The most important asset in your life exists in the six inches between your ears.

It’s your brain. And you probably don’t even understand how it works.

Do you want to know why the world is sadder, angrier, and more anxious than ever?

This is a thread about your existence.

THE NATURE OF SYMBOLISM

AND THE REALITY

UNDERNEATH REALITY

// The War Father

Let’s talk about reality.

Your reality.

Most of us have grown up steeped in the cultural morass of western civilization.

This means we have become adults while holding basic assumptions about the world and the nature of reality.

Chief among these are enlightenment values, which hold mainly that reason is the highest virtue.

Reason, of course, asserting that evidence of the senses is the only valid source of knowledge.

The corollary being that symbolism and knowledge of the heart/soul is superstition.

There have been many great results from The Enlightenment.

Modern science and the scientific method, to include scholarship, medicine, physics, technology, etc.

As well as human rights, the belief in inherent rights, liberty, the separation of church and state, etc.

But enlightenment values have come at a cost.

As I previously alluded to in my series on the cycle of empire (go read!), we have stopped paying homage at the temples of our gods.

In other words, we have lost understanding of symbolism, and the reality underneath reality.

SYMBOLISM, AND THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE.

Human beings are moist, flesh robots, but we are not merely robots.

Being biological entities, we have evolved under selective pressures.

The result is that we house in our head a brain and nervous system that is the sum of many things.

Instinct, reaction to chemical impulses, group behavior, base drives, and higher order thinking—

All of these are part of the spaghetti processor in your head.

There are consequences to this.

Albatrosses understand their migratory patterns without being taught. As do Great White sharks.

Lizards exhibit sexual behaviors instinctively.

Cats jump away from cucumbers because they look like snakes (look it up).

And you, friend, have symbology programmed in your brain.

What sort of symbols? It’s hard for us to say. But we can make some guesses.

There are certain iconography that show up repeatedly in religion and paganism.

The sun, certain predatory animals, certain prey animals, the shape of man, the hand, and the spear.

These aren’t taught ideas—they are as much ingrained into your system as your morning erection.

They appear in dreams, thoughts, and drug hallucinations.

Inevitably, they make their way into story. How could they not?

Story becomes myth and moral, then culture and practice.

Culture and practice become behaviors and patterns that are passed down through generations.

Hunting techniques, cultural norms, ways of speaking, spiritual and meditative practices.

All rooted in symbolism hidden in your brain that has influenced all of human civilization.

Over generations—tens of thousands of years, practices get exercised, polished, distilled.

The body, the moist robot, can be hacked.

Monks learned that certain breathing techniques confer superhuman capabilities.

Some cultures incorporate superhumanism into their society.

We get legends of heroes and myth-shaping.

Religious institutions that center around particular practices.

Absolutely forbidden/encouraged behaviors.

Many stories and reasons develop around these, but few understand the truth behind them.

How could they?

THE REALITY UNDERNEATH REALITY.

Regardless of nominal truth, there is a reality underneath our reality that exists.

That is, certain realities about behavior and practice that were driven by evolutionary pressure.

Symbolism—akin to instinct—has persisted for a reason.

A desktop computer is a simulacrum. It shows an image that does not exist.

The reality underneath reality is that your computer is made of microchip processors that push electrons across copper or metal.

Ones and zeroes.

But we have created a useful facade—a colorful screen.

You use the computer screen to interact with the computer in a productive way.

It is, for all intents and purposes, real.

It is useful.

You may not understand what is happening underneath or why, but you know how to use it and why you would want to use it.

Your understanding is separate from the reality underneath the reality.

Whether you believe the simulacrum is real is a moot point.

Your five senses are a simulacrum—the universe is energy, not matter.

Your brain, too.

Your brain has taken the unknowable and made it useful.

What is the result? Symbolism.

And symbolism leads to practice, which makes culture, which creates a framework for living that you disregard at your peril.

I’ll say it again:

You disregard the reality underneath reality at your peril.

You can eschew God,

and you can eschew family,

and you can eschew culture,

but if you don’t come to terms with the reality that these things exist for a reason,

then you are shark bait for the universe’s jaws.

I worry about young men who easily dismiss God.

They’re like fools who say that thunder isn’t real—just a sound.

So run outside and get electrocuted because they didn’t understand that thunder was connected to lightning.

What is God?

You have no damn idea.

Are you really in a position to be so dismissive?

Do you even begin to understand the forces you are dealing with?

The reality underneath reality is a vast and dark sea.

Your brain has created a symbolic life raft that now you disdain.

Have humility about reality.

Have humility in front of your ancestors, who distilled ancient wisdom for your benefit.

Tread carefully and intelligently in the way that you live.

Honor symbolism.

Respect the reality underneath reality.

If you liked this thread, please share it.

Life is too hard for us not to hold hands together against the darkness.

Don’t keep revelation to yourself.

Thanks for reading.

// The War Father

Whether they know it, this thread owes:

@ellobosalvaje for Jung’s Red Book

@creation247 for aesthetic

@TellYourSonThis for purpose

@HooaFury cuz great whiskey made this

@ManlyLifestyle for style inspiration

@SaveYourSons for ethics inspiration

@RedemptiveKing for energy