The concealed

The world consists of two parts: the known and the unknown.

All animals are curious by nature, but humans are extremely curious. The unknown drives us crazy. At any cost, we must find out what it's like beyond those mountains - or out there or in there. Scientists and spiritual seekers spend all their time and energy trying to make the unknown known. Only to realize that the unknown is so much larger than they expected.

Because it's irritating and frustrating not to know, and because we have invested so much time and money to understand the world, who we are, and why we are here, and because we are unwilling to admit that we are ignorant thickheads, we resort to lying. We claim with emphasis that we know. We create religions and teachings that explain things to us. We build metaphysical castles in the air.

It feels so good to know the truth.

Both Christian and Muslim mystics have been fond of the unknown. They find God and his kingdom in this unrevealed part of the world. They love their invisible God. But, because a big part of the world is unknown, it does not necessarily imply a higher being exists. The unknown is simply unknown. 

Some, a tiny group of people, acknowledge and pray to the unknown but ignore the teachings of priests, monks, mystics, pastors, imams, mullahs, spiritual guides, gurus, and philosophers.

Extreme mystics don't even pray or engage in any spiritual exercises. They simply live their life. Good or bad, the unknown made me and my life this way. When the time is right, I'll change my ways and stop drinking and smoking.

Democracy

In the US, you can choose between two presidential candidates representing two right-wing parties. Their policies are practically identical. Both are devoted supporters of the rich and the military-industrial complex. It's the same thing in the UK. A similar system prevails also here in Sweden, but here you can choose between two political blocks (coalitions of parties) with similar political ideas. It's like the European Song Contest; all contestants sound the same. The vast majority love the European Song Contest.

Fairy tales for children above forty

You have been raised from the dead, from carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, nitrogen and magnesium, stuff like that.

From stuff like that, you shall be raised again and again. If the universe is cyclic.

A cyclic universe is a universe that will eventually collapse back to itself; then, it will explode again, expand, and collapse again. And again.

All possible combinations of atoms will eventually be formed again. History will repeat itself over and over again. This is the wheel of samsara.

However, maybe the universe is not cyclic. Perhaps it is a one-night stand, a single-night performance by an amazing magician.

Or, what if there are also other universes, spiritual worlds not made up of atoms and molecules?

There are so many different views on these things. One is crazier than the other. 

https://www.astronomy.com/science/what-would-this-cyclic-model-of-the-universe-mean-for-the-big-bang/

Apocalypse

The end times are here now, I believe. Humanity will disappear within ten, fifteen years or so. Planet Earth will become uninhabitable for human beings because of climate change, environmental pollution, and nuclear war. We are like drug addicts in a crack house. But Jesus will not come back. Not even the Christians will be saved. They are probably the last people he wants to bring with him to heaven: wacky, money-crazy, war-crazy hypocrites.

The extended mind

1. This thought is entering your brain when you are reading this. When I read your comments, your thoughts are entering my brain. Our thoughts are not situated only inside our heads. In fact, almost all of our thoughts have originated outside of us.

2. Dean Radin has proved that telepathy is not just a fantasy. I may pick up your thoughts and emotions even though we are miles apart and not connected by phone or internet. Telepathy is a very feeble force, but it exists.

3. Synchronicities, or meaningful coincidences, are also real phenomena, but they don't seem to be generated in our brains; their interpretations are, of course, brain stuff, but not the actual events. I have no idea how they come about. They are a mystery to me.

https://www.ed.ac.uk/ppls/philosophy/research/impact/the-extended-mind-in-science-and-society

https://www.theosophical.org/files/resources/articles/ExtendedMind.pdf

Extraterrestrial beings

If you were an anthropologist from another planet who came here to study humankind, how would you describe what you saw? Would you have been impressed by us?

Materialism

The cosmic battle between good and evil is taking place in our brains. Without brains, there would be no heaven and hell, no good and evil, no love and hate, no materialism, and no spirituality.

Tribalism

Many things separate us and make us enemies: religious beliefs, political ideas, ethnicity, cultural values, food preferences, music preferences, dress codes, self-help gurus, you name it. We belong to different social groups, much like chimpanzees. You feel at home inside your group, not necessarily safe, but at home.

