The fruitless search for self

We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60s. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling “consciousness expansion” without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously. All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create; a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody—or at least some force—is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.

So wrote Hunter S. Thompson as he reflected on the rise and fall of LSD as a viable door of perception. Dropping acid in the sixties was often an act of rebellion against ubiquitous materialism and consumerism. Like religion, it was used as a tool to apprehend something transcendently meaningful. It satisfied an age-old psychological urge by helping create the impression that some force is indeed tending the light at the end of the tunnel.

These days LSD is largely out of fashion. The kinds of people who would’ve taken acid in the sixties today resort to weed, meth, and other drugs whose chief effect is not “consciousness expansion,” but consciousness numbing. Rather than actively seek a path to illusory enlightenment, the chief aim of drug use today is mere psychological aloofness. Of course, smoking endless bales of marijuana is hardly a prerequisite for entry into the counterculture, which today is characterized by a fair amount of nonchalant douchebaggery in the form of nihilistic hipsters who seek meaning—but only ironically—through half-baked art house performances of topless body painting and male go-go dancing set to the theme song of Golden Girls, all while the audience samples fine artisanal cheeses.

But enough about the skin-tight jeans faction. How has the rest of America been coping with the constant cacophony of chaotic commercialism? To answer this, one need only consult the latest list of bestselling nonfiction paperbacks. Here is a sampling of titles.

Heaven is for Real. “A boy’s encounter with Jesus and the angels.”

Have a Little Faith. “A suburban rabbi and a Detroit pastor teach lessons about the comfort of belief.”

Drive. “A look at what truly motivates us, and how we can use that knowledge to work smarter and live better.”

90 Minutes in Heaven. “A minister on the otherworldly experience he had after an accident.”

Eat, Pray, Love. “A writer’s journey in search of self takes her to Italy, India and Indonesia.”

The Checklist Manifesto. “The power of a simple idea to manage the increasing complexity of life.”

If the popularity of these books is any indication, the search for self is not only underway, but profitable. Indeed, “self,” not space, may very well be the final frontier. But the average American’s self, like space, is a vast expanse of nothingness containing just a few if any fleeting flashes of supernova-like brilliance that must ultimately give way to destitute black holes capable of only consumption, not creation. Hence the insatiable consumerism and the path of devastation it leaves in its wake. This realization is what awaits all honest seekers of self. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—very few will arrive at this point. Indeed, humans may have even developed an internal survival mechanism to prevent such a realization from occurring. At least, people in the United States seem to have. It is difficult to imagine America producing a Camus, for example, for the plain fact that his ideas threaten the American dogma that one must exist for something else—god, spouse, children, society, etc.—instead of existing for existence’s sake.

Like the cockeyed acid heads before them, today’s group of self-seekers assumes that some cosmic manager is minding the store. With science’s destruction of faith-based explanations for natural phenomena virtually complete, and the creeping absurdism that accompanies it, we can now perceive the rise of a one-size-fits-all “spirituality” that is slowly encroaching upon the territory of Old Time Religion. Of course, the die-hards will remain, praising Jebus and whatnot until their dying breath. But as for the rest, they will become increasingly receptive to the gobbledygook preached by Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins, Mitch Albom, and other garbage salesmen who incorporate a elusive spiritualism that on one hand satisfies the American need for religious mumbo-jumbo, while on the other is so vague that it can appeal to anyone who thinks there has to be something “out there.”

But there is nothing out there—nothing that can possibly be ascertained by our mortal minds, anyway. And not only is there no one tending the light at the end of the tunnel, there is no light at all.