Transcendence is Escapism

Life is significantly easier when you don’t give a shit.  Not only are you spared the physical, intellectual and emotional effort of caring, you are also spared the spiritual effort of sifting through the good and shitty people and things in your life.

When you don’t care, you don’t care if others don’t care either.  You don’t build up any resentment to their lack of care.  You get to feel comfortably numb in blissful ignorance.  You don’t have the added social cost of having to mask your disdain and disapproval.  You can chuckle, rather than wince, at their callousness and cruelty and disregard.

The spiritual effort of discernment is so taxing that many religions have successfully spared their followers of it, naming it ‘Judgement’ and leaving the dreadful task to God, or similar distant entities.

Discernment is in fact so precious it’s innate in all sorts of species, not just mankind. 

Sunflowers discern which way the sun is glowing and turn themselves to face it.  Plants can actually discern and communicate all kinds of things about their environment, even things like where their trellis is, and other survival instincts—this is absolutely true, and now that science ‘proves it’ you are allowed to believe it, even though those in tune with the natural world already sensed it aeons ago.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141111-plants-have-a-hidden-internet

https://e360.yale.edu/features/exploring_how_and_why_trees_talk_to_each_other

Birds of a feather do indeed flock together, even domesticated ones all raised together tend to stick with their own kind most of the time.

Human babies are so highly discerning they recognize their own kind from the most tender age, reaching out automatically to other babies, or puppies, or other young or small things, as if they are already quite conscious of their current place in the universe.

What are the emotions which humans make such concerted efforts toward escaping or transcending?  Sadness, weakness, loneliness, illness, vulnerability, anxiety, fear, pain, discomfort, failure.

But rarely, apathy.  Apathy, as dangerous as it can be, is of another category.

Apathetic populations serve an important purpose in civilization.  Not only are they the perfect minions of any corrupt power structure by never questioning their surroundings or roles, but they also serve brilliantly in undermining the efforts of the relatively few who do actually give a shit.

Apathetic slaves are the best sort.  The less you care about those around you and your environment, the easier the masters have it.  It makes for better order followers, because you’re still smart enough to never bite the hand that feeds you, but passive enough to go along with anything told to you from above.  Hand over your children?  Ok, what can you do, and besides, you can just have more.

The culture-shapers have been breeding apathetic populations as long as man has been breeding domesticated livestock.  Obedience, docility, positivity, faith, industriousness are in the category along with apathy, as with all the other desired traits that make the livestock more manageable, desensitized, acquiescent and profitable.

The “Namaste Billionaires” (a phrase I’ve borrowed) say they give a shit, and they want to fix it all.  They know how, because they say so.  They’ve transcended, and they’re billionaires, so of course they know how. They’ve reached the pinnacle of materialism and spiritual ascendency in tandem and they’re going to create order from the chaos.

These are the latest brand of culture-shaping snake oil salesmen and if their predecessors had not been breeding in apathy for centuries the populations would still have the discernment to see this as clearly as if it were pulsing in neon from the heavens.

How can you tell, as easily as if you were discerning white from black?  Look to nature.  Order already existed.  It still exists even now, though the perpetual tinkering makes it less and less obvious every year.

These false prophets create the chaos in order to save you from it, so that you then confirm your role as indentured servant to their system.

So, don’t give a shit just a little bit longer.  This Thanksgiving, show the proper gratitude to your betters for the relatively comfortable free-range servitude they’ve granted you.  Raise your children right—to jump when the master calls— ‘front and center!’ To bow when your master gestures, to serve courageously at his side when required, and cower silently in the corner when ordered.

Drugs and distractions, or enlightenment, take your pick.  If you’re truly blessed you might even be able to kiss their feet someday.  Dare to dream!

Still, if you don’t make it quite that far on the righteous path, as your just rewards you’ll still get all the baubles and accolades worthy of your slave station and gain the admiration of all your enslaved peers.  Congratulations and . . . 

Long live the Queen!