The Illusion of Reality and the Constructs of Modern?Life

We are living in an illusion. Our grasp on what we call “reality” is, in fact, a hold on an elaborate fantasy. Many people have lost sight of what “life,” “love,” “self,” and even “friends” truly mean. Instead, they cling to distorted perceptions they’ve consumed over their entire lives. Plato’s allegory of the cave illustrates this perfectly: life, as we perceive it, is just shadows on a wall. The harsh light of true reality exposes the shadows and the falsehoods we’ve built on them.

Most of us navigate life grappling with a mismatch between reality and perception. We maintain superficial relationships, and when faced with the true depth of our experiences, our minds and emotions often short-circuit. We’ve surrounded ourselves with superficial friends and transactional relationships. This social structure falters when real challenges arise?—?like having a child or experiencing hardship?—?and we find ourselves isolated.

People tend to support you as long as it benefits them. When circumstances change and their needs aren’t met, they vanish or, worse, work against you. These transactional connections, be it friends or family, are hollow. We laugh and play our roles in the script of life, but only as long as it suits us. We abandon those who slow us down, labeling them “toxic” and cutting them out of our lives. It’s a harsh reality where husbands leave sick wives, children place parents in homes, and friends turn their backs on each other. We’ve become a society devoid of tribe, family, or country to pull for; we pull only for ourselves.

This self-centered existence is marked by overindulgence and the pursuit of pleasure until it leads to exhaustion. Even when we’ve consumed everything, we remain unsatisfied. We’ve been chasing shadows?—?society’s red laser pointers?—?that leave us with nothing tangible. Our motivations have become transactions devoid of context or compassion. Responsibility and control have been surrendered to external forces that lead us around, making us dance for the entertainment of the masses.

In this distorted reality, we allow oppressors and bullies to dictate our actions, believing there’s no other way. We compromise our values, piece by piece, letting the world taint us. The constant push against these forces leaves us questioning if we’re cursed to be poisoned by mere interaction with the world. The Buddhist notion of freeing oneself from attachments might hold some truth, but it raises a significant question: what is life without attachment, passion, or struggle?

Even death shouldn’t scare the enlightened one, as they are detached from the physical self. Yet, this raises another question: what kind of life is that? Following this path might not be as selfish as those who step on others to advance, but it’s a different kind of compulsion. Balancing between these extremes is challenging, especially when our culture is built on false constructs about what relationships and life should be.

Social media exacerbates this issue, promoting unrealistic standards of what “friends,” “partners,” or “moms” should do. These false constructs infiltrate our minds, shaping our expectations and relationships. We live through a lens of illusion, much like a movie director curates every scene to fit a narrative. In doing so, we lose touch with real experiences and crush our social connections, replacing them with curated realities.

In the last decade, social media has fueled this fire, presenting edited and curated lives as the norm. Our kids learn about relationships from these artificial constructs, not real experiences. They grow up understanding only the shadows of what relationships should be, missing the essence of genuine human connection.

Plato’s idea of true forms existing on a higher plane touches on this. We pull concepts like friendship and happiness from this higher plane into our minds, but they are mere translations, not the true forms. These translations, further filtered through media and social constructs, become distorted shadows of reality. We end up living lives built on copies of copies, far removed from the true essence of these concepts.

In this modern world, our constructs have become increasingly complex. Concepts like fatherhood and happiness are pulled down from their higher forms and distorted through heavy editing and media bias. What we build our lives around are constructs of constructs, collapsing into themselves when they confront the true essence of life.