My own almost-madness, by Dominick

We all have myths as to which we live by, whether we are conscious of them or not. As much as we would like to suppose the supremacy of our so called "Rational 21st Century Minds" we all construct reality for ourselves through fantasies. Every culture has created myths as which to aspire to and to live by. It is my opinion that by living in the 21st century and the information age, we as individuals are constructing our own differentiated myths for ourselves that are based on facets of popular culture, because religion simply doesn't suffice anymore (with the advent of the World Wars and all). We as individuals in this information-laden age will either construct our own myths or switch on the tv box and have pre-created myths for us shoved down our throat. Many people accept these as fact simply because they exist. In reality what this is doing is having a group of people constructing your reality for you whether you realize it or not.

But what happens when a person's myth is shattered before their eyes? Our psyche's have a natural defense mechanism for this as we gradually expand and assimilate new experiences to accomdate an influx of semmingly contradictory information. For example, say one myth you live by is that "Frank Zappa was a God-like individual". And what if, due to the information laden environment that we are all thrusted in led us to hear that Frank Zappa killed his parents through cyanide poisoning. Your myth would either have to be shattered wince this obviously is not indicative of "God-like" qualities or accomdated. Perhaps you would accomodate this by uncovering another bit of information that his parents were deserving of death. This is an obtuse example, but is merely an analogy to show how far our psyche's will go to protect the myths we live our life by will g. Another, more pointed example, could be something along the lines of a Christian assimilating the new found "lost gospels" or other contradictory information into his world view.


What if though, the information you uncovered was so contrary to your myth that assimilation proved to be impossible. Reality would seem to crumble before your eyes as you struggled in vain to make sense of your newfound revelations. Such is what happened to me.

First, a little background on me. I am a person who takes my own "myths" very seriously and always have. I was raised a Catholic, went to Catholic school, etc. I was staunchly and embarrisngly Catholic until around 7th grade. It was then that I was discovering inconsistensies left and right in the Catholic myth. The main overarching issue though is that religions in the 21st century are still taught as absolutle fact instead of what they actually are--myths crated by humans to serve an essential purpose and to guide our lifes. Any person with any developed intellect can point out all sorts of inconsistensies in teh Bible and shit that simply can not convince us with our "21st Century Rational Minds" to be true. The tragedy of our age is that many very intelligent people are disregarding everything Religion has to teach us because the underlying seriousness it demands to be taken by is so fucking absurd and all of the special treatment it demands are laughable, adn teh atrocities committed in their name are horrendous. They are myths, nothing more. Good myths no doubt, but myths nonetheless. The result of modern-man casting off Religion as a form of living leaves him to find semblance in the myths created by culture-engineering capitalism and The State's lies. If theres one thing history can teach us, its that humans are fuck ups and only look out for their own immediate interests and pleasures. If we are to follow the ideals of capitalism and the state, we are to be slaves to others interests while sacrificing our own individuality. By creating Gods and myths that represent a higher form of morals and way of living, we have something to aspire to and to live by that will actually contribute to the evolution of mankind rather than turn us into mindless slaves, despite our great brains.

I went off on a kind of meandering tangent, but that background had to be touched upon. As I explained earlier, I am one who takes his myths seriously. After I cast off the Catholic faith, I began to look for peace and semblance in other myths. The overlying one I decided on was the Existentialist-rationalist way of looking at things. The basic tenants behind these myths is that God is merely an hypothesis that has failed humanity, that we as humans have to deal with the absurdity of our own lives in a world without religion and morality. Our purpose is then to crated our own values to which to live by. I was steadfast in my devotion to this philosophy and set about creating my own values. The problem with this is that I am always busy computing possibilities and situations into which my values would fit. I soon was confronted with ripe contradictions in my mind and was very confused on how to live my life. This is because of the contradiction of the rationalist way of looking at things and at the same time creating your own values. Any values you create are by definition not rational because they are to suit your own liking to to serve your own ego. This, I concluded was a dead end philosophy. I did not conclude this by myself though without one important revelation.

Around April of this year, I started smoking pot again. This was due to a number of factors that are personal in nature. THe main factor is that I tried to use it to an end that would slow down my thinking and make me "more normal".Lame.

One day while high I had tremendous revelation that shattered my own myth right in front of me.

Given my existentialist viewpoint of the world, God could not exist. What I did in essence while high was unlock parts of my collective and personal unconscious that represented images and feelings of "God" and of "Hell" and eternity. To anyone who has not experienced the "feeling od God" this will be a difficult thing for you to understand. It feels as if there is a universal consciousness giving you peace in your own actions and thoughts., These are what people call "religious experiences" and are achieved by prayer or meditation in many cultures throughout the world. What I interpreted the feelings to be was God Himself revelating Himself to me and showing me the errors of my ways. The reconciliation of the direct knowledge of God and the knowled ge that God couldn't logically exist drove me temporarily insane. At times I would get so deep into thought that I would feel detached from my body and my surroundings.

What eventually made me realize what type of experience I had was through reading Carl Jung and Eastern Philosophy. The gist of it was that I had tapped into the feeling of universal peace and consciousness that people throughout the ages have called God. This, I have come to understand is nothing more than an evolutionary evolved response to help us cope with death. There are a few loose ends that I am trying to piece together and still bug me in the present, but I am confident that I will resolve them in the near future.


Until then have yourself a very Merry Christmas.