I don't feel at home among neo-nazis, liberals, and conservatives. I don't feel at home among woke leftists. I don't feel at home among devoted Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and Jews. I don't feel at home among New Age nuts, sports fanatics, drug addicts, and criminals; I feel at home among people who are nothing in particular. 

Ecumenical dialogue

Most people pray to God. They are not necessarily religious, going to church or a mosque, but they pray when things get rough. Even atheists turn to God when they are in serious trouble. I know because I'm of that kind. Maybe all people of all faiths, in reality, pray to the same God.

You label yourself as something. You are a Sunni or Shia Muslim, an orthodox Jew, a Protestant, or a Roman Catholic. You are an atheist, an agnostic, a die-hard conservative, a liberal, a leftist, or whatever. Why is it so hard, do you think, to be nothing special, simply a human being, a chump?

Determinism

I'm sitting in the kitchen and writing this in the middle of the night. My index finger moves over the keyboard, searching for the right key. Is it really me setting my molecules in motion, or are the molecules moving by themselves?

Monism

Dualism makes a distinction between body and soul. The body consists of matter, and the soul consists of a nonmaterial substance that lives on after death.

Most modern scientists believe that everything is physical. That may be true. But what if God, the souls, and the spirits are also made of mysterious physical stuff?

Maybe everything is real? Illusions, delusions, and fantasies. Ideas and beliefs, truths and untruths. Maybe all the thoughts that pop up in your head are parts of the cosmic creation?

We are not on the outside looking at the world. We are in the world. Everything that is happening is happening—the formation of stars and galaxies, rainbows, and butterflies. Meetings, warts, goats, and bananas. Everything is there.

The idea that underlying all the diversity is an oneness that you can experience is also an idea. The term pure consciousness implies that there is also impure consciousness. That is dualism. The distinction between Brahman and Maya is also dualism, much like Platonism.

You are not on a spiritual journey that eventually leads to awakening and the experience of oneness. You are here right now for some reason. In a minute, you will be somewhere else.

Free Will

Modern brain research has concluded that free will is an illusion. However, it can still be very tangible if you find yourself in a grocery store with a three-year-old. She is kicking and screaming her lungs out because she is denied the chocolate cookies she wants.

It may be that the scientists are right; we don't have a will of our own, and perhaps previous events determine everything. Maybe no one should be blamed for what they have done, not even the worst war criminals. However, you don't care what they find in the scientific laboratories if you shop for groceries with a furious three-year-old. You don't live in a laboratory; you live here in the everyday dimension.  

You don't know what is happening on the sub-atomic level; You don't know which genes are activated in your body on the biological level; you don't know what the angels and demons are up to; you don't know what's going on in your subconscious mind; You know what is happening here on the mundane level. And you have to make a decision.

Determined Life without free will Robert Sapolsky

Asifism

You have to live as if you have free will, as if life has meaning, as if you can do something to make the world a better place. The belief that free will is an illusion makes it harder to kick a bad habit. It makes it harder to do anything.

You have to live as if humankind will not perish in a nuclear war or because climate change will make this planet inhabitable.

You don't have to live as if there is a God somewhere who cares about you, but this belief can help you to endure and weather the storm.

The more you understand how the world really works, the more depressed you become. That's the reason why superstition, escapism, and delusions are helpful, and that's the reason why they have evolved and why they are ubiquitous.

Thoughts

The thoughts come from the brain, but they weren't there initially. You didn't learn to talk by yourself. You are not the one who invented the words in your vocabulary. You have learned what they mean and how to use them.

This means that your thoughts have been created somewhere outside your skull.

Your beliefs are thus not your own. You have picked them up from somewhere, from parents and peers, gurus and priests, philosophers and politicians, mainstream and alternative media. And, of course, they have also picked them up from somewhere.

Your self is, to a large extent, created from stuff outside of you.

A crucial point about genes related to brain function (well, pretty much all genes) is that the same gene variant will work differently, sometimes even dramatically, in different environments. This interaction between gene variants and variation in the environment means that, ultimately, you can't say what a gene" does," only what it does in each particular environment in which it has been studied.

