In the year 2024 I met a grown man who believed in astrology. I was talking to him at a bar and he was trying to sell it to me. "Oh everyone thinks star sign is the end all be all, but it's your moon sign bro, you should let me do your chart."
This one conversation had a fairly profound effect on my year overall because it made me realize everyone is operating in a space of self-delusion and in fact it is these completely untenable beliefs that bring people together, that form the basis of friendships, that bring people happiness and meaning.
It was because of this conversation and similar interactions that I experimented with my own delusion this year. I did the Gateway Experience. For those who aren't aware it was a meditation program developed in the 70s to enable people to remote view or remove their mind from their body and see things completely external. Think intelligence gathering through meditation. I never saw anything I could reasonably say was an actual event occurring, but it did have some benefit. While going through the program I was busy constructing an alternate reality. I can at this point disconnect my awareness of my physical body, go to the place I constructed, and exist there for as long as I choose to.
Nothing supernatural or extra-sensory is going on, however it does imply something about an ability of the human mind: People are living in their own subjective reality whether they're aware of it or not. There is no objective reality and anyone who tries to explain that there is objectivity to existence is ousted from every social group they encounter. I know from experience.
The belief system held by individuals is completely arbitrary depending on their location, upbringing, community, etc. Oftentimes this belief system is intensely influenced by corporations who co-opt the zeitgeist for their own ends. After having a long conversation with a female where she explained that makeup is bad for skin and how women shouldn't be taken in by large companies who don't care about women at all, I witnessed their bathroom countertop with about $1000 of "natural" lotions, potions, pigments, and tools from corporations. Everyone does this in some form or another.
I think very few people choose the reality in which they live. Most are simply living in the one their subconscious has constructed over the years of their existence. Even if someone put in a lot of effort constructing their reality purposefully, that reality wouldn't be nearly as complete or comforting to live in than the complex clockworks of an assumed reality.
I've tried really hard this year to allow this realization to soften my outlook on life. When I encounter grown adults who believe in astrology I try not to hate them by default even though the impulse to do so is strong. When I encounter grown adults who choose this corporation's useless products over that corporation's useless products because of their B Corp status I try not to roll my eyes.
The placebo effect works. Belief in the untenable provides meaning. Questioning people's beliefs results in loneliness. I learned these things too late. This wasn't a great year for metal, but I told people it was because I wanted it to be my reality. I'm not sure how successful I was in self-delusion, but it was an attempt, and... with no further delay, here is my best music of 2024 list.
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