The Tyranny of “What Already Exists”

We want to know what exists. We want to know it at the bottom of the sea and out in the stars and within our own minds and in realms outside the normal channels of perception. Of course we want to journey to those places and find out what’s there.

We search for design and pattern and structure and system, in order to reach the highest kind of knowledge about existence.

We need to add a different platform.

Design, structure, system, and shape are not the end of the voyage. They are objectives that serve lesser goals. They are real and very useful and fine and good — but they are limited.

People who are obsessed with What Exists don’t see that. They think the structure and system are the grandest end-points.

This obsession is a deep part of human programming. When operating at full-bore, it obscures the farther shore.

It absorbs people with magnetic force.

It limits power.

When the goal of discovering-what-exists takes over to the point of obsession, it forms a mesh of reality that surrounds us.

It is the meta-program that allows the matrix to have strength.

It is the input that keeps the whole matrix humming.

It’s interesting to reflect on those three famous Matrix films, and how they disintegrate step by step, from the discovery of the reality-prison — and the rush of adrenaline which ensues — on to the mindless war — as if that kind of struggle will actually free anyone.

The collapse of the storyline mirrors what happens when the impulse to see through to the Final Structure tries to continue past that point: there is nowhere to go.

Why? Because the heroes are really only armed with the all-consuming desire to uncover What Exists. Beyond that, they are clueless.

There is something about that voyage that degrades like an element with a very short half-life. It sputters out. The heroes revert back to older, more basic programming. Fight, conquer territory, defend, attack.

One: the thrill of profound discovery. Two: then the feeling of vacuum and confusion. Three: then the reversion back to primitive hatreds. With that sequence — now you are talking about the real Matrix.

In the arena of genetic research, there is the hope that, someday, we will find a gene which will somehow “wake up” all the dormant circuits in the brain — and then we will gain back fantastic insight and power. But based on what scientists have so far unearthed, is there any reason to believe this? Or is it just one more illusion which propels us forward on the voyage of discovery?

Literature, plays, films, and television are littered with stories that contain a mystery — and at the end comes the payoff, when the mystery is solved, when we find out What Exists.

For a moment, the audience is absorbed, and then there is the let down.

It’s as if a voyage through a rich forest suddenly ended in a vacuum, in a Nothing.

As long as the secret and the mystery can be prolonged, as long as What Exists can be postponed, you have the audience with you. But when the solution is revealed, all you have is the thirst for another mystery. “Tell us more! Tell us another one! Give us another puzzle!”

An ancient manuscript, an unexplored cave, a probe sent to a distant planet … there is a powerful desire to come to the punch line … and then … boredom edges in.

I once had a conversation with a modern guru in the field of self-improvement. He is a very successful author and lecturer. At one point, he said, essentially:

You know, I have nothing left. I’ve written these books, I’ve told my audiences what they need to know. They keep wanting more. The next book, the next lecture. I’m tired. I don’t have any more secrets. They don’t really want to know what works in their lives. They want stories. They want the thrill of the hunt for the next big thing. But when they get it, I can see them go over the edge into depression…

It’s a paradox. People want to massage a secret, they want it to be solved and yet, when it’s solved, they don’t care anymore. But if you give them a real secret, one that doesn’t resolve, one that challenges them in a different way, they throw up their hands and give up. They claim they “don’t understand.”

Several years ago, I went to the Vatican, to the Sistine Chapel, to see the Michelangelo fresco. I sat in the room with several hundred other visitors. We all craned our necks, looking at the famous ceiling. I’m sure that for many of those people, it was the fulfillment of a dream: to finally witness the greatness of one of the most famous works of art on the planet.

Afterwards, outside in the corridor, I watched them leave. What I saw on their faces was a neutrality tinged with boredom.

The mystery was solved. They had seen the thing in person, finally. They had found out What Exists. It was the end.

I’m sketching here the anatomy of The Voyage to Discover What Exists.

It is one of the great enduring passions. But it has a vast and gaping downside. The payoff melts into a sagging passivity. “Well, that’s over. What’s next?”

Remember the Mike Nichols film, The Graduate? In that middle-class drama, the young Benjamin goes to extreme lengths to win Elaine, the daughter of Mrs. Robinson. He storms into Elaine’s wedding; she deserts her fiancee. Outside the church, Ben and Elaine catch a bus and take their seats in the back. As the film ends, Ben just sits there. He has captured the prize. He stares vaguely at nothing. No joy. Only a blank.

Here is a statement attributed to Nobel Laureate Albert Szent-Györgyi (1937 Prize for Physiology and Medicine):

“In my search for the secret of life, I ended up with atoms and electrons, which have no life at all. Somewhere along the line, life has run out through my fingers. So, in my old age, I am now retracing my steps…”

Something that appears so right and so real and so entrancing, the attempt to nail down What Exists, has such a strange result.

What is going on?

