The lives of mortal men are nothing more than entertainment for the gods, (or at least so it was said in ancient Greece, back in the days where gods were presumably more of a ‘thing’ than they are now). The point about this is that – these days – what we’re talking about is very poor entertainment indeed – entertainment that is highly unlikely to hold any interest for anyone (least of all the likes of the gods, who presumably had some degree of discernment with regard to such things). The entertainment provided by the lives of us modern human beings is pretty much on a par – we might say (however unkind the comparison may seem) – with the ‘entertainment’ value provided by watching battery chickens being farmed. Our lives – if only we could bear to admit it to ourselves – are pretty much ‘non-events’. Our over-socialized, over-regulated lives unfold with grim predictability like toothpaste being squeezed out of a tube – bland, homogeneous, and with the very same flavour in every case.
In order to have interesting (or ‘non-bland’) lives (lives that actually have a flavour) we would have to go against the grain in some way, we would have to rebel – if we don’t go against the grain then we are the grain, if we don’t rebel, then we are no different from what we’re not rebelling against. We don’t even get born. ‘Being the grain rather than going against it’ is the default, therefore, and the thing about this is that ‘the grain’ isn’t actually anything. It’s only a habit, it’s only dead inertia. It’s an assumption we once made and have – since then – never revisited… What is a habit, after all? It’s the continuation of something that was started a long time ago and which persists for no good reason at all. We can usefully quote Jean Paul Sartre (1983) from his novel Nausea in this connection –
Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.
A habit is a thing that is born without reason and prolongs itself out of weakness. This is perfect description of the ‘default mode’ that we are talking about. This is us – the quote from Nausea tells us all there is to tell about our (socially conditioned) lives. As we’ve just said, this is ‘the default mode of existence’, this is what is going down (no matter how enthusiastically we might try to talk it up). The conditioned life is not life at all. ‘Nothing happens while you live,’ says Sartre, ominously…
There is some type of ‘entertainment value’ that can be to be had in the generic life (we might perhaps say) but it’s the lowest form of entertainment, which is distraction. There is ay least a bit of ‘mileage’ to be had there. We distract ourselves – in whatever way we can – from having any awareness whatsoever regarding the frightening sterility of the situation that we have been swallowed up in and this is the reason we’re always going to stay in it. The trap we’re languishing in as an ironical one, therefore. “None else compels, …” says Sir Edwin Arnold.
It’s ironic because if we didn’t distract ourselves from the interminable misery of our conditioned (i.e., ‘regulated’) existence then we wouldn’t be able to tolerate it. It’s only possible to put up with this wretched situation of ours when we contrive to be unaware of it (or – at least – as unaware as we can be). Awareness brings revolution, awareness brings the ‘turning around in the seat of consciousness’ spoken of in the Lankavatara sutra. The clear and uncompromising awareness of our actual (rather than imagined) situation is what brings about the ‘paravritti’ – the ‘Reversal’, the ‘Great Change’, the ‘Turning around’…
That’s irony for you, therefore! What we’re talking about here is ‘the everyday conditioned reality’, which is a make-believe world in which being able to successfully ignore the fact that our mental state is completely sterile, completely ‘non-creative’, is the very best we can ever hope for. That’s our ‘optimal strategy’. We’re playing a game and we’re saying that we’re not. Our strategy is to ignore the fact that this is ‘as good as it gets’ (as Jack Nicholson says in the film) and make out that – on the contrary – there is all sorts of good stuff that we should be excited about just waiting around the corner. Hence our obsession with goals (which inevitably means devaluing or disregarding the present moment). This isn’t the half of it, either – ignoring the fact that we’re prisoners in a cheap-ass generic / fictional situation and implicitly seeing the state of ‘successful ignorance’ with regard to this fact as being ‘the best we can hope for’ (which it absolutely is just as long as we’re too afraid to venture out of the jail cell we call reality) is officially designated by all our official experts as being optimal adaptation (which is to say, this is what we call ‘mental health’).
The system’s version of mental health is the (hypothetical) state of perfect adaptation to society’s ‘Sacred Equilibrium Value’, therefore. This is the line that we all have to tow, the flag we all have to salute (unless we want to be suspected of being dangerous traitors). Mental health – the way we define it, at any rate – becomes proof of loyalty, whilst genuine autonomy, genuine ‘wellness’ or ‘wholeness’ is evidence of heinously unforgiveable subversive activity with regard to the all-important social values. We don’t express things quite as honestly as this of course – the way in which we define mental health (as we have said) is in terms of ‘successful adaptation to the presented reality’ (only we don’t say it like this because we make sure to leave out the word ‘presented’). Our whole (implicit) argument rests on the unconscious assumption that this is the one and only reality (and not some kind of cheap hoax or con job). In a strictly pragmatic sense, there is logic to this since not being adapted to the world we live in obviously spells trouble. Maladaptation to the system in which we all have to live clearly isn’t going to make things easy for us. On a deeper level – needless to say! – adaptation to an illusion (no matter how compelling it is, no matter how easy this might make life on the short term) is not going to benefit us in any way at all. Assiduously adapting ourselves to an illusion in order to obtain short-term benefits isn’t mental health, it is on the contrary what traditionally has always been called foolishness….
What we’re ignoring here (in our collective foolishness) is the question as to whether the Presented Reality that we’re adapting to so slavishly has any relation whatsoever to the actual Unconditioned Reality – the reality which we haven’t had a hand in concocting for ourselves (the reality which isn’t based upon some kind of hidden agenda or bias). If it turns out to be the case that the nature of reality runs far deeper than the scheme which we have put in place (if it turns out that the PR is just a device to distract or bamboozle us) then what this means is that we have ‘adapted to a crap situation’ and that we are coping (as best we can) with this error or mistake by entertaining ourselves in the various ways that have been provided for us by the system for that purpose. The ‘lowest form of entertainment’ – we might say – is where we are indefinitely postponing that moment at which we are no longer able to deny the unreality of our arbitrary narrative. All entertainment has to stop at this point – all entertainment has to stop because there is no longer anyone there to be entertained. The need for the device is gone. At this point entertainment gets replaced with life which – needless to say – is something quite different. Only the false identity (which is to say, the Game Player) needs to be entertained. Only the Game Player needs to be entertained, and this ‘entertainment’ – as we have just said – is where we indefinitely postpone that moment of awareness (which will inevitably arrive) in which we are aware that we exist in a situation where there is neither game nor game player…
Image credit – drwedge.uk
