There are two realities.

There are two realities

Life can be broken down into two realities. The first is the reality in which a vast majority of people in this world experience, or more accurately, choose to acknowledge. It involves activities such as, going to work, paying your bills, having your friends over on the weekends, and doing your best to find menial pleasures between periods of labor. Active participants of this reality can be identified very easily. They can regularly be observed numbing themselves in front of a television (this they do in place of actually experiencing adventure). They, by and large, accept what those in positions of privilege and leadership tell them. Most unquestionably rationalize what their doctors, politicians, teachers, media personnel, and religious leaders tell them. Ultimately, decisions are made for them, because that is what is best. They weren’t always like this, at one time they were children with imaginations. The world was an undiscovered playground that had many marvels and secrets to discover. But that was a long time ago, and those silly notions have long since been forgotten. As a result, many end up medicating themselves by utilizing one of many readily available prescriptions for “anti-depression” drugs. This depression (unbeknownst to them) is a direct result of their surrender to a life-long sentence of monotony and slumber. This reality is I will label: sleepwalking.

Then, there is another reality; this reality is much harsher than the first. Those who experience this reality I will refer to as: awake. For whatever reason, those experiencing the “awake” reality have rebelled against what is referred to as ‘normal’. They sometimes find themselves questioning even the most simple of ideas. Oftentimes, they have a hard time understanding how the sleepwalkers could ingest and validate so much obvious non-sense. This perception of reality can be difficult because the “awake” can easily feel like they don’t belong, or are out of place. They are surrounded by an overwhelming majority of zombie-like sleepwalkers. Sometimes they attempt to communicate with the sleepwalkers. They passionately attempt to convey their message, but more often than not, their words fall on deaf ears. Although they refuse to treat life as though it is a prison, the world they live in is not necessarily equipped to provide them with the opportunity they seek. So painfully, they must in part accept some of the sleepwalker’s reality. For now, it is necessary for their existence. After all, survival is key, but they remain hopeful. After all, the world can’t just keep on plodding along like this, can it?

Is anyone else frustrated with the system that we live in? We are enslaved by currency. A rat race to which the finish line is death. What happened to all the things that we wanted to do when we were young? There was so much that we wanted to do, to build, to explore. I know that my priorities have changed. I refuse to someday find myself on my deathbed and realize that the life I lived wasn’t my own. I will be able to look back and feel like I got the most of my opportunity. This change in thinking starts now.



[edit on 20-4-2010 by lambs to lions]

In Arnold Mindell Ph.D's book Quantum Mind: The Edge Between Physics & Psychology there's an interesting discussion of "consensus and non-consensus" reality.

Both are real. (And there are likely others...) The challenge is which do you find yourself in consensus with...

yes- Nagarjuna spoke of the Two Truths which became a part of essential Buddhism.
there is the conventional truth wherein all things are composed of other things, and are constantly changing- forming and breaking down all the time. this allows for the "law of cause and effect"
the second truth is the "Ultimate Truth" where things are more absolute and we can talk about things like "emptiness" and "Nirvana" (or in the case of ATS...."Nerdvana" hahaha!)

Buddhism is the Middle Way between the two truths.

[edit on 20-4-2010 by IandEye]

It's driving me absolutely nuts as I try to attempt to nail down a solid path (or many) to take as a profession and way to scratch out a living. Lets face it - there is no ATS in the wild and I don't think i'd be prepared for such a lifestyle yet. Ignorance is bliss while the world disintegrates.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c9e15b40e477.jpg[/atsimg]

Nice post mate

reply to post by GhostR1der


I've had the same problem. I am by other peoples opinions a hard worker of above average intelligence. The problem is finding something that you feel is important to invest your time working on. I have no desire to line someone elses pockets with the fruits of my labor. My whole life I have struggled with what my calling is. I still don't know. I do know that I've always felt like there was something 'big' that I am to be apart of. I've always had apocalyptic dreams of world war and violence. I don't know what, but I pray that there is something important that I'm to be involved with.

Check out Debord's 'Society of the Spectacle' and Baudrillard's 'Simulacra and Simulation'. Also Plato and Aristotle's work on 'Art as Imitation'. Basically, the reality will live in today is a self sustaining pseudo-reality driven by product prepossession and commodity fetish. Those who have infected our reality with this simulated reality have themselves been deceived into thinking we are living in the one reality.
Those who are awake, those who are enlightened are aware of this fallacy of a reality we live in, but it is almost impossible to escape it, unless we completely separate ourselves from society. If enough people become enlightened, then perhaps the world will have a chance of destroying this imitative spectacle we live in.

I find being awake both wonderful and frustrating. It's not fun seeing the lights of the oncoming train and grabbing at everyone close to you and hollering, come on, the train is coming, don't you see it. Knowing full well that they don't.

I had to leave a dinner party recently because of similar frustration. I went thinking wow, I can't wait to see the gang and have a serious conversation with intelligent adults.

There was so much going on, then as now, that I figured would make such interesting conversation. Much to my chagrin all that was coming out of the mouths of these guys I was talking to was Yankees this, Giants that, she's hot, she's not, yadda yadda yadda....

I was beside myself with the fact that I was derailed at each turn when trying to change the subject to something that actually effects us directly.

Just like people have been trained to avoid making eye contact with others, they have also been told how to act when someone not on cruise control opens their mouth.

These days, I quietly tend to looking at ways to make a more sustainable lifestyle. Vegetable gardening, chicken raising, rain water collection, canning.

