Serial Liar – is that what I am?
I decided recently to move out of my universe, only slightly mind you, and I roamed around the admittedly dodgy world of other people’s blogs. I went via Afrigator, and found myself reading a Jewish dudes take on a trip to Johannesburg. A lot of red flags went up for me while reading. But only tiny ones. I ended up reading the entire blow by blow of his trip. What impressed me, unusually, was the sheer self deprecating but apparently unself-conscious honesty of it, even when he was being a bit of a sexist pig [which most men are but don’t always openly admit, nor should they]. It was also a very social communiqué, throwing around a few names I knew virtually, and dissing really the online intelligentsia, which is refreshing, and I think healthy.
It also though, gave me an awareness that some people, most of us, are probably good people, not unintelligent, just trying to do our jobs and make a reasonable impression, and make a success of our lives. What’s wrong with that? Well, a lot actually.
I have lived large sections of my life free of influence or interference. I’ve been able to be my own man,make up my own mind, and really spread my thoughts into the wide space loneliness that is living in a foreign country. During my stint in Korea, my isolation from Christian influence, for example, gave me the opportunity to really explore- without threat of sanction or sabotage – what I really believed. I was still a Christian when I arrived, some 11 years after my mother’s suicide. I started this journey – of testing the merits of my faith with some trepidation, and I am still on it. But what I realized, incontrovertibly, is that a personal God does not exist, and it is very unlikely any kind of power or force that we imagine as ‘God’ does. There might be a sort of collective consciousness, but let’s not beat about the bush – go and study, read up and research, and go to your own personal experience [day to day] and God just isn’t there. He’s in your head. He’s your construct. But beyond your idea of him, there really isn’t anyone there. Just a wind blowing. If you want to take that personally, you can. There’s more to say, obviously, and I’ll leave that for a few upcoming pieces titled THE CHRISTIANITY CHRONICLES – WHY IT’S ALL A CROCK.
Now, what is the point of the above paragraph, given the one before it and the opener? It does have a point. And that is that our social networks and friends and connections tend to reinforce something quite special. Our beliefs about ourselves, about each other, and about the world. Our social networks inform us about how the world works, and how we should work to plug into the socket, the interface of the world. Ever notice on Facebook, or Twitter, or even in emails – if you say something apparently harmless or benign, but in someone else’s view disagreeable, some people block you simply because they disagree? Real world friendships [especially the shallow ones] are even more so. Our friends and loved ones and often colleagues are enablers and reinforcers for our beliefs, often the culverts, the fountainheads of new ones. It can be overt, in terms of love, where you might need to convert to the Jewish faith to marry Sol Kerzner, or subtle, in the case of money and working for a company with a particular corporate coat of arms.
The bottom line is very very few people are prepared to wither in the desert of hostile opinion or unfriendly looker on-ers, by taking and maintaining an unconventional view. By ‘unconventiuonal’ I don’t mean not doing triathlons on a Sunday or wearing a Mickey Mouse tie, or dreadlocks. I mean, you go and find your own truth, and whatever it is, you stick to it. Because I can assure you – I have done it – it is a very lonely road, and the news is mostly not what anyone wants to hear. For example…
- There is no God
- Capitalism doesn’t work
- The major problem with human beings are that there are too many
- An energy crisis is imminent, as in a global, permanent Depression scenario
- Cancer is caused by our lifestyle choices
- Climate change is possibly going to be our biggest concern in the years to come as hunger and pestilence become the norm [I know, many people don’t even consider it something real].
I’m sure some people can entertain some of the above ideas quite easily. But can you entertain the implications, and live with those? Because the implication of there being no God, means, off the top of my hat, that Jews [the chosen people] and the Jewish concepts [such as their self entitled divine right to the holy land, Israel] are a joke, and the Christians who took the baton are an even bigger joke. And obviously there are vast geopolitical implications. But we all know, saying that sort of thing in polite conversation isn’t de rigueur. And does it matter anyway? So you start to see how our conventional ideas of society and community start to warp and have pretty nasty implications. It’s just easier and safer not to bother, right? What do they say, don’t talk about religion or politics [don’t talk about what you believe or the systems we use to govern and organize ourselves…]
The majority opinion is tempting, and we’re often inclined to say, if the majority view is held, it must be a self-evident thing? Well, using a religious motif, a majority voted that Jesus be executed. The logic gets muddled, because in the scheme of history, perhaps they were right after all, not to double cross their leader, but to execute someone claiming to save them from an enemy [and ultimately, the Romans overran the Jews in Israel, despite their beliefs].