Determined Life Without Free Will Robert Sapolsky 

The unknown

Humankind has acquired a lot of knowledge; science has made fabulous progress in the last 400 years. However, most of what there is to know is still unknown. For example, are there tons of universes out there, or is this one the only one? How did life come to be? What is matter really? What do the electrons and quarks consist of? What is dark matter and dark energy? What does a thought consist of? What does consciousness consist of? There are endless amounts of questions that we need answers to.

So, we have the part of the world that we know of and the gigantic part that we don't know anything about.

The unknown part of the world is a mystery to us, and we can't do anything but speculate about it. Here, we are all on equal footing: scientists and spiritual teachers, philosophers, and laypeople.

We don't know if life and suffering have a purpose, we don't know if the universe has a purpose, and we don't know if a God is hiding somewhere. We don't know how things really are.

We are like sailors in a small, rickety boat, in a heavy fog and uncharted waters.

"I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell. Possibly. It doesn't frighten me."

― Richard Feynman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvle4tfIelM  

Synchronicity

Synchronicities appear in different ways. One example is when you, for some reason, come to think of an old classmate you haven't met since high school thirty years ago, and then you suddenly bump into him in the afternoon.

Another example is when someone has a weird dream about a relative and later gets to know that he died in a car accident that particular night.

You can also wonder about a word or a concept you have never understood. Then suddenly, you find the answer in a stupid magazine you would never ordinarily open. You found the magazine on the bus, on the empty seat next to you, on your way home.

I think that the Santorini synchronicity was an exceptional kind of synchronicity. We did not know each other before, but we were connected through Isla Mujeres and Monica. Maybe also in some other mysterious way. But we were not supposed to get married and have a life together. Perhaps the purpose of that meeting was simply to open our eyes to the mystical dimension of life.

That meeting proved to me that there is a mystical dimension in the world. However, I am not at all interested in New Age stuff and YouTube spirituality. And I am not interested in religion. I am a die-hard skeptic. How can it be that almost all spirituality seems so silly and simplistic? (Not all.)

I am scientific-minded, but science dismisses spirituality as woo-woo. When Galileo offered the Inquisition authorities to have a look at the moon through his telescope, they refused to look. They were not interested; they knew he was wrong beforehand. Science today is like the 17th-century Catholic church.

Emergent properties

Looking for the meaning of life among electrons and protons is hopeless. You won't find it there. It's like looking for gold in the potato field. Nor will you find it in chromosomes or among nerve cells. Physicists and biologists have looked deeply into this, and they see no evidence for meaning in nature. So they claim that there is no meaning in life, really, because, ultimately, the world is nothing but atoms and molecules.

However, meaning, right and wrong, justice and evil exist among human beings on the human level.

You are not just your atoms and molecules.

Armageddon

World defense spending exceeds more than $2 trillion annually. But that is not enough; now, it is an extensive military rearmament that has the highest priority. The whole world is gearing up. The United States and England are investing heavily in developing new nuclear weapons. Russia and China naturally do not want to be left behind. Germany has decided to invest 100 billion euros in addition to the previous defense budget. All countries feel threatened, and all have legitimate security interests. The situation is beginning to resemble the arms race before the WWI. The fight against climate change is a low priority.

Only the military and their aides can present their views in the established media. Journalists and politicians listen and nod to them in concern. Now it's serious; now we must stand united. Now, it is not appropriate to question and problematize. Diplomacy and negotiations are out of the question.

This is madness. We must create a worldwide peace movement that begins to fight for disarmament. We need new agreements that limit the number of nuclear weapons. This is currently more important than the fight against climate change. If we fail, we will soon have no planet to try to save.

Don't be an idiot.

You can be fooled by religious or political leaders, self-help gurus, con artists, romance scammers, crypto coin investors, and telemarketers. Many people try to trick you; you are not even safe in your own home, and you can not even trust yourself. This is ridiculous. One part of your mind deceives you, and another part warns you about self-deceptions.

The masters of duplicity must be the politicians. Look at how impeccable they are, how well-meaning and well-groomed. The brutal war against civilians in that other country is, in fact, self-defense and a fight for a noble cause.

