The 'Reality Tunnel' out of Prison
It might look like Shawshank or Alcatraz but there's always a way out
Reality tunnels
I’m a great believer in Robert Anton Wilson’s idea of ‘reality tunnels.’
Although, we must note that it wasn’t our mate Bob who came up with the term. That honor falls to Bob’s pal Timothy Leary, that rascal who made it his life’s work to decriminalize psychedelics.
Regardless, Wilson’s reality tunnels are a fascinating thought experiment.
You create a world as you want it to be and your life in it. It’s the simple.
At its heart, it’s an extension of existentialism because with existentialism we come to learn that the universe is devoid of meaning until we give it our own meaning and so with Wilson’s reality tunnels, we conceptualize specific elements to our lived experience and we live out life as if they’re objectively true.
Recently, on the very pages of this publication (if you’re reading this on Substack, I’m talking here about how the article did on Medium) I wrote about the ‘prison planet’ idea.
It got picked up in a few places and suddenly it got tons of comments and views. The topic had hit a chord and so I’ve found myself looking more into the subject.
Here’s the article if you’d like to read it:
One of the places I’ve been lurking to find out more about the theory is the ‘EscapingPrisonPlanet’ subreddit, here. And, as you’d expect with such a subreddit, it’s quite wild.
In the spirit of Robert Anton Wilson then, I’ve decided I’m going to live my life, for a while at least, in the belief that this reality is a prison reality.
The ideas are ones I’ve taken from the above subreddit and they are as follows:
You have no choice but to partake in this closed-loop ecosystem of existence.
The universe is random chaos, we alone give it meaning.
We didn’t choose to come here, we’re stuck here, make the best of it.
If you are a god, then you have nothing to fear because you are doing all of this to yourself. If you are not a god, then you are just a plaything, and there’s not much you can do about it except laugh. You could cry but there’s little craic to be had while in tears.
Even plants feel pain. Have compassion.
Minimize unnecessary harm by practicing restraint.
Forgiveness and compassion for the self and for others is the key to escaping the prison.
Now, I’m not saying I believe it. But I am saying that for the next few weeks, I’m going to live as if I believe it.
Why?
Well, the reason being is that we know from the different spiritual/religious traditions that the ancient sages wrestled with a similar idea.
In Buddhism, we have the concept of ‘dukkha’ or ‘unsatisfactoriness’. In Hinduism, we have ‘maya’ i.e. that the world around us isn’t our true reality and it’s clouded in our desires, attachments, etc.
In Buddhism, maya is one of the twenty-five mental factors so it appears there too.
In Christianity, the Gnostics believed we lived in a world made by an inferior god who was trying to copy the Big Cheese but failed miserably, hence, we’re stuck in a world of pain and misery.
In the popular book, A Couse in Miracles, the prison planet idea isn’t spelled out exactly but it’s hinted at, in that we’re here because our ‘higher selves’ make a ‘wrong (or ill-informed) choice’ somewhere and we’re here to figure that out.
I cannot find any hints of the idea in Judaism, Islam or Taoism but let me know in the comment if you know of any.
“Tonight there’s gonna be a jailbreak”
But, the way to break out of the ‘prison’ is to strive towards enlightenment. And here is where we can all lean on the teachings of the ancient Hindus, Taoists, Buddhists, and Gnostics.
And while all four of those traditions have quite a different flavor to them, you’d have to admit that the underlying taste of them all is having compassion for both ourselves and others.
This might be a prison but it doesn’t mean we have to be douchebags to each other. It’s like what Cormac McCarthy said when asked about his pessimistic outlook on life:
“Just because I’m a pessimist, doesn’t mean I’m miserable.”
Here’s the previous article once again:
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