There is an idea behind surrealism. That you can put two unrelated images together and the mind will make sense of them. It’s true, and we have.

We have in today’s culture accepted something even more toxic than a surrealist model of reality. We have instead accepted sweeping generalities that get synthesized into a subjective model that bleeds much of the spirit out of our lives. Gives us cold comfort in place of the pain of experience digested in a personal way. This is why the answer to all mental/spiritual issues seems to be medication, at least as far as the social consensus is concerned.

We have this mysterious struggle in our lives for a reason. Despite the ruthless efficiency of institutions in their efforts to sustain “realism”, reality refuses to conform.

That is such a falsehood. Medication seems to lead only to more medication. It does, which suits the current paradigm just fine, feeds the economy. The old traditions used to perform a vital role in human life. Although their scope may have been limited, and they may have zealously preserved some seriously defective thinking, at their root they were working with something that is very real and cannot be dismissed as personal delusion or even limited to a small subset of the population. It isn’t a mental illness.

In fact, the “artistic” side of science is being emphasised in order to preserve peoples willingness to subscribe to the consensus and the “progress” agenda. The mind fights the way it was taught to think, because instinctively it knows what it is and what it needs to understand. This is why so many people these days are gravitating to neo-pagan and new age thinking, but there is even a sense of dissatisfaction with that. People often just settle for something in the neighbourhood rather than really attacking the sense of disease.

What I have seen is a drastic suppression of creative thought and individuality. Even to the point that nearly all new music and movies coming out are remakes. Is that a personal perception based illusion? No. Marketing governs art these days. This is fact. People want to be sold the creative act. They haven’t found it within themselves to do it. They want their spirituality to tell them stories of meaning, and their science to tell them stories of mastery and solutions as long as they can be allowed to rest somewhere that seems remotely safe. This has been the rule for decades now. Perhaps for the entire so called age of reason. Has it been enough?

Yes, the old paradigm did need to be put down. It lead to witch hunts and religious wars, seemingly endless horrors and blood shed in the name of God, but we now have all new evils. So we have seen two human extremes.

I offer that there is a third way, but it has to begin at the personal level and with small groups, tribes of choice rather than region. We can communicate on a level that has exceeded our ability to describe, and our experiences can cross cultural boundaries and have to such a degree that whole new languages have arisen. And they were created not to serve nations, but to serve cultures of choice. They serve ideas rather than institutions. Though internet culture is still juvenile, it is the start of a new human potential. Sociological and psychological professionals are drawn to Second Life for that reason.

To serve a purpose. Yes, but it’s important to understand exactly what is going on. As I said earlier, internet culture is still juvenile, but there is a way that we cross from that stage into maturity, and that is by deliberate and conscious choice. Knowingly tackling our experience and realizing that the old way is not enough.

Deliberate ideas. Yes, and we can find a ground to stand on because the ground was always there. It isn’t in the cultural subjectivism. It isn’t in a relativistic view of life and reality.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~