I suspect by now, most people are finding this piece harder to read. That is what happens when you make the hard choice to find and actually think about finding honest answers. So here is another analogy. Something like 95% of people believe that God created everything, and a similar number believe that human beings have a ‘soul’.
Many of these 95% disregard ideas like evolution [although a sizable number say Darwin’s science is rational, that it makes sense]. Now; do the majority of people believe in evolution? No. And what is this belief in evolution then? Simply this – that everything around us, trees, birds – er living, not cars, buildings and computers – insects, evolved over a long time, from much simpler living things, and ultimately from things as simple as algae, and bacteria. All this happened over an unthinkably long time.
How could such a sophisticated system that we see around us evolve, by itself, from a primordial soup? We haven’t seen any evolution, so how can it be possible? No, it needed a designer. God. Voila. And where did he come from? Oh he was always there? Just like us.
During my confinement, my lonely travails in South Korea [and elsewhere mind you] I began to think differently about things I had heard, that others said to me. It’s accurate to say really that: I began to think. For myself. When we have conversations with other people, we’re influenced, our thoughts become disjointed and perhaps convenient to what our listener wants to hear, what’s perhaps easier to say, and puts us in a good light with them. But is it what we really believe? Do we even know?
I realized in Korea that the way to know anything, for real, was to not go to another person, or read a book, but to go to one’s own experience, and be really discerning about it. I have a natural talent for second guessing everything. I would have made a good lawyer. I find it hard to think of anything one way without immediately saying, “But what if that’s not true. What if there is another way of looking at this? What if something is what it is, and also something it isn’t?” For a very long time I denied this aspect of myself, thinking it was dangerously like having a split personality, not single-minded enough, and after all, while I was a Christian I was told to believe like a child, no second-guessing. In Korea I allowed myself to guess. To question. To muddle and to think.
And so when it comes to the question of evolution, here’s the answer I came up with. How did the world, and everything in it start? How did it happen? Well, how did I happen? I happened a few years ago, as one fertilized cell. Look at me now? A reddish beard on my chinny chin chin, an Ironman under my belt. Not so fast. Go back. One cell, then that split into two. That into four. Still no heart, lungs, none of these hands or fingers that I am using right now to type this, or eyes or ears or a brain to produce the logic of this document. None of that was in existence then. Not even a hint of these. How do I know I split from one cell into many? Did I experience that firsthand? Well yes and no. But I have run the gamut of fertilizing women and realize how serious a ‘mistake’can be, that the fluid ejaculated [sorry for being so graphic] culminates in a child. I’ve seen it happen to friends. And what do we do when it does? We call it God’s gift, or a miracle, or meant to be. Not a carnal desire manifested? After the divorce, but at the time, it’s part of a divine plan.
At any rate, it is easy and obvious and natural to observe that we – you and I – evolve from very humble, very simple, very small, very different stuff, to what we end up as. And we know what we end up as is pretty damn sophisticated, what with our university degrees, our phones, our homes, our cars. Easy to forget we once lacked the ability to walk, couldn’t speak, had no idea that that there was something called ‘the color red’. So, can we blame a failure of our imagination, of our perception, and lazily find a solution in a superparent – God – to explain away life’s hard-to- solve-puzzles? Many of us do because many of us are too lazy to think. And the more our wished for answers answer more and more of our real life problems, the deeper we get into a debt of delusion, divorced from reality.
That was a whole long spiel, and I regret it because I am painfully aware that most people afflicted with the virus of religion suffer a terminal condition. In other words, the beliefs of most people are incurable.
So now on to what I really want to say, but the above background is useful, because our beliefs shape our thinking about everything else. Have skew amorphous beliefs about God and yourself, and there’s no telling where the tracks will take you as you venture into the real world, as you participate in real life [whatever your illusions].
