the nature of the beast. The neat thing in the terminational years is that if you don't bother others, they don't bother you. And really, how much do you really want to be bothered? Haven't you been bothered enough? You can handle being bothered when young better than when old. My dad, more often than not, when older, would address suggestions to get involved with, "To hell with it". There is wisdom there. If you can't climb a mountain, for any number of valid reasons, then 'to hell with it' is the only rationale response. The truth is, if I died today it would be no tragedy. If I had died young it would have been a tragedy. The young shouldn't have to die. The old are supposed to die. We have made so many advances in keeping our bodies alive, even when the ''person' is gone or mostly gone, that we can actually continue to be kept alive when our persona is but a shell of our former persona. I used to have lunch with my mother in this assisted living home and sit at her table with her assigned table mates. The silence and non communication was eerie, and if I tried to communicate they would try their best to engage in some conversation but it was worse than childlike babble, and they really didn't appreciate the struggle I presented for them to communicate. Wow, and these people were once vibrant, together, competent personas. Is that my future? I hope not. Really, at some point, enough is enough. I am more convinced than ever that God created a process, the evolutionary process, a good process, and that God rarely, if ever, interferes with His created process. Let's face it, we can live so long beyond our healthy facultative years because WE devised the means to do it. WE have made this bed and so we end up sleeping in it. Unfortunately we have not yet accepted that each of us ought to have the choice when, if ever, we no longer want to sleep in that kind of bed. Dying now can be long and prolonged to the point of a useless life for decades, and an endless burden to others. There is no magic answer as to when enough is enough. To say that God is directing any slow agonizing death, and only God decides when it is time to end life, is an ABSURDITY. To claim God is so involved in our daily lives and the lives of others is to make God into an idiot and a cruel idiot at that. In all of history we have tried to reduce God to our level, claiming God looks like us, God thinks like us, God needs us to pray to Him or beg for favors from Him---for God to make things right in this or that situation, and that humans are some sort of favored species in His evolutionary process---to say all this is just dribble to me. It is like saying we love our children but much less so our pets. We may love our children in different ways, but more? Anyone ever been in a veterinarian's office when someone's pet dies? That often matches any hysterics at funerals. If it was proposed that all pets be exterminated for this or that reason, pet owners would be furious enough to lynch the perpetrator of such a proposal. Yet we think we can keep on driving into extinction other species and God is cheering us on: "Oh, for Christ's sake God, these are just animals and dumb ass trees". I am not so sure about that. Other species, like us, are probably God's pets of some sort. In fact, they came first. He may not appreciate our killing off these species anymore than we would appreciate our children hanging the family pet because they were tired of taking care of it. In the last analysis we really know so little and we ought to be a little more honest about that.
We have delusions about material wealth and its relationship to happiness. I have spent quality time around the wealthy, the powerful, the beautiful, etc.----just as many others have---and whatever the worth of any of it, happiness or contentedness is not the end result. Their worlds seem, to me, to be filled with neuroses, vain ego trips, spoiled personalities, dogmatism, back stabbing, shifting allegiances and priorities, ass kissing, plotting all sorts of unfair strategies to acquire more power or wealth or look even more beautiful. There seems to be strong correlations between beauty and divorce, power and anger, wealth and desperation for more wealth. A lot of professional meetings get boring---the same old trite witticisms, half truths, deceptions, carrot and stick games, and shell games ad nausea. My only real sense from all this was that there must be more to life than all this human 'noisy disingenuous clatter'. Frankly, I always preferred one on one interactions where one can concentrate on some real problems and real solutions and actually accomplish something, albeit on a much smaller scale. People build people. Programs, at best, can only make it possible or easier for people to build people. Today we drift further and further from personal interactions, from any people build people, and raise the flag of 'family values' to justify our concentration on immediate family. It is just another subtle way to claim others don't count. It is you and your ilk who count. Many have deluded themselves into thinking responsibility stops at family. Of course there is no major religious scripture in the world that pushes family over others---none. There are few concepts which promote selfishness more than this family values hype. Do these proponents really believe God is more interested in their family than other families? If God is not, on what basis are they so inclined? Being a responsible parent, or any kind of family member, does not mean 'us first' necessarily. Anyone who really believes it is ok for the government, any government, to spend more money to educate their children than any other children, is simply unethical and illogical. All children deserve a level playing field. All, period. In fact, the goal should always be to give all people a level playing field, not that all people are equal. The evolutionary process hardly makes the members of any species equal. It is fairness which drives human ethics. It is sharing which raises humans to a higher level of existence. And ethics may well be an endless effort to shed delusions, to appreciate diversity, to promote 'fair is fair', to share excess, to make others better for having any interaction with us, to worship God---not as some sort of Benefactor who grants wishes via prayer, but the Creator of an evolutionary process which you, as by a chance created 'being', according to the laws of evolution, have this unique opportunity to be part of this God created process. All the self and group delusions don't bring contentment---they bring strife, frustration, and an emptiness tinged with bitterness. To shed our delusions and develop our innate sense of ethics is what leads to contentment---a feeling that all is just as it should be at this point in the God created evolutionary process. We are not, after-all, on a runaway train. We do our best, we enjoy the ride. Time flies. Not really, Time stays, WE go.
