I'm curious what Huxley had to say about nihilism? Because the whole premise of his book is that people do have a choice. Right now I think the choice is between shutting off and doing nothing or staying proactive to set things on a more sane course. I think a lot of people feel genuinely overwhelmed by all the terrible things unfolding which is more than fair and feel nothing they do matters. Empowerment to me is one of the best countermeasures to this as is compassion, something you mentioned. Staying informed but not to the point of illness is possible but only if we learn to filter out the lies and find sources offering genuine information. Ultimately we need to redirect our personal and collective power toward something more constructive for everyone and world leadership doesn't in this moment reflect that vision to us. We need to formulate the vision we seek for the world and follow through on making that a reality.
Good comment. Yes BE what you want to SEE in the world. Empowerment is the word we all need today. To see things the way they really are whether lies or truths. We have all been fed such lies about everything that we have lost our innate sense of truth. It’s still there. We all have it just like every other mammal on this earth. It just needs to be exercised. I was awakened early in my life after reading “Silent Spring.”
Carol ~ beautifully put. Yes ~ to be what we wish to see in the world is the truest form of empowerment. Our innate sense of truth is not lost; it may be clouded, but it is always within us, like a quiet compass waiting to be exercised.
Awakening, as you experienced with Silent Spring, begins when we recognize the lies we’ve been fed and consciously choose alignment with reality, compassion, and integrity. Every act rooted in that awareness ~ no matter how small ~ ripples outward, shaping a world that reflects the values we embody.
Kirsten ~beautifully said. The tension between feeling overwhelmed and choosing proactive engagement is at the heart of our human experience. Huxley reminds us that surrendering to numbness is a choice, just as engaging with clarity, compassion, and courage is a choice.
Empowerment arises not from denial of the darkness, but from consciously directing our energy toward meaningful action~ however small. Staying informed with discernment, cultivating compassion, and aligning our actions with a vision of a just and humane world transforms despair into agency.
Even amidst overwhelming events, every act rooted in care and integrity ripples outward, shaping both the world we inhabit and the character we cultivate within. The challenge, and the gift, is choosing to act when it would be easier to look away.
I have often referred to this book when discussing this era. The Romans figured this out by putting coliseums around the Empire and staging bloody gladiator battles, the ancient form of entertainment that amused the masses and their efficiency in keeping the masses relatively well fed
These dystopian forecasts have rattled me all my life. Sixty years on, I still feel that there’s something inherently unstable in any radically oppressive society.
But unfortunately my vision isn’t an optimistic one. It’s a vision of cleansing, restorative, annihilation.
I an not saying that we should abandon hope; we must cling to it. I consider this an effort to help prevent the not quite inevitable.
Sera ~ thank you for sharing so candidly. I deeply resonate with your awareness of the fragility of oppressive systems. The tension between acknowledging the harsh realities and holding onto hope is profound.
Clinging to hope, as you say, is itself an act of resistance. It is the seed that allows us to consciously act in alignment with justice, compassion, and truth ~ to prevent what seems “almost inevitable” from taking root. Even small, deliberate actions ripple outward, creating the space where restoration, rather than destruction, can emerge.
i think 'hope' is much too passive, but is the reason it's widely and popularly touted. If you 'hope' you wait for someone else to save you. So i think, yeah, it has its values, yet the main crucial thing is to get to work/play on something that inspires you!
One of my favorite books. I look around and see soma everywhere in society, in so many forms. Why do we crave what’s authentic even if it hurts us? What’s the satisfaction in something gained through blood, sweat and tears? Why does it feel disingenuous to live in bliss if nothing inherently matters? Seeing the character hang himself in the end instead of giving into the matrix was such an incredible end and something to dwell on its meaning.
The craving for authenticity, even when it brings pain, reveals our deepest tether to being fully alive. Bliss without struggle, without risk, without confrontation with reality, is hollow. It is the blood, sweat, and tears~ the lived, raw engagement with life~ that gives joy its depth and meaning.
And yes… the choice of John to resist the Matrix, to confront despair rather than submit to engineered pleasure, is a stark mirror for us all. It asks: will we choose the comfort of illusion, or the sometimes-painful truth of being?
The belief that many have about "nothing really matters" is, in my view (and analysis) a belief trap perpetrated upon us systematically. A belief trap that is held by many elites, notably, whom seem to "like" to see humanity as a mere machine, and all our emotions and intuitions "empty" sentimentality.
Because 'misery loves company' they have gotten everyone (who reads/hears the well-funded media) thinking only within this type of ideological corral! (Perhaps the meta is the desire to find a way out? And by pushing most into it with them, perhaps find, eventually, via a champion, a real solution?!? i have to wonder!!)
i think the idea of being (outwardly) happy in not having a choice comes with a crucial context: that of our psychological genocide. John Trudell (the late great Indigenous depth charger) said that and i think it's worth thinking through!
