Prompt: “Whether or not the fact that everything we do might be within a manufactured reality changes how we should live?”
This is a fun one! Let’s break it down into the components. “How we should live”, reality”, “manufactured reality”.
We’re all born in the middle of some set of stories, in the middle of history, in the middle of an environment and circumstances that we had no involvement in creating, and had no choice about. This is something that can be a source of great frustration, confusion, anxiety – even if the reality isn’t “manufactured” (an idea worth exploring separately).
But what does a manufactured reality mean? I find myself thinking of phrases like, “your lifestyle has already been designed for you“. Questions like “what is natural, really?” come to mind. In the grand scheme of things, theoretically, it could be said that “everything is natural”, since everything – including whatever people do – is ultimately constrained by the natural laws of physics. And yet… there’s something about that statement that feels like it’s not quite properly capturing the confusing spirit of our times. I think it’s because some of us can sense that that reality we’ve inherited is not all there is. It’s just one possible configuration. We exist in an arbitrary configuration of reality. It didn’t have to be this way, and it doesn’t have to remain this way – in fact it’s unlikely to remain the way it is, because time brings change.
What about our lifestyle has been designed for us? Our ideas about work, jobs, money, family, culture, identity, nationality, sexuality, even time itself. We divide our years into days and weeks and months, we expect to work a certain number of hours a week, we expect to live our lives in certain predictable patterns and phases. You’re supposed to achieve certain things, certain milestones, have certain experiences. It’s all quite… stale, at this point. It’s formulaic, it’s predictable, and for me at least, it feels like achieving excellence within these models is still ultimately an act of jumping through hoops set by other people – and these people rarely if ever have our best interests at heart.
“When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and you’re life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money. That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.” – Steve Jobs
There are several ways to read this quote. Because Steve Jobs was a technologist, it’s tempting to think about it in terms of technology. The set of products we use are arbitrary, and it’s possible to make other products. But it applies to so much more than just products (and I think Steve was intentional about alluding to that by being sufficiently vague). It applies to culture. It applies to perspectives. You can have a broader perspective, you can build your own perspective and you can share it and cross-examine it with others.
How should we live?
I think there are some general fundamental principles about how we should live our lives that are so fundamental that they probably don’t change whether or not reality is manufactured. We should figure out who we are, and what we want, and how we want to be. My personal ethical journey and exploration has led me to believe that I’m fundamentally sort of nihilistic, that the universe is really a big joke that lots of people are afraid to laugh at (a fart joke, to be specific), but I believe in trying to be a good person anyway, because the company is better on the high road. My attempts to be a good person is derivative of my desire for good peers to spend this fleeting life with. I’d like to think that this remains true whether or not reality is ‘manufactured’. It’s true whether we’re living in a simulation, a cosmic naughty-or-nice test, or in something utterly meaningless. Regardless of whether any, all or none of those things are true, the fact is that time spent with great, loving friends is time well spent.
What about the manufactured reality bit? Well – I think about this in terms of invented concepts like “prestige”. Those of us who live in the modern world of cities and internet live in a world full of supernormal stimuli. Things like money and flags and Likes are all imaginary constructs that nevertheless have real consequences on our minds and bodies. We can acknowledge the artificiality of all things, and even claim to denounce them, but saying “I don’t believe in money” doesn’t change the fact that we live in a world where money is necessary in order to pay for the food we eat (in cities where hunting and gathering aren’t really viable options). You might not believe in manufactured reality, but manufactured reality certainly believes in you – and it wants you to pay taxes and follow rules or you’ll be sent to jail or a mental asylum or otherwise slighted or punished in all manner of ways.
So… what is to be done?! We live in an absurd circus-prison-zoo. What is to be done?? There is no single magical solution that will eliminate all discomfort, pain, frustration. I think the only way out is to find a way to laugh about it, and to look for authenticity and honesty and realness wherever you can find it. It’s precious, but it’s there. (But don’t overdo this either 😂 – when you get obsessive about it you squeeze the life out of it.)
I don’t think it’s necessary to make a big show and act of rejecting things. It’s okay to enjoy things, even if they’re a little artificial. There’s definitely this whole game people play that’s all about rejecting anything that’s “unnatural” or “manufactured”. Funnily, in a way, this itself strikes me as a sort of overly-forced way of being. It’s like trying to have an “authentic” themed cafe that doesn’t have anything “off-brand” in it – when, in reality, the real good cafes have more or less always just focused on being great cafes without worrying that much about appearances. Most actual practitioners don’t have all these hangups about being “purist”, except maybe as a sort of game, for fun.
Reality is manufactured. Relax, enjoy yourself, have fun, don’t beat yourself up about it. Focus on the fundamentals that matter to you, like relationships. Or don’t! It’s your life! 🤓