reality as a teacher

I really only use two words to extoll the interplay of us, this, all things. I use reality to describe a human perspective of existence and the inverse, existence to describe the entirety of reality. I may often mix the two, as they are not only intertwined but inseparably dependent, a duality.

In concept nihilism explains that life has no meaning, that humans (entirely of themselves) imbue meaning upon existence, not only of things, but of ourselves. It’s a particularly hard pill to swallow for humans generally speaking, that we, individually project meaning onto the entirety of reality and that through that principle we, ourselves are ultimately meaningless. I should note, it’s actually pretty important that one not overlook this prospect, but on its head it’s not only incomplete, it’s also dangerously inadequate. It’s dangerous simply by the measure that humans are somehow the keepers of meaning, of just behavior and actions while outside of this human structure, there’s stuff, others in which to manipulate, to enforce our individual purpose, our own meaning.

Not a too distant cousin is most (if not all) religions. The exception here being a creator, a supreme being that purposefully, forcefully even, gave humanity the ability to freely extoll meaning onto reality. And, of course, that creator is itself the ultimate keeper of meaning. This is an even more dangerous idealism, as the creator is the core of the discrepancy, it’s “his” fault that we are so brutal (Read: Original Sin), but “he’s” also just and knows all the answers. Tada. Yes, you Jimbo are the chosen if you just believe and pray to “me”. Honestly, I would take nihilism over this factless/fuckerey, at least it’s humans fault/problem/issue.

While, to be fair, there are several variations of this muckery, multiple gods (mythos) and various versions of ultimate nothingness (including a scientific take of big bangs), they all are quite impossible, not only to prove, but to implement on any scale. Our illusions of grandeur is deeply rooted in our incessant motivation to learn and understand reality, which in and of itself is preposterous. There is, quite so, no other existence, out there. Not outside of time, space, humans as individuals or supreme space travelers.

There is however a hot take that’s pretty old too (as if age is a factor of some ultimate truth) and that is Tao/Nonduality, an expression as an attempt to encompass reality as existence and not as a descriptor of this, our appearance of independence among a universe of various stuff. There’s a pretty common phrase people have tossed around (you know, throughout the Zeitgeist) “it is what it is“. That tiny phrase is a prime example of the expression “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao” transposed to future generations, the telephone game, for current lack of a better example. I’ve adopted adichotomy, just as it feels more directly ironic and maybe even a little more modernly confusing. It has and will ever continue to sit subtly among the literal masses, eternally. Trust that you don’t have to like it, but it is what it is.

Reality as a teacher is to existence as a student, inseparably so. There’s much to do while there is no actual doer to do it.