Disillusion

I try my best to write with a certain flow and with a certain lyrical-ness, with the hope that each word and phrase and sentence dances with rhythm and with the hope that it paints the same pictures of emotion and comfort that I’m feeling when I am writing.

This works better when I am writing about deep, heavy thoughts, where ordinarily the words would sink and stick to the sides like mud. I also like the idea of story telling that is lyrical and vivid - to paint with magic and feelings rather than with logic and structure.

I begin this reflection with that admission because despite the themes I write about, I do actively try to add a certain beauty to it, and sometimes when talking about such dark themes the only way to not lose yourself is to look at the ideas with an almost poetic prose. And I say this now, because the purpose of this reflection, is very much not to aim for that prose but to cut straight to the point.

And that’s not to say that I won’t use some colour here - I will still be writing about emotion, and to write about emotion is to put words and letters to feelings that cannot be adequately defined by words alone.

I discovered a truth a few weeks ago that changed the course of my writing as well as my outlook and direction of and in life. I have never shied away from not giving solutions, and I don’t propose to explain more; beyond explaining that I decided not to explain it. This discovery coincided with reconnecting with a part of myself that I had not allowed to exist - whether through fear or social conditioning. Even times when I had thought I was truly opening myself to the world and to the feelings that come with it, parts of me and my conditioning were getting in the way - preventing that final release or leap of faith.

Pushing beyond that conditioning I found myself with a sense of direction, and a pull, towards a feeling - a feeling of warmth and serenity, of the feeling of home. And when I speak of that feeling of home, I don’t mean it in the feeling of being at your childhood home (or certainly it’s not the feeling I experienced in my childhood home), but rather the feeling of home one would write poetically about; of complete acceptance and grounding, of relaxing into a sofa, of true understanding, of bliss and joy.

It’s a feeling that I started moving towards - and where it wasn’t to be found, I actively did not like.

The problem of clarity is the ability to see and think beyond, and so despite moving towards this feeling of home - as though a beacon on the horizon; invariably I find myself overcome with thoughts and feelings of everything else. I say everything, because everything is what I mean. It’s not my lazy writing, but a sincere description of my mind being overcome by everything.

And so, cutting beyond the words and the imagery, I find myself disillusioned with people.

I can see the world for what it is and the systems that are designed to entrap and work us. Whilst once I would get caught up by the political arguments and dogma, I can see the systems that are put in place over the course of human history; they rise and fall, but the theory remains - to conquer and control, and to take man’s obsession with greed and power to new uncomfortable heights with each iteration of the system.

I acknowledge the issue and the truth that I can see is that when faced with the choice of how to play the system, the answer is to stand up and play somewhere else. To fight a closed and rigged system from within in to take part in and play with the system; irrespective of good intentions, you are designed to fail. You are expected to choose between investing your money in banks and financial systems in return for an above inflation return - and if not the value of your money diminishes without you do anything; the price you pay is giving the same institutions and companies leverage to continue ravishing and exploiting.

I see and understand this. Even if one system failed, another would take it’s place. The selfishness of mankind is unrivaled, and you cannot defeat evil or greed without sinking to the same depths, and it is often here where bad actors are allowed to thrive - those with morals cannot allow themselves to act in such a way that they become immoral, even if the outcome is beneficial to all. And that, again, is the design of the system - it ensures that those people who can and are willing to yield to moral judgment are never held accountable except through monumental revolution.

I get this.

What I increasingly become disillusioned with, is actions of those to allow such systems and and bad actors to thrive, despite knowing what is happening.

It is easy to look at people who should know better and to explain away their actions and ignorance with a lack of intelligence. It’s the easy option; and the first stumbling block. Anyone on the receiving end of such a critique instantly finds it insulting or demeaning or that it simplifies problems. And whilst it may be the case to a degree, explaining people in such a way gives them the benefit of doubt, that perhaps they don’t deserve.

It is convenient for people to not understand, or to push away explanations with the feign of discontentment or a general lack of care. When someone is frustrated and argues someone lacks the intelligence, it suggests that they simply do not know better; when the truth is, that they either do, or they should do. People are capable, and offering people an “out” through lack of intelligence is an act of empathy and naivety - it is put out there with the hope that mankind is ignorant, not through their own choosing, but because that’s just the way they are.

The fact is, people do know better, and rather, it is a lack of care and an excess of self-interest and laziness. The systems in place will tell us that people act in self-interest as a part of self-preservation; that they act and vote out of fear and disillusionment. Their callous lack of care for others is not a reflection of them or their nature, but rather, an acting out and understandable reaction to their own bad fortune and ill treatment at the hand of the world.

These excuses and reasons for not calling out the disillusioned who act with such incredulous selfishness actively pave the way for further decline and a further descent to division and torment - and that is by design as the only winners from such chaos are those at the very top looking down.

Willful ignorance or willful participation because of selfish means is worse than simple ignorance, and those disillusioned or affected by the system who seek to share misery and misfortune to others despite being victims themselves, make them worse than simple conspirators.

Refusal to tell the truth or to see the problems for what they are is to be complicit in the lies that so many people are comfortable to sit with. The systems that constantly confine us are one thing, but my fear is that the real epidemic is that far too many people are happy to partake and are happy to revel in the decline of liberties and freedoms enjoyed by themselves and others through pure callousness.

Things are designed in such way that calling out these people is seen as an attack, and so the downward spiral will continue indefinitely until the total collapse and mutual destruction of everyone involved, but those at the very top. This descent to pure adulterated ambivalence and worse yet, active hatred and deliberate acts of making life worse for others, is a snowball that we seem unwilling or unable to call out - and the systems cannot be the true dilemma when it is the proactive and willful neglect of individuals involved or spread the hate and animosity.

Of course, there are reasons for why people act in their own self interests, and invariably there are reasons why people act to their own detriment. Of course, a sympathetic answer can be given and historians can look back and point to the why’s and how’s that people reject facts and goodness for spite; but at what point are we allowed to draw a line and hold people responsible?

The answer, it seems, is either when it’s too late or not at all.

I said at the beginning that I do not shy away from not presenting solutions; and I don’t have one now. I am at peace with the fact that I do not need to be the one to find a solution. My truth is that I simply do not want to play; and so I will reject the system for what it is.

It is not naivety to rely on hope that people have enough goodness in their hearts that things will change - that is the soft human nature that the world needs. My problem is that I am disillusioned as to whether the softness of those people who can see the destructive path and selfishness of those engaging in the system, is enough to stop the rot.

I wonder whether the appropriate action is to be more honest with those who are willfully complicit and refuse to help themselves. We cannot wait for the world to wake up, when they are in fact alive and contributing to the fire themselves. If the system is designed to exploit and the masses are content to be exploited, then our duty is to not save them, but to withdraw ourselves from the game entirely.

I have my direction, and I know the feeling that I need to pursue. I know that I am not content to engage with the system and play the same games that only empower a few.