How does one define the culture they are apart of? Is there one culture which can adequately prove they are dominant to another? Do these cultures represent the true supreme nature of reality, or are they the result of the projections of our mind? To dive deeper into the idea of what life is and meant for, we must first understand that our understanding of reality is comparable to that of a fish living in a fish bowl.
Fish are animals with thoughts and feelings just like any sentient being around it. From the perspective of a human, these fish are not nearly as intelligent as we are, they are incredibly dim witted to be honest. However, from the perspective of the fish, with the life they live and the every day occurrences they come in contact with, they likely would consider themselves very smart. They could never and will never know anything differently than the life they have been given.
Lets next examine the life of a fish from a pet store. We purchase the fish with the intention of giving it a happy life, and with providing us with some source of entertainment. However, for the fish it will never fully understand the difference of living at a pet store as compared to living at home with us. Its world is the constructed reality of the fish tank from which we created for it to live in. To this fish, reality is a 3.5 gallon aquarium with five plants and cave to sleep in. This fish is likely very happy with its home, it is very content with where it is at as long as the essentials are provided for it to live happily.
Who is to say that humans on earth are anything more than fish living in a fish tank? We are spread out across the globe, we are diverse in our ways of thinking as the further one travels the better we can understand that there are many ways of thinking about life, however the real question is which way of thought is the correct representation of the nature of all being? The answer is neither and all.
Ask a devoted Christian and Muslim who's religion is the true path to salvation and both we adamantly defend their religious practices as the only way to finding god. Now ask an Atheist whether god is real or not, and they will undoubtedly defend their position as to why god isn't real. The point I'm trying to get across is that no matter who you ask, from whatever religious faith, whatever cultural background they come from, everyone is going to have their own deeply rooted beliefs about the nature of reality. How can anyone be wrong?
What if the all these ideas of about politics, religion, culture, how we should act in certain situations are all just conditioned thoughts? What if these conditioned thoughts are so ingrained into our brains from the moment we are born, that we start believing this is how the world is, and this is how everyone should think and believe. I like to call this a “heard mentality.”
The “heard mentality” is a mental game no one can sit out of. From the moment of birth we begin learning the language of the heard we are apart of, we begin looking around at what everyone else is doing, and then thinking to ourself like “wow this person looks like they have it all figured out, if I behave this certain way, I will have it all figured out too.” The truth is that no one has it all figured out. Culture is a bubble of conditioning, full of “aspects” or “personalities” of the overall reality. Culture arises out of thought, and through our actions caused by habit, these thoughts are transformed into our reality. There for our reality is nothing more than what we think, and have been taught to believe is true.
What would happen if that little fish who lived in a fish bowl its whole life, was suddenly thrown into the ocean? This fish is likely to have its mind blown and eyes opened on its perspective of reality in an instant as soon as it realizes the vastness of the ocean? Another question to consider is whether or not the fish would even notice this vastness of the ocean even with it right before its eyes, due to the cultural conditioning of the bowl it spent its life in? Why would it ever question the life it has been living? If a fish can't see past its fish bowl, how are we as genius humans supposed to realize the vastness of space which encompasses all of our known and visible Universe? Our lives are so small and insignificant, where does one begin to see past illusion?
To conclude this article, I would like to point out the fact that no matter where we live, or how we act, it is out of habit and conditioning from the environment around us with which we gain perspective for the basis of what life is all about. No one perspective is more correct than another, because in the grand scheme of things, culture is an idea, thoughts made common through the generalization of the masses. If you want to find the true meaning of reality, you have to find it yourself. The truth takes many forms, there is no one way of seeing it. The first step to understanding life, is in understanding that we know so little about it.
