written 23 Jan 2022
published 30 Jan 2022
Aldous Huxley surveyed all the religions and spiritual traditions of the world, looking for common elements. The core of the Golden Rule was common to all, as was the description of the human journey as an evolution from the separation of the individual ego to the experience of Divine unity.
Everyone has an ego. We need enough ego to keep out of the way of a speeding bus, but too much ego becomes a problem. If you examine experience deeply, all we can know for sure is: "I am", and "something seems to be happening". All the rest is a story we create to give meaning to what we experience. That story is mostly our ego.
Our every reaction is filtered through the perspective of our ego, and 90 percent of our reactions take place beneath our conscious awareness, directed by patterns laid down by our family and culture long before we were aware of our sense of self. For example, if you have been told all through childhood that you are a stupid, ugly loser, chances are you may have self-esteem issues. Affirmations have the power to rewrite some of those old stories. Since most of the story is hidden, conscious affirmations may have to be applied for an extended period before any change is apparent. Because we believe our stories, they become our truth, but they are not reality.
There is a bumper sticker that says: "reality is what you stub your toe against". That suggests there is something larger than our own truth, our own story, that is real enough to have effect, even when we aren't paying attention. This is consensual reality, the larger story within which we all live. As an individual's story, or truth, diverges from consensual reality, their life gets more difficult. At the extreme, such people are viewed as insane. When a large group of people are at odds with reality, the entire society is at risk.
Being at odds with reality can be as simple as shifting from one culture to another. For instance, in the US, the consensus reality involves driving on the right-hand side of the road. However, taking this pattern to England, where everyone drives on the left-hand side, can quickly get someone killed.
Every society has a mix of individuals with personal truth at odds with others in the group. Society creates structures for resolving conflicts in ways that preserve the society as well as the individuals within it. America is in the middle of a crisis within our forms of conflict resolution.
In my opinion, former president Trump is insane: a malignant narcissist. His ego is so large, and fragile, that accepting the idea of losing would fracture him to the core. Because he doesn't take any personal responsibility for his situation, he has to blame someone else, and is violent in defense of his position. That is his personal truth, but is not reality. If he were just an ordinary individual, this would simply be a sad story. But his position in the society means he has the ability to seduce, or coerce, others into making his insane truth their truth as well, even if it risks destroying the reality of our culture.
The whole world is in the middle of serious and rapid changes. Resource depletion, the expanding climate crisis, overpopulation, Covid, and extreme economic inequity have caused wide spread disruption in people's lives, challenging the ego stories that have given us meaning. Rather than investigating the complicated roots of these challenges, which requires deep internal examination and changes in our own stories, people search for simple external answers, some place outside to focus their anxiety and anger.
Covid and climate change are hoaxes; all immigrants are diseased terrorists; only rich white Christian heterosexual men should be in charge; Democrats are termites who drink the blood of babies; the election was stolen. These become people's truth, even though they are not reality, and don't really serve their true needs.
I don't know how our nation transcends this, but recognizing the issue is a start. Investigating how my truths may need to be modified to more align with reality is a start. Stating my truth is also necessary. I have confidence that reality prevails eventually. If enough of us choose sanity, we might all survive.