Spin doctors spin stories. They know what they are doing; they have studied the subject for years at top universities. And there is no way to judge whether the information you receive is accurate or disinformation. Both mainstream media and alternative media produce tons of bullshit.

So, what can we do? My advice is: Stop trusting politicians and religious leaders; stop trusting information from all media outlets. Maybe they have it right; perhaps they are just spinning a story. You don't know. Don't trust anybody, not even yourself. And, of course, don't trust me. You may eventually find the truth about a particular event or a subject, but it can take many years.

If you are not able to question beliefs, ideas, opinions, and facts, your own or those of others, you are doomed to get fooled. Fooled by yourself or someone else.

Communism

No sane person can call himself a communist these days after all the horrors that have been committed in the name of communism, but how is it that Christians still can call themselves Christians without shame? Christianity also has a terrible history: the Crusades, the Inquisition courts and witch trials, the oppression of women and children, and the staunch support of war-crazed kings and presidents. Every Sunday, the slave drivers in the American South went to church and sang hymns. "Si-i-lent night, ho-o-ly night."

The true self

If you have lost touch with your conscience, you have lost touch with your true self.

Psychopaths are not troubled by conscience; they don't even know what it is. Narcissists don't care or explain it away. Neurotics feel remorse, guilt, and shame, even for negligible offenses.

Agnosticism

If you have a science education, you can explain biological evolution, but you have no idea how it started. How did life originate here on Earth? The religious fundamentalists can't present any evidence for their grandiose fantasies, but neither can you.

We don't know where we are coming from, we don't know why we are here, and we don't know where we are heading.

Mindset

Once you have acquired a worldview, it is hard to get rid of. It gets wired into your brain. It's like when you have learned how to swim; you can not unlearn that knowledge. If you are thrown into the water, you will automatically start swimming.

So, what can you do if you, for some reason, have gotten an idiotic worldview? Maybe you have become a die-hard religious, political, or scientific fundamentalist; perhaps you are a selfish jerk or living in a fantasy land. What can you do?

Don't be a sucker

Blessed are the competitive and goal-oriented, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are the rich and famous. You are the light of the world.

Blessed are the cunning and clever.

...

Seize the day

All previous civilizations have collapsed; only ruins are left of them. Our civilization will also disappear. We will not solve the climate change problem. The emissions of greenhouse gases are rising despite all warnings from scientists and solemn speeches at international conferences. We all want cheap gasoline, cheap airfares, and tons of electronic gadgets. There is no future for humankind.

So, what shall we do? Well, there is nothing we can do, I think. We will not change our ways. We will keep doing what we have always done: we will do what we can to destroy this planet with our wars, greed, and madness. We are made this way. And we will continue to spin stories about our intelligence, superiority, and the importance of positive thinking.

Those who are able to understand this should jump off their bandwagon and try to enjoy life while they can. Life is an incomprehensible mystery.

Words

C.G. Jung coined the word synchronicity, but he did not discover this phenomenon. For thousands of years, people have experienced mystical events and meetings. Some have explained them as God, Gods, or the Devil, sometimes intervening in the natural course of events. Paul Kammerer used the word seriality in the early twentieth century; in India, Yogis use the word Yoga connection.

Most scientists regard these experiences as pseudoscience or delusions. What you can't prove or disprove in laboratory experiments are meaningless to discuss, they say; such events belong to the realm of theology, metaphysics, or psychiatry. This stance is understandable; you must leave out inconsistencies to make your worldview consistent. Sweep them under the rug so they don't bother you.

However, not just scientists ignore things to make their worldview consistent and understandable; we all do. It is uncomfortable to question one's own worldview.

The inner voice

Psychopaths have no conscience. They have no inner voice telling them what they are doing is wrong, and they don't feel guilt or remorse. Narcissists have a damaged or twisted conscience. Neurotics constantly feel guilt and shame whatever they do or don't do. Healthy people beat themselves up when they have done something wrong. The idea that one must ignore or silence the inner voice with meditation or self-hypnosis in order to wake up is unhelpful advice.

Another aspect of the inner voice is that it produces lots of small talk, commentaries, and explanations, even silly little songs and poems. This mind chatter should not be ignored either, I think. How can you listen to someone else if you can't even listen to yourself?

