As I've said before, at the root of our modern 'spiritual' plight, lies rampant individualism and the "I" prison. This perception, that we are somehow separate from everything and everyone else, belies the true nature of things. It isn't particularly good for our mental health.
Of course, individualism allows for some self-respect and agency. This is a good thing. We think of ourselves as beings with rights, responsibilities and aspirations. No longer are we the primitive, so deeply mired in community and ritual that it can barely distinguish a "self".
As Yi-Fu Tuan noted however, "The obverse of the new sense of disengagement, is a loss of natural vitality and of innocent pleasure in the givenness of the world, and a feeling of burden because reality has no meaning other than what a person chooses to impart to it."
From this viewpoint, the outside world becomes absurd, meaningless and utterly pointless. Which of course it is. I fail to see how it could be anything otherwise. However, a blunt and singular acceptance of this fact, isn't particularly useful. There is little point, it seems to me, to dwell on it.
This leads to the obvious question - "What now?"
How we best go about answering this question, is perhaps the greatest human quest of all.
Beauty, interconnectedness and 'spirituality' may be inherently pointless, but they represent the best opportunity we have to live our lives without the delusion that there is an inherent purpose (eg God), or within the repression of drugs, banality and denial.
This is a truth, according only to me.
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