Sadness in the Time of Post-Reason

When you work in customer service, especially the retail version, a lot of people will point out what kind of weather it is. They will complain that it isn’t what they want or that it’s perfect, but they have to be inside at work. When weather is threatening to be awful, every single person will […]

When you work in customer service, especially the retail version, a lot of people will point out what kind of weather it is. They will complain that it isn’t what they want or that it’s perfect, but they have to be inside at work. When weather is threatening to be awful, every single person will tell you the forecast.

“It’s supposed to snow on Thursday.”

Nobody wants it to snow on Thursday. One of the main reason that nobody wants it to snow on Thursday is that people will have to change the way they live to deal with the snow.

This is the season of depression. I have it. I have had this deep down melancholy since before I could remember. Life has always felt heavy. I have made peace with it. I try and take care of myself the best I can and know that this too shall pass.

This winter has found me with a different kind of depression. It feels heavier and everyday it is still there not passing. I stare out the window at the falling rain and the grey charcol colored low clouds and I feel the ceiling of reality smothering me like a giant hand. It is a feeling of being trapped with no where to go but the same way as everyone else.

If I look over at other people that are walking under this weight, I see no light in their eyes. What I see is a look of hopelessness and utter lack of self-confidence. I see a darkness in even the jovial of friends.

I think about that extra heaviness, that bonus darkness, and I wonder what it is. I evaluate and research the root of that sadness. I have had to deal with the dimness of light in my soul every year, year after year, so I know how to root around in that mud with skill.

I figured it out: I am mourning.

I am mourning the death of reason. I have watched rational thought expire and fall into the darkness of madness. We live in a world where feelings are marked as 100% fact. If one believes something, this makes it true. I am grieving the word of a person.

When a person used to put their hand on a bible and make an oath, even if that person has no belief in the myths and legends of that book, the person has sworn an oath to be honest and honest that person will be. Now that is either not true, or no one that disagrees with what that person is saying will believe that person. If you don’t agree with an outcome, then the outcome is false.

Belief is a strange and curious curse of consciousness. Philosophers and scientists have speculated for a millennia if what one person sees, all sees it too. Is my green the same green you see? For a long time, excepting those that suffer the hex of color blindness, but even then we can still agree that my green is your green because grass is often green. That has been true until someone needs a different thing to be green so will stop believing grass to be green and then dismiss all who claim grass being green.

Truth has become subjective. Our government and it’s conservative machine are now using the same tactics that hippies use, if I don’t feel that it is true, it isn’t true. Don’t say that, it is false news because I don’t feel good about the truth, so the truth needs to change.

Even with knowledge of all civilization sitting in our pocket, we are more subject to falling for a false narrative than it was when we had to rely on ourselves to be knowledgeable. Books, newspapers, teachers, professionals, and our elders were our guides to how the world was. Now knowledge is prefered to be found on an online forum that was originally built to help ivy school kids party and hook-up.

This land used to have giants walk it. Now there are none. Nobody is great anymore. All people are riddled with fault and sin that smother the greatness in the darkest of shadows. People read all the opinions of what the truth is, but nobody wants to find out what is behind that truth. How did we get to this point?

I am mourning the fact that while people have great intentions, people aren’t wanting to change their life to help change the way our world is now. It is snowing, but people are still leaving their house at the same time to get to work and then get so mad when other drivers are going so slow or that the roads haven’t been plowed or that their car is sliding all over the place or that they grew up having snow days and believe that as an adult should get snow days still!

There is no greatness anymore. It probably happened before I noticed, but it is hard to see that greatness is no longer a goal. We worship rich spoiled brats. There are people with millions of dollars that believe the earth is flat. Instead of outrage, it just becomes a joke. Ignorance is almost rewarded. Mediocrity can earn millions. There is nothing that talent can be showcased anymore.

That sadness is dripping heavy with a thick layer of grief. I am perpetually walking around with a lump in my throat. I want something to blame, but then I would just become them . . . you.

It was hard to disagree with so many, but there wasn’t this fear of the fundamentals ideals of what a human should be being completely disregarded. I am scared that we have turned a direction that we may never come back from.

I just read a book called The Mercy of the Tide by Keith Rosson. In the book there is this fictional book called the The Looming Error which was explaining the impending doom of nuclear annihilation. The argument was that since we dropped the bomb we can’t escape our destiny to drop the bomb again. We can’t take a step back.

This is how I feel about the world today. We have made ourselves a parody of ourselves and now we will never be able to be real or authentic again. Truth and knowledge will never be needed again to justify any decision, just feelings and fear will be the deciding factor. I don’t feel good when that happens so that needs to never happen again. Don’t say those words around me. Your opinion is wrong. I believe that to be true.

I feel extra sad because we are turning our backs on the one thing that actually made us great: Reason. If Reason can’t win, then we are just animals. Animals with religion.

 

 

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