You have two eyes. They scan these letters and convert them into electrical nerve impulses, which make their way into your brain like a failed New Year's fireworks in pouring rain. (Maybe it's not you who has a brain; perhaps it's a brain that has you.)

Reading is a mystical rite, but you don't experience it as such. You're so used to reading. Think a little. In some incomprehensible way, these letters are converted into an inner voice you can clearly hear inside your skull. Isn't this amazing?

If you listen closely, you can hear that this voice has a dialect and a tone that you recognize. Yes, this is your voice, but it has now been temporarily taken over by me.

Synchronicity, chance with a meaning

Sometimes, you bump into someone and think: How the hell did this happen? I was thinking of her just a minute ago. I haven't seen her for over thirty years, and now she's suddenly here. Jung called this phenomenon synchronicity.

Sometimes, you bump into someone you have never met before and realize that this meeting is not just about meeting someone. It is something much more important. You can feel it. You know it. You may think that this must be your soul mate. Maybe it is. Or, maybe it is not.

Maybe you are supposed to marry this person, maybe you aren't. Perhaps you are soul mates, but you are not supposed to get married. Still, you are connected in some mysterious way. What is all this about?

Sometimes, you bump into someone you don't want to meet and have tried hard to avoid. And now you meet him here, of all places. What's going on? This is ridiculous.

You can also have a synchronistic meeting with a dangerous person, a psychopath, or a narcissist, and you get played. Later, you may wonder what that meeting was about. Was it arranged in some mysterious way to make you learn something about yourself? Or was it a punishment?

However, primarily, a chance meeting is just a regular chance meeting.

Why do meaningful chance meetings, or synchronicities, come about? You can never know for sure.

Apophenia is the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things. The term was coined by psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in his 1958 publication on the beginning stages of schizophrenia. He defined it as "unmotivated seeing of connections accompanied by a specific feeling of abnormal meaningfulness." Wikipedia

According to the invisible ships myth, when European explorers' ships approached either North America, South America, or Australia, the appearance of their large ships was so foreign to the native people that they could not even see the vessels in front of them. Wikipedia

Some people can see things that don't exist; others can't see things that do.

Questions

Did you choose your path, or did you end up on it? Are you all alone on your journey, or do you have company? Have you ever befriended someone else along the way who later decided to leave you? Have you ever considered turning around and going back? Have you ever abandoned a travel companion? Do you trust your gut feelings? Do you trust someone else's gut feelings? Do you follow advice from a spiritual teacher or a life coach?

Are you a stranger to yourself? Are you an enemy of yourself? Are you sick and tired of yourself? Are you pleased with yourself? 

Why did the biological evolution come about? Why did the first prokaryotic cell evolve? What kind of force is driving the evolution?

Why is there something rather than nothing? Is the universe really a massive explosion? What was exploding, do you think? Nothing?

How can you be so damn sure that you picked the right way? Or the wrong way? Or that I picked the wrong way? Did you choose the way, or was it selected for you?

What do you expect to find at the end of your journey?

Dishonesty

It is not just politicians who lie; all people lie, and everyone pretends honesty is essential. Even priests and policemen lie. We hear about this almost daily. You know that people lie. This is not big news. Therefore, you shouldn't trust yourself either.

So, if all people lie to themselves and others, this must mean that lying is a natural human trait. But why are you then ashamed when you lie? And why do you get upset when other people are lying to you? What if the birds were sorry they could fly?

Robert Trivers thinks that self-deception has an evolutionary origin. He says that if you can convince yourself that you are better than you are, you can more easily deceive others. Your scam becomes more challenging to expose if you believe it yourself.

Here's another hypothesis I've come up with: Reality is too unpleasant to live in. It's like a winter's day in a biting wind and snow slush. You have to find some kind of mental escape.

It's nice to share a bottle of wine or two with a friend, but drinking a bottle or two every day can turn you into a drunkard. You can't always be sincere, but lying too much and too often can also turn you into an unpleasant jerk.

Choose sides

”No one can serve two masters: Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Matthew 6:24

Regardless of what kind of Christian you are, you have to choose sides. (Prosperity theology is not a Christian faith.)

