Opening the Mind to Divine Nature

The difficulty of accepting things as they really are

Walt McLaughlin
ILLUMINATION

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Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash

Certainty is the great lie behind every delusional worldview, regardless how it is packaged as science, faith, reason, or religion. We all suffer from it to some greater or lesser degree. All belief systems are rooted in falsehoods, and we embrace them out of sheer desperation.

Truth eludes us, especially those among us who claim to have a good bead on things. Truth is, we are all just making it up as we go along, hoping that we can dodge the Great Mystery of the universe by simply embracing some comfortable -Ism. Then we can get on with our lives. Ah, if only being a self-aware creature was that easy!

I am no exception to this rule, having labeled my belief system a dozen different ways through the decades, convincing myself time and again that I’ve finally made sense of What-Is. Even when I veil my worldview with a thin shroud of uncertainty, it remains delusional. It’s impossible, it seems, to accept things as they really are.

The Great Mystery

The problem is nature — the driving force, that is, behind the world we inhabit. For thousands of years, we have tried to make sense of it through myths, sacred texts, and the stories we tell ourselves. But we haven’t a clue, really, what…

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Walt McLaughlin
ILLUMINATION

Philosopher of wildness, writing about the divine in nature, being human, and backcountry excursions.