Wake Up! (part 3)

I went to a very nice restaurant the other day. In the center of the table were candles in long holders which covered flickering flames. After I placed my order, I proceeded to move the candle out of the way. Upon touching it, I noticed it was not hot. I tipped over the holder and a battery-operated flame simulation came out. It was not a real candle at all, it was fake!

It seems to me that we are becoming, more and more, a fake society. If you stop and think about it, you will be amazed at how much phoniness surrounds us: artificial lights, artificial plants, artificial teeth, artificial insemination, artificial intelligence, fake hair, fake fingernails, plastic surgery, genetically engineered foods, cloned meats, instant oatmeal, instant grits, autotunes, paper money, credit, fake smiles, phony people, pseudo-intellectuals, rewritten histories, false teachings, false sympathy, false promises, and false hope…

I hope you get the point. We live in a world full of illusions and deception, and if we are not careful, we will get sucked into this and perpetuate phoniness ourselves. By my standards, that which is fake is a lie and that which is real is the truth. Somewhere in our psyche, we have gotten to the place where we believe lies as truth and mistake truths for lies. If we are interested in waking up, we have to be ready to reclassify information we’ve been educated to accept as truth as non-truths. Conspiracy theories, then, might have more truth in them that we have been taught to believe. Science-fiction movies, in a similar way, might be more fact than fiction.

The bottom line: If you want to wake up, seek the truth.