This also applies to other forms of spirituality. You can not be both a spiritual seeker and a social climber striving for money and power. You have to choose which path to take.

Even those not religiously or spiritually inclined have to make up their mind. Are you a careerist? Do you believe that competition is good? Do you think that all that counts is money? Does it not matter to you which mountain you climb as long as you become someone with other people to look down upon?

Telepathic waves

Not so few people have experienced synchronicities or telepathic phenomena. Does this mean that your mind is not confined to inside your skull?

Your eyes detect photons, and your ears detect waves in the air, but what part of you detects telepathic signals? And what is a telepathic signal?

Are we connected somehow, also without telephones or the Internet?

What if some of your thoughts and emotions are not created in your brain?

What if all of your thoughts and emotions are created somewhere outside of you? The brain may be some kind of receiver, some speculate.

Why do so many stupid, silly, and nasty thoughts arise in the brain? Have someone hacked our minds?

Evolution

What if God is a kind of scientist? Maybe he created a single cell in his laboratory some 3,5 billion years ago. He may have made a lot of cells, but only one of them survived and multiplied.

A billion years later, he mixed up cells that had evolved and managed to create an eukaryotic cell. Only one of these experiments was successful; only one of those cells survived.

Six hundred million years ago, he managed to create multicellular organisms from these eukaryotic cells. Multicellular organisms evolved, and biological robots with intelligence slowly emerged.

Some of these robots developed their own will, and God lost control of his creations, like the boffins of today who lose control of their organisms which escape their laboratories and create havoc.

The Placebo effect

Both the red pill and the blue are sugar pills.

Ordinary men

On the thirteenth of July 1942, the German Reserve Battalion 101 in Lublin executed 1,500 Jewish women, children and the elderly. The battalion leader, Wilhelm Trapp, was a wise man. He offered the men who did not want to participate in the mission to step aside and promised not to punish them. He understood that some of them would not be able to shoot children without making a fool of themselves. Twelve men out of five hundred accepted the offer. What do you think was decisive when these twelve men made their decisions? And what were the motivations that influenced the other 488 men? Was the genes making the decisions, or was it their worldview?

Ordinary Men Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland By Christopher R. Browning

Actors

There have always been people who have lived outside of society: loners and fugitives, thugs, partisans, and spiritual seekers. In ancient times they hid in deep forests or in the mountains, but nowadays, it's hard to find a place where we can be in peace. That's why we stay here. Some perish, others blend in with the crowd and pretend to be ordinary citizens, much like homosexuals were forced to do in the old days.

Outside views

10-15% of all adults are social misfits. They have a personality disorder, severe substance abuse problems, or some mental illness. But some misfits have no serious mental problems; they simply don't want to be a part of society. We belong to a small group, but we exist. Is it possible, do you think, to find an evolutionary explanation for this strange behavior?

Labels

You label yourself as something. You are Sunni or Shiite, humanist or Pentecostal, liberal or conservative. You belong to an ethnic group or a clan, a tribe or a gang. You have an identity. You are Jewish or Greek, Arab or American. Why is it so hard, do you think, just to be human?

The map and the territory

It's better to have a map that doesn't agree with the territory than no map at all. You feel more secure, your health is better, and you have more friends. This is confirmed in many well-conducted studies.

Faith

Even though the United States has by far the world's most significant military power and even though they received help from several other countries, the Taliban became an overpowering opponent. The Taliban have pretty much nothing but their faith. Faith can move mountains. Doubt, on the other hand, makes us insecure and neurotic.

Belonging without believing or believing without belonging

Some people call themselves Christians, but they refuse to turn the other cheek, and they prefer to store up for themselves treasures on earth - in tax havens.

Democracy

In the 2020 US presidential election, 74 million Americans voted for Trump, and 81 million voted for Biden. 79 million did not bother to vote. For them, it didn't matter who became president. It would make no difference to them and their life situation. And many of those who voted for Biden were very negative about him, but they felt that the alternative was even worse. Many would rather have voted for Bernie Sanders.

In the second round, in the last French presidential election, 18.8 million French voted for Macron, 13.3 million voted for Marine LePen, and 13.6 million did not vote. 2.2 million voted blankly. And many of those who voted for Macron resented him deeply and voted for him solely to prevent LePen from coming to power.