Once again, people are quick to accuse you of paranoia, even pessimism, when you simply provide information that doesn’t correspond to a conventional view. Conventional view here means the sort of popular logic you see in commercials, reiterated by the media etc. There’s another reason we don’t like to hear views that break with our ‘conventional wisdom’. Often there is no money in it, no upside [other than health perhaps, or a freedom of mental enslavement]. Why for example, should anyone care about junk food, how much meat we eat, or cigarettes, or the impact of motor vehicles, or consuming margarine [one molecule different to plastic], or cellphone use, or the stuff in sun protection cream, or fluride in toothpaste, or bottled water? Why should we care about that stuff when we are getting a zillion more messages telling us those things will make us sexier, or better mothers or parents, or happier?
Why should we care? Because the pursuit of money, the pursuit of profit is less important than our personal safety, our health, our lives. Sounds cheesy, but in 2010 28 million people will die of cancer because of the things they eat and drink, the products they use every day. Does it say anywhere on a can of Coke for example, that you shouldn’t drink it every day? That the sugar in Coke is actually harmful for your immunity? We often see articles telling us what we should eat, which vegetables have which vitamins. Do you ever read about the most harmful products and brands for our health? Which cigarettes are the most poisonous, which cars are the least fuel efficient, or the most expensive? We seldom do. On a tub of margarine we’re told it contains vitamins in big letters, while in the fine print there are a list of troublesome chemicals that if you googled, would probably put you off margarine for life. Of course all we see is the big bright sign on the tub, blasting at us HIGH IN VITAMIN E. And most foods with these vitamin claims are so bad that they are added in order to make the claim [since otherwise the product has very little to stand on by itself]. Why is the noise for why we should buy something [which isn’t good for us] drowning out the signal, the unfettered truth, that a product may be more harmful than good? Because the interests of the corporation are above your personal interests, even if you work for that corporation. Money is a primary motive, human interests are secondary.
The biggest brands in the world include McDonalds and Coca Cola, and until recently, Cigarette brands. The world’s biggest companies right now are banks, energy companies, Wal-mart, and Microsoft. Pharmaceuticals are rising, but it’s not because they are getting better at keeping us healthy, they are simply making more money from disease care. It makes sense that at the same time cancer rates are peaking, Pharmaceutical companies are doing fabulously well. It’s good for business if we eat unhealthily and then take medication for obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease and all the rest. It’s bad for business if we exercise, avoid junk food, and don’t need to medicate ourselves. They’d rather we took a Vitamin D supplement than encouraged us to get natural sunlight [which cannot be patented] on our skin. Some people are on lifelong prescriptions to antidepressants, and to products like Losec which are a result of over-eating. Don’t change your habits, please continue, just use our product and feel better about how you’re living.
I believe one of the reasons so many of us are depressed is because of our beliefs. We believe in a non existent God and he’s only ever as good as we feel he is. He’s in control. He’s responsible. In terms of the broader picture, not much happens.
It turns out, that belief in God does have its benefits. Think about a successful rugby team. It helps if all the players understand that they are not the most important. And any team or army beaten by a team or army that believes in God is likely to be influenced by them – until of course the inevitable dynamic wears off. [In theory, God eventually does lose interest, or the players lose interest in God, you decide].
Currently, our serial lying has reached epidemic proportions. Advertising is the primary way we lie to ourselves. Many people realize this, but most of us don’t treat each message as a lie. Packaging on products is deceptive too, but we buy them anyone. Politicians lie. The danger isn’t that we care that they lie, but that we don’t. And the core of the lying is starting to manifest in money itself. Well,it must because fiat currency is itself based on whatever we want it to be. Want more money, just print more. How come a government can do that but if an individual does it’s illegal? Oh so governments can lie but individuals can’t? [Apparently so].
