Keep choosing true reality over Fakeland glitz
Is there a perspective to be found amid all this confusion? How can we best respond and use our talents when it feels like the ground keeps shifting under us? These are questions I keep pondering, and I’d like to share the best insights I can find.
It takes courage to seek a perspective on the state of the world these days: best done in small doses, and with help. One valuable source is Rudolf Steiner, who a century ago foresaw all this. He writes: “Men speak of good and evil, but they do not know that it is necessary in the great plan that evil, too, should come to its peak, in order that those who have to overcome it should so use their force that a still great good results from it.”
I believe that our soul chooses the life we’re in as part of its growth journey (see more about this here), so Steiner’s views make good sense to me. However, I often feel, as you may do, that the sheer scale and intensity of the malicious forces in our world is overwhelming. When I talk to my soul, it admits it didn’t realise things would be this bad: but hey, we’re here now, all we can do is our best. It seems we’re being asked to trust in something we don’t understand, which is tough in an era of rationality. For me, having faith in the divine helps me keep going, even though my faith is constantly tested: for more on this, see my website www.soulresilience.net.
An idea that’s emerged as I’ve sought to make sense of things is Fakeland: this is my name for the huge mass of artificial reality which pours over us from many sources. Fakeland includes fake news, the phoney realities created by AI, social media, politics and lots more. It’s what Joanna Macy pithily describes here: “the industrial growth society’s predominant message is that we are inadequate… that we need more stuff, more money, more approval, more comfort, more entertainment…”.
Fakeland is so pervasive, so intensely but falsely ‘real’, that it’s hard not to accept it as actuality. There’s no clear point where we can stand and get a perspective on it: or not unless we make a lot of conscious choices, see more below. The other big factor in Fakeland is that its power is growing rapidly: just look at the impact AI is already having, and consider where it’s headed. You may like to check out Rupert Read’s insights on AI here.
You can get valuable insights on Fakeland from the Friends of Attention coalition: in a recent Guardian feature, they compare fracking the earth for oil to the ways our human attention is being assaulted:“human frackers pump endless streams of addictive slop into our faces to force a slurry of human attention to the surface, where they can collect it, and take it to market.” See feature here.
How do we choose ‘true reality’?
It’s an odd phrase, but the best I can offer as the counterweight to Fakeland. Here are my suggestions:
- Screens are the main channel of Fakeland. Be really aware how much of your daily time is on screen: limit it, especially in evenings, and break it up with ‘true reality’ connections, like being with people in person, and time out in Nature. Give yourself hours or even occasional days of screen freedom!
- Read my blog Taking good care of ourselves: why it really matters now, which has lots of practical tips on finding more fellowship, mutual support, etc.
- It really helps if you can find and deepen a sense of connection with the divine, and with prayer: not as a request (O Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz), but prayers of thankfulness, of connection, and protection. See more at www.soulresilience.net.
- You may already know of Joanna Macy’s Work that Reconnects process: it’s one of the best ways I know of growing through our pain for the world, and connecting with the huge forces for good which are also active.
- Consider helping the nature spirits as one way you can be of service in this crisis. These are the presences who enliven our earth, air, water and plants, and they’re under huge pressure from human pollution. See more here.
- Aim to simplify your life: one feature of Fakeland is it keeps complexifying as a way to overwhelm us. Try to reduce your material consumption, ease away from exotic travel, cut down your financial needs, and free up more time for the real and local!
We are all in these crises together: but it may not feel that way, when so many people are in denial and hooked on Fakeland. This is why it helps so much to have a few people you can talk about this with, and ideally a couple of groups, because collective support and insights are a great antidote to Fakeland. Perhaps the reason you’re here is to pioneer a better way? This excerpt from the Prayer of Saint Francis may help:
Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is darkness, light;
For it is in giving that we receive