When Italians went to the polls last year, 7.3 million voted for Giorgia Meloni. 16.6 million did not bother to vote.

I have also stopped voting. I don't care anymore.

To swim against the stream is as foolish as following it. The only sensible thing is trying to get ashore.

The multitude

How did Hitler become what he became? He was also a cute little kid when he was little. Did his father abuse him? Did an evil spirit take possession of him? Was he a malignant narcissist? What does it matter? Isn't the most crucial question why so many people began to worship him?

Outsiders

We who no longer belong anywhere often feel lonely. That's why we, too, have formed an association, a secret society. But we have no leader, no doctrine to follow, and no special meeting places. We don't wear any signs of our affiliation, no silly hats or necklaces. We recognize each other when we happen to meet.

Jump off the bandwagon

You don't have to adhere to a religion or political ideology. You don't have to be a right-winger for the rest of your life just because you happen to be a right-winger right now. You don't have to be a Marxist, a religious fundamentalist, or a follower of a spiritual teacher. It's possible to drop out and simply be a human being.

Many former cult members have left their cult despite losing all their friends. There are alcoholics who have stopped drinking and smokers who have quit smoking. There are even careerists who have resigned from their top jobs in business to have more time for family life.

The horse doesn't need the rider; it's the rider who needs the horse.

What if also you have been deceived? What if everything you believe in and live for is misconceptions, or worse, pure idiocy? It's not impossible, on the contrary. Throughout history, people have always been deceived into one thing or another, which later turned out to be misconceptions or sheer idiocy.

Prosperity theology

Some evangelical Christians say that God is beyond anything you can imagine. OK, I accept that argument. They also say that life is so extremely complex and mysterious that it can not possibly have come about through random chemical reactions. I can understand this idea as well. However, where are all their extreme right-wing political views coming from, their love of the arms industry, their love of money, and success? Where in the New Testament do they find such ideas?

Agnosticism

There are so many different ideas about God; one is crazier than the other. There are many different kinds of Christianity, many different kinds of Hinduism, and many different kinds of Islam. All believe they have it right, and the others have got it wrong. But this fact does not prove there is no God; that belief in God is a delusion. Maybe there is a God somewhere, but nobody knows anything about him (or her). Maybe God is, in reality, an alien civilization that studies us as if we were some kind of laboratory rats.

God

God ordered the Israelites to exterminate the people of Canaan. He ordered the Crusaders to slaughter the people in Jerusalem and the Americans to invade Iraq. He has persuaded thousands of selected Muslims to blow themselves and their fellow human beings into pieces.

Intelligent design

If God created this world, why did he make it so horrible? Cancer, ALS, leprosy... natural disasters, excruciating pain, and suffering?

Perhaps a good and benevolent God created this world, but evil forces toppled him.

Maybe the world created itself - by chance; perhaps there is no designer.

In the beginning, there was nothing. Did the world also create God, the devil, and all the angels in the Big Bang?

Neti neti

If you are a fentanyl addict, you have lost touch with your true self; likewise, if you are obsessed with a political ideology or a religious cult. You can also be lost because you are convinced you are a spiritually awakened being. You may be filled with hatred or bewitched by the idea that you must, at all costs, get rich. You may have a personality disorder or suffer from neurotic guilt and shame. There are endless possibilities to lose touch with oneself. Where do all these crazy ideas come from?

I am not a right-winger, not a left-winger, and not something in between.

I am not a believer, not an atheist, not an agnostic.

I am not a materialist, not an idealist, not a nihilist.

...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neti_neti

You are stuck in a rut, but the wheel tracks have not been made by you. Many people have traveled this road before you.

Transgenderism and transhumanism

Have you been born in the wrong body? No problem. The doctors can fix this—first surgery and then hormonal treatment. A boy can be turned into a girl and a girl into a boy. Gender is just a social construct. You decide who you are, not nature, not society.

Are your serotonin or dopamine levels too low? This can also be fixed. Your ears, your nose, your mindset, everything can be corrected.

Life sucks. Get yourself a VR headset. The kingdom of virtual heaven is there for you. You no longer need to fantasize or smoke dope. Suffering is for losers.

