A Little Gripp on Reality

“Many of us have been lying to ourselves for so long that our comforting illusions and rationalizations have assumed a patina of truth we clutch them to our hearts the way a child clutches a favorite teddy bear… there is no limit to the defenses we contrive against the in break of truth into our lives.” Brennan Manning

The greatest temptation of this age is illusion. To be right without education, to receive credit without earning it, to achieve as if no effort was put forth, to appear to be good without being good, to be inspired without having any hope, to love without responsibility, to be loved without loving others more than yourself. We question how we know what is real and what truly matters in light of subjectivism? We ascribe value to pursuits overflowing with the lack of significance inherent in immediate satisfaction. It bleeds into all facets of society. The suffering can even lead to knowing yourself, interpreted through personal illusion of reality. Today, people convince themselves of false reality so completely that they become unable to distinguish what they truly experienced from what they made up.

Adding weight to the illusion is entitlement and its manifestations of desire being viewed as need. We are so accustomed to the experience of our illusion that we renounce our need for acceptance by the whole of society and replace it with a desire to have the community “need” us – due to the weight of right in our personal reality. And in this, our society suffers: Placing self importance above the societal basis of what is acceptable and our over inflated view of our position leads to misidentification of who we are. We are human. We are all passengers on this spinning orb of inhabitants. The whole is made up of individuals, which are the vessels of the society’s strength, yet as the individualistic nature of the society as a whole becomes greater, its demise is soon to follow. The success of the whole is dependent on the whole remaining worthy of each individual and their effort. And in this, comes satisfaction in the essence of community: A group where definition and societal mores find favor in those who are willing to leave the private illusion of self, and join something greater than the sum of one human. These will be the men and women who find contentment in their existence. These are the King Jrs, who lived the belief of equality; the Franklins who yearned for freedom and knew the joy of self-governing. These are the sisters of Mother Theresa who embrace the fallen on the streets of Calcutta; who understand a life spent on bettering the whole of mankind, who know the peace central to the giving of themselves to others, who experience a purpose and validation which transcends the menial.