Some hard truths I learnt in 2020 that lead me to a beautiful conclusion
I think a lot about why people do what they do, I think in 2020 we were all forced to evaluate our motivations.
But one thing was suggested to me at the start of the year that was tough to accept:
What if there is no right or wrong?
As a perfectionist, someone who would define everything they did as either a success or a failure and nervously avoided making mistakes at all costs, this question has been rattling around in my brain all year.
Do you believe in god? Some of you might believe in spirituality but that’s different.
For a few thousand years many spiritual and religious beliefs have become distorted in order to assist various monarchs and governing bodies to maintain order while they exploited the townsfolk. How did they do that?
They created a system of right and wrong. Abide by this system, when you die you’ll go to heaven. If you should choose not to, you’ll be burnt for eternity.
Conveniently, wherever these deities were worshipped, the government would have a similar system of laws. Before humans started sailing oversees and air travel became popularised, most deities and gods were, contrary to many beliefs, not everywhere. They seem to remain fixed to the same locations as their accompanying profiteers. The spiritual teachings and messages of once sincere beliefs were stripped in the name of control.
If we take a slightly more scientific view at the world (not to say there can’t be some mystic occurrences science hasn’t explained yet) and simply accept that there is no judge in the sky with a set of do or die rules, we are left with a few questions.
Mainly, why do we continue to abide by these rules and call it ‘morality’, often shunning those who don’t abide by the same rules as we do? If we know that the rules are made up, why do we defend them with such ferocity?
Ask a person in prison and a person fresh out of the police academy where they think the line is and they’ll give you wildly different answers.
That’s because there is no answer.
Life and morality must therefore have no more of a definitive interpretation as art, it’s poetry, it’s self expression.
Does a flower care that it doesn’t grow correctly or do we as humans project a standardised image of beauty onto it? The same applies for humans. We are born of this earth. We grew from the oceans. We are literally animals, and effectively plants. No set of rules, no exact purpose (at least not one we’ll ever hope to understand). Since birth, we have simply been indoctrinated with the belief the there is one standardised, often purpose focused, function for our existence. It has been pressed upon us that we must strive to fit ourselves into to the societal machine or our lives have no meaning.
They’re threatening to rob you of their illusive image of fulfilment, always keeping happiness in the future, keeping your attention away from the miserable life they’re creating for you in the present.
And in a world where actual machines and technological advancements are replacing people at a rapid rate, human beings are becoming obsolete. How do they repay the people they’ve brainwashed and groomed only to replace them when more efficient machines come along? They toss them to the streets and wait for them to die.
With the philosophy of non-judgemental acceptance, an ancient worldwide philosophy, we can not only take a look at ourselves and our society with forgiveness, but it is only through this catharsis that we will be able to truly move forward towards a world where people are content and happy. Forgiveness is the only way to truly move on.
The desire to look outside of yourself for the answer is the thing that drives us toward our degradation. The need to horde resources and destroy landscapes comes from fear that there will not be enough, but we all know there is more than enough for everyone.
Even fact that someone has ‘worked harder’ to achieve financial gain is not a factor when we realise that all achievements are the same, because there is no better or worse. Fulfilment belongs to the individual, but success and reward should be felt by the entire community.
Most importantly, one person cannot decide anything above another. That is true freedom. When you simply do not have the desire to infringe upon others, to manipulate or judge anyone. Freedom is having the courage to be yourself, not living in fear of the consequences.
Every person in a society should be taught to reach freedom through personal actualisation. But why don’t we do that?
Because then we wouldn’t go to work and make things that destroy the planet for the benefit of a select group of greedy manipulators. Then we wouldn’t hate and blame others amongst us for our misery instead of taking responsibility, then we wouldn’t steal and exploit a country’s resources.
With this modern understanding of morality, what is government and what are laws? Laws can only be given one purpose: to protect people and their freedoms.
However many governments, most notably to me the UK and the US, have shown repeatedly that they will simply manipulate the law to protect the selfish interests of a few mysterious parties who exploit and extort our need for external acceptance for their profit.
The governments have not moved on from the old days old religious control and are scrambling for new methods of brainwashing as we actively allow and assist them to do so.
The divine morality once forced upon us has been replaced with something ever darker. A set of laws that are nearly impossible not to break and an ever present digital watchful eye on the whole nation.
The fear of god has been substituted with fear of government. We were not given a choice in this decision and our ability to oppose them is increasingly diminishing.
We need to think very carefully about what institutions we want in charge. Do we want one that has repeatedly proved to manipulate and use us? No.
So they give us an election with two useless options so that we have no choice.
I heard many saying that Covid was a wake up call, that they felt like they lost control of their lives as they were forced to surrender their freedoms due to ineffective uncaring governmental decisions. What it showed me, was that we never really had control in the first place. Whatever control we felt was just a drug induced coma that many are prepared to simply slip back into and attempt to forget their brief moments of lucidity.
The system that so many trust to protect them runs on the same dynamic as an emotionally abusive relationship. We continue along this path because we are afraid to walk it alone, afraid of what they’ll do to us if we try and leave. Does that sound like the caring mother and father these countries need?
We need to be inspired forward, towards slowing down. We need a government that can lead by example, not by fear. Why would we allow something that consistently lies and harms us to continue their perverse form of protection. We deserve better.
They divide us intentionally because as long as we are fighting each other, we can’t wake up and realise who’s really pulling the strings.
It’s time for radical acceptance of one and other. No one has done anything wrong but the control stops now.
We all have the right to know our own minds, and the responsibility learn patience and self acceptance.
What if you were already perfect? What if life never made any mistakes and everything simply was? What if the simple solution is just to stop trying and just be?
Why are we brainwashed with this need to fill our lives with things that we believe provide some egotistical idea of purpose when we all know that meaning is an illusion?
It is a worldwide sickness, our continued attempt to force our insecure beauty standards on this world.
As if the world wasn’t already perfect.
The concrete, the righteous missions, the self destruction; just a cosmetic sold to us to cover up the uglier wilder side of our nature.
That there is nothing we need to do.
Nowhere we need to be.
Nothing we need to accomplish.
Only to find happiness in whatever way we can.
Because the only joy in this life is the joy you create.
That’s what I learnt last year.