You can be the one you want to be; you can be wealthy and successful; you can be wonderful. You don't have to be poor and miserable. You can be a hero. It's up to you if you want to sleep under a bridge or in a mansion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLXdoqXbC6k

War

Human history is the history of war, thousands of years of horrors, atrocities, and brutality. This king or that king is fighting some other crazy king or emperor. His subjects do all the dirty work. They do whatever they are told to do; they have no will of their own. Democracy didn't change anything. Nowadays, all the horrors are perpetrated in the name of freedom, women's rights, rules-based international order, preemptive self-defense, or some other noble cause, anything but power.

Iraq, Syria, Libya, Vietnam, Russia, Ukraine...

WWI, WWII, WWIII...

The thirty-years War, The Peloponnesian War, The Troian War...

There is absolutely no hope for humankind.

To make life bearable, try to find and hold on to a pleasant fantasy of your liking. Try self-hypnosis, positive thinking, medication, distraction, or meditation, something that works for you. Get yourself a hobby.

The Hard problem

Consciousness is a hard problem for many neuroscientists and philosophers. Other brain scientists and philosophers don't consider consciousness a hard problem. To them, consciousness is just regular brain activity: firing neurons, electricity, and neurotransmitters.

To my mind, everything is a hard problem: consciousness, matter, electrons, and quarks, the Big Bang. Are there really tons of universes out there? Are we living in an explosion?

What is a rainbow? What does it consist of? Does a rainbow really exist if no one is there who sees it?

What is a magnetic field? What kind of substance is a magnetic field made of? 

What is a thought? What are thoughts made of?

Do you have a brain, or is it the brain that has you? What difference does it make for you in your life?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5DfnIjZPGw

Jesus

If Jesus came back today, where do you think you would find him? In the Vatican? In an American mega-church? In Westminster Abbey?

What do you think he would have to say about the super-rich? All of them are Christians; wouldn't he be pleased about that?

And what would he say about all the philanthropists and donors to charity? Would he bless them? What do you think?

What would he say about the bishops in their wonderful costumes and all the evangelical pastors in Gucci shoes and private jets?

What would he think about you and your lifestyle?

Duality

If life is eternal, if there is an infinite spiritual world, a wonderful world filled with light and love, angels and rainbows, what is the purpose of this world of flesh and bones?

Truthtellers

Evangelicals and atheists don't get along, nor do Sunni and Shia Muslims, Jews and Palestinians, right-wingers and left-wingers, vegans and meat eaters, environmentalists and climate change deniers, drunkards and teetotallers, spiritual seekers and materialistic realists...

We belong to different tribes; we sing different songs and dress up in different costumes. We read different books and trust different teachers. It's not about right or wrong; it's about beliefs in what is right or wrong, different mindsets, different castles in the air. Not even scientists agree. 

Have you ever tried to convince a devout neo-nazi that he is an idiot or a neurotic that he should stop pitying himself? Have you ever tried to question your own deeply held beliefs? 

How can you be so sure that you are right and everyone else is wrong?

Escapism

Bullshit will never wake you up: finding your true eternal self, loving yourself, being successful, living in the never-ending present, positive thinking, non-duality, having faith in Jesus Christ or the prophet Muhammed, being saved by some crazy evangelical pastor or some nutty spiritual teacher from California.

Lying to yourself and others will never bring about healing. Eventually, you will have to deal with yourself. Chasing rainbows is a lost cause. Yoga, breathing exercises, and jogging are like kicking the can down the street.

Why is it so damn hard for you to simply be what you are, a human being among billions of other bewildered human beings? Why do you so desperately have to pretend that you are someone else? Why are you so eager to jump on a bandwagon, any bandwagon? Or do you flee into the online world, the virtual reality? Are you sick and tired of yourself; are you afraid that you might be the boogeyman?

Victim mentality

You did not select your parents. You did not choose your temperament. You did not choose the early childhood experiences that programmed your personality. You did not choose to be a loser, a fool, or a wonderful middle-class liberal. You can not make a difference in this crazy unjust world. You are a helpless slave under the circumstances. You don't want to get out of bed. Pull a blanket over your head and go back to sleep.