I figure, I don't need to wake them up so much as just be ready to share food and water after TBPTB make TSHTF and the bullets run out, lol...

My Father In Law loves to tell me how I am full of useless information. I keep telling him, oh yeah, keep reading your Dan Brown books and maybe one day you'll catch up. Frigging Chucklehead... Seems they don't get it unless they're spoon fed the pablum like babies! And come to think of it, it's a shame to put them in the same category as babies as babies are definitely more awake. It's we and our hassle free zone that shut them down.

I'll not be voting come November anymore either. How much history does one have to learn before they figure out that for the last hundred years we've been voting for change that never comes.

Those of us that are awake need to turn as far away from the system as possible in every area of our lives where it can be done.

If we continue to keep our feet in both realities, we may never get to see humans in their natural state. Now that we're awake, we need to focus on solutions that allow for the distribution of the abundance we find ourselves living in on this absolutely wonderful planet.

Originally posted by HIStory Indeed

I find being awake both wonderful and frustrating. It's not fun seeing the lights of the oncoming train and grabbing at everyone close to you and hollering, come on, the train is coming, don't you see it. Knowing full well that they don't.

The way you put that is oh too familiar to me. I have felt that way many times.

There was so much going on, then as now, that I figured would make such interesting conversation. Much to my chagrin all that was coming out of the mouths of these guys I was talking to was Yankees this, Giants that, she's hot, she's not, yadda yadda yadda....

Exactly, none of that stuff even matters. People seem to be consumed with nonsense of unimportance.

These days, I quietly tend to looking at ways to make a more sustainable lifestyle. Vegetable gardening, chicken raising, rain water collection, canning.

Yeah, I'm beginning to do the same things. I don't really like going out much either. More of a homebody. I like having friends over, don't really have many of them that are as aware as me.

I figure, I don't need to wake them up so much as just be ready to share food and water after TBPTB make TSHTF and the bullets run out, lol...

That's the truth, and it will be one hell of a "I told you SO!"

I suspect these are the concepts that you are struggling to verbalize.

Nietzsche addresses the concept of simulacrum (but does not use the term) in The Twilight of the Idols, suggesting that most philosophers, by ignoring the reliable input of their senses and resorting to the constructs of language and reason, arrive at a distorted copy of reality. Modern French social theorist Jean Baudrillard argues that a simulacrum is not a copy of the real, but becomes truth in its own right: the hyperreal.

en.wikipedia.org...

Simulacra and Simulation is most known for its discussion of images, signs, and how they relate to the present day. Baudrillard claims that postmodern society has replaced all reality and meaning with symbols and signs, and that the human experience is of a simulation of reality rather than reality itself. The simulacra that Baudrillard refers to are signs of culture and media that create the perceived reality; Baudrillard believed that society has become so reliant on simulacra that it has lost contact with the real world on which the simulacra are based.

Simulacra and Simulation identifies three types of simulacra and identifies each with a historical period:

1. First order, associated with the pre-modern period, where the image is clearly an artificial placemarker for the real item.
2. Second order, associated with the industrial Revolution, where distinctions between image and reality break down due to the proliferation of mass-produced copies. The item's ability to imitate reality threatens to replace the original version.
3. Third order, associated with the postmodern age, where the simulacrum precedes the original and the distinction between reality and representation breaks down. There is only the simulacrum.

Baudrillard theorizes that the lack of distinctions between reality and simulacra originates in several phenomena:

1. Contemporary media including television, film, print and the Internet, which are responsible for blurring the line between goods that are needed and goods for which a need is created by commercial images.
2. Exchange value, in which the value of goods is based on money rather than usefulness.
3. Multinational capitalism, which separates produced goods from the plants, minerals and other original materials and the processes used to create them.
4. Urbanization, which separates humans from the natural world.
5. Language and ideology, in which language is used to obscure rather than reveal reality when used by dominant, politically powerful groups.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by And Why


Thanks for your input. I wasn't familar with these concepts. The things I wrote in my thread are merely my own observations, though there are similarities. I haven't read any of Nietzsche's work, but I've been meaning to.

OMG !

I can't believe that the experiences I read on this thread are a perfect resemblance of my own.

I'm also a hard worker. ( At work only ) I'm definitely way above the intelligence I encounter in most people and what I see on TV.

It's as if... like... There are a number of shows on TV where I actualy have to be drunk just to think it's funny.

But most of all. It's really all about the lies. The easy acceptance for apologies that offer nothing more then. " OK, it was me. If it's bothering you so much. I apologize. Next time I'll do it again. Mmmkay.

The crimes to humanity by the US. Britain. The Netherlands and so on.
Really public execution would be the easy way out.

But no !

Nothing happens at all.

I'll have to add.
Don't push it. There are times when everything looks like a conspiracy. Times like that should be treated with a little time of the conspiracy road.

Believe me it will easy up the mind and will return or keep you grounded with two feet at the time. A fresh look on reality keeps you save from your imagination O. D ing on you.

Good post Star and flagged.

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


Yeah, I am coming off as a little depressing in this thread.. But no, I'm not new to this line of thinking. I'm not over-dosing on conspiracy and paranoia. This is more about the masses of society numbing themselves on the unimportant. Asleep at the wheel, so to speak. "Its okay that you work 55 hours a week at a job you hate because the new episode of 'House' is on tonight." Or, I've traded in my dreams for this mortgage and car payments. That doesn't necessarily describe me, but it used to. Anyway, thanks for your input.