How many seekers after the grand conspiracy behind all conspiracies become bogged down in their own journey, especially after they believe they have the answers to their ultimate questions? How many travelers along this road decide their findings add up to a portrait of a hopeless locked-down future, from which no one can escape — and then give up the whole enterprise in disgust and disillusionment?

How many people will fall into a weary swamp after December 21, 2012 (the fabled end of the Mayan calendar), passes and the revelation, the secret they have been chasing, doesn’t yield up the kind of personal illumination they were counting on?

Many years ago, a friend told me about a UFO cult that had existed somewhere in the Midwest, in the 1920s. The leader informed her followers that a great ship was coming to take them all away to a better place, a wonderful planet. The date and time were set. The leader had been receiving instructions from alien ET guides.

On this basis, all the members of the cult sold their houses and belongings (as if money would be useful on Planet X?). On the appointed date, the group was sitting in room, waiting for the ship to arrive. After several delays, the leader emerged from another room and said the UFO guides had just told her they weren’t coming after all, because the catastrophe that was supposed to decimate Earth had been sidetracked and avoided.

So there they were, sitting in a room, all dressed up with nowhere to go (and nowhere to live).

The result? The effort at recruiting new members expanded, and the cult grew! The leader told them a new story about what was coming in the wonderful years ahead — a new mystery was in progress.

THE OBSESSION TO DISCOVER WHAT EXISTS

What Exists is, on a significant level, the greatest con game ever invented.

Everyone wants to chase down WHAT EXISTS and reveal it.

If Jesus really survived the crucifixion or was never hung on the cross, and escaped the Middle East, and if he married and had children, and if those children had children, and if that bloodline still exists…

Ten or 20 years after this “great secret is exposed” … how many of the millions of people who were originally galvanized by it still care or think about it … it’s old hat … we want another story … tell us another story…

Well, here is a different story:

The human being was placed in a universe that appeared to beg for discovery of its secrets.

The die was cast. Humans would forever try to satisfy that hunger.

They would never suspect there was another way. They would never graduate, through a fundamental shifting of gears, up on to another echelon.

They would never guess that you have to game the system that is rigged to defeat you.

You have to turn the con around.

If things (life) are designed to subvert you … BECOME A DESIGNER.

If What Exists proves to be an endless labyrinth, landing you, finally, back at the starting gate … INVENT WHAT EXISTS.

If reality is created to gobble you up in a voyage for answers and solutions … CREATE REALITY.

Turn the tables.

Move beyond only discovering What Exists, and recognize that voyage was the primary reason you kept yourself in the dark about your own creative power.

Understand, once and for all, that every system is another version of What Exists … they are murals you attach yourself to like barnacles on a ship.

Freedom is the platform from which imagination can spread out infinitely.

The universe is waiting for imagination to revolutionize it down to its core.

… I call them the SOB People. In this case, SOB stands for State of Being. You may recall that the verb “to be” and all its forms is labeled “the state of being” verb. It expresses no action.

It’s about Is. It’s about What Exists.

The SOB People love What Exists. They pray at that altar every day.

The SOB People look at imagination as an activity like the re-arranging of deck chairs. For them, nothing new ever occurs. Invention merely puts together what is already known. Invention takes ideas and images and fits them together in different ways. The present is only a redistribution of the past.

They are married forever to What Exists. They stake out their territory there. “Nothing new under the sun.” They take pride in this view. They think it makes them very wise.

Actually it deteriorates their lives and energy one drop at a time.

In their graves and beyond, they keep mouthing, “What Already Exists, What Already Exists, What Already Exists.”

A conversation with an SOB Person can be like talking to a meat grinder. When you emerge at the other end, you want to jump into a pool and drown.

Teachers in writing classes and seminars often tell their students, “Write about what you know.” This pearl has stalled large numbers of aspiring authors. I would tell them, “Write about anything you want to — especially what you don’t know.”

From the perspective of ordinary reality, imagination is all about what is impossible. If that sounds like a koan, chew on it for a while.

Imagination is that faculty that can raise the dead.

Imagination can give rise to the spontaneous creation of what has never been before.

Imagination shifts the whole emphasis of living from the discovery of What Exists to the creation of something new, a new reality(ies).

Imagination decimates the entire library of human programming.

With imagination, you aren’t buying a story; you’re inventing countless numbers of stories.

But this invention isn’t just aimless ruminating — you create something new, you express something new, and you propel it into the world.

Without that, you float in a sea of gauze.

Of course, there is fear of the New.

People think something terrible might happen if they invent something new. Their friends might ridicule them. The whole universe might suddenly collapse. Their minds might shred.

This is where human programming really bites hard. This programming assumes and asserts that, with enough voyaging, with enough discovery, one can find the Ultimate, one can find “everything that needs to be found.”

Whereas the truth is: you can create infinitely.

AND WHAT YOU CREATE IS NEW.

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Jon Rappoport is the author of an explosive collection, THE MATRIX REVEALED. Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world.