Right now, the grandest liars and swindlers are the ponzi schemers and the employees – bankers – of big financial houses like Goldman Sachs, earning their million dollar bonuses. They believe Capitalism is in everyone’s best interest. They believe a free market allocates perfectly. It’s easy to believe that when you’re rich. Of course who controls the allocation? Who makes sure some of these ‘free’ allocations sort of get sidetracked into their accounts? It’s easy to be philosophical when the unemployed congregate and moan, when the protestors holler. The reality is that finance is based on the mythology that resources are infinite – and energy in particular is needed to power an economy, and energy resources must grow to provide a substrate for a growing economy. Not only is this a lie, but the whole idea that market forces allocate freely and equally is a deception. How can we explain the WIDENING gap between the rich and the poor, and the fact that poverty in the world is increasing, not decreasing. How then can men make $100 000 000 in bonuses simply by playing arbitrage games? Not by building anything, or enriching a community. Playing chess with other people’s money. How is it fair and equal that a banker, by placing bets on money, is justified in allocating money that could provide the pensions of perhaps 1000 people, gets the money instead? Is banking a public or a private service? In Hall’s case, the $100 million is a bonus paid for one year’s work. We’re talking about a billionaire, who does nothing but gamble with the money of banks. If he loses, the government prints money and they’re bailed out. If he wins, he gets a handsome bonus. Oops, sorry, in this case the company did lose, they did get bailed out, but personally, he made some correct bets [on energy]. Nevermind that these bets hiked the price of gas for everyone. Everyone loses, he wins, and that’s free allocation in a perfect market? That’s infinite wealth for him in his world of chess games with money, but in the reality of the world, he is a serious problem.
I am not standing here pointing my finger at you and yelling LIAR. We're all co-conspirators, we're all decieving ourselves. I also drove to work today. I also spent money, and used a bank. What I am saying is, look around you. It looks permanent, doesn’t it. These institutions. Take a good look. Wal-Mart, one of the world’s wealthiest companies, a company that sells toilet seats made in China to the US public – the same company that wiped out hundreds of smaller competitors once upon a time in every state, the butcher, the baker, the candlestickmaker – Wal_mart wiped them out because they were cheap. They relied on cheap Chinese factory labor and cheap supply routes to defeat local pricing. That era is ending.
The era of you driving in your car to work, is ending. In a few years, it will be the exclusive domain of the rich, and possibly no-one, once the have nots begin to vent their anger.
If you are wealthy person, it’s starting to become a good idea to pretend you’re not, because a wiped out middle class won’t go gently into the night, nor should they.
Do you really think the swarms of unemployed will blithely accept their lot? Do you really expect the lights to stay on, the taps to spill out their water, regardless?
In Dark Knight, the ‘White Knight’ who falls, Harvey Dent, says to Batman: “You thought we could be decent men, in an indecent time.”
The Joker said: “Everything burns.”
Batman said: “These people showed you they are capable of being good.”
I wonder which truth will dominate, because certainly all will apply. I wonder which character in each of us will rise to the surface? If you have lied to yourself your whole life, the truth can seem…well, a bit chaotic. When I realized God was a fiction, and preachers earned their salaries based on money I gave [thinking it was for the poor] it made me angry. It made me angry to realize all those years of choices I made based on fearing God, rather than a love of life.
If you are, right now, told that burnt food is the greatest cancer causing agent, will you choose vegetables over that barbecue? If you’re told that sip of Coke will bring to an end your remission, will you swap it for water, or take your chances?
We are a society unused to discipline or discernment. And if we’re consumers now, what comes next? Conservers? Survivors? Nobody knows, and still, nobody seems to care.
When the sun rises on the next day of our human story, a world without fast food or supermarkets, without the convenience of cars or water and lights, of suburbia under siege, God will surely be a comfort. But reality will stare us hard in the face. Because I believe inside the ruin of our own cities, our own devices, our own systems, our own brilliant technologies that cannot run without juice, we will finally see our own handiwork. It is all our doing. It is all our making. This will be our legacy to our children, our greed and stupidity, until we are utterly spent and humiliated. That is the legacy of our generation. We will slip from our pedestal, and it is a long slippery slope, a long long way to fall. So much for our evolution. For many of us, that process stopped a long time ago. But the good news is, it’s about to get restarted. Rebooted. A better, a higher definition of ourselves is needed, and for that, we need a brand new template. That is what all this vast, imminent and make no mistake FUNDAMENTAL change is all about.
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