The confines of the Frame of Reference corral that surrounds us have us believing, not thinking. Many of us believe we don't have time, even, to think carefully and in nuance. Much less think about ideas that we've been Told, from Day 1 (or thereabouts), aren't "realistic", etc.
To explore beyond the ideologically imposed corrals is to come to recognize that there ARE many choices more than what appears most easily.
Chaz ~ beautifully put. The “Frame of Reference” that surrounds us is subtle but powerful: it shapes what we perceive as possible, often confining our thinking without our awareness.
Recognizing the boundaries imposed by ideology or circumstance is the first step toward reclaiming agency. Once we see that more choices exist than the ones presented as “realistic,” we reclaim not only freedom of thought, but freedom of action.
It is within this expanded awareness that empowerment arises ~ the ability to consciously navigate the world rather than simply react to it. And in doing so, we honor the depth and potential that John Trudell so eloquently championed.
the book “Critical Lives-Aldous Huxley” (Jake Poller) and look forward to reading it. It would seem rather than choosing depth the future looks like the shallows, fed to us, unchosen, but like a happy pill, we will smile all the while. It’s important to be aware of our Matrix moments, which pill we decide to allow. To know or not to choose to know, that is our question.
I feel we are overwhelmed with media today. Whether it be streaming music, social media or video content. We need to disconnect from this world occasionally to keep our sanity. Your steps for doing this are excellent.
My view of life is less dismal, perhaps the result of having had a NDE at age 14, then having had a life review and being returned to finish my life out much like a fish tossed back into their stream. This changes how a person sees the world much as taking LSD does by lifting the veil of a matrix between ourselves and pure beauty. This is something Aldous experimented with by no coincidence to a much distorted outlook on the world around him. We have epiphanies once touched by forces such as these that forever cling to our inner being and in Aldous’s case sparked the creativity he had held inside onto the written page.
Yeah, i also had challenges thru-out my life, where my life was in peril many times. So i think it's true that such things have a way of helping people to focus on the deeper meanings, past all the hype for surfaces.
I remember reading Brave New World as a kid and identifying with Savage.
There was an OTC sedative drug introduced in 1968 called Quiet World. There were some chilling ads , "When life's everyday ups and downs get to you....Quiet World." Was banned in the early 70s along with Compoz.
Yes - Brave New World has always struck me as a much more terrifying - and realistic - vision of how we could descend into autocracy than the crude version of control in 1984. And with the Internet and other drugs so totally preoccupying so.many, we are just about there...
Huxley vs. Happiness: Choosing Humanity Over Comfort
Aldous Huxley’s vision in Brave New World is often overlooked in popular discourse, yet it may be more chilling than Orwell’s dystopia. Orwell warned of the external boot stamping on a human face forever. Huxley warned of the internal boot~ of chains we willingly wear, softened by distraction, numbed by pleasure, and convinced that we are free.
In Huxley’s world, control is seduction. Soma replaces struggle. Entertainment replaces reflection. Comfort replaces courage. And, slowly, almost imperceptibly, humanity is eroded from within. We are conditioned to seek refuge in the trivial, to avoid the difficult, to trade genuine experience for fleeting illusion. The cost? Our capacity for deep joy, authentic connection, empathy, and creativity ~ the very qualities that make life meaningful.
John the Savage’s cry, “I claim the right to be unhappy,” echoes as both a warning and a call to arms. The pursuit of happiness, as defined by a world designed to pacify us, can become a trap. By avoiding pain, we also avoid growth; by seeking ease, we sacrifice depth; by indulging comfort, we surrender freedom.
Today, we see echoes of Huxley’s prophecy all around us. Endless scrolling, curated feeds, and instantaneous gratification shape our perceptions, our desires, and even our moral attention. It is easier than ever to become complicit in our own conditioning ~ to accept a painless, shallow existence as enough.
Resisting this subtle tyranny is not a small task. It requires vigilance, courage, and the willingness to embrace discomfort:
Question everything: Examine the narratives presented to you. Seek alternative sources, perspectives, and voices that challenge the dominant discourse.
Embrace struggle: Lean into experiences that demand effort, reflection, or confrontation with uncomfortable truths. Growth lies in the friction, not the cushion.
Reconnect with reality: Step away from endless digital noise. Engage with nature, with work that matters, and with people in deep, meaningful ways.
Prioritize humanity over convenience: Choose empathy, connection, and moral clarity over fleeting pleasure or comfort.
Huxley’s warning is clear: the real threat is not always oppression from without, but complacency from within. We can choose the easy path~ a life of distraction and comfort, designed to pacify ~ or we can choose humanity: the messy, demanding, beautiful engagement with reality that makes life worth living.
The question is not whether we can be happy. It is whether we are willing to be fully human.
I think you should also comment on Huxley's book "BRAVE NEW WORLD--Revisited" as that one (a thin book in comparison) spells out what exactly is on Huxley's mind. Remember, he's writing from his era and the 'frames of references' normalized in his time. Like, i'm not sure i'd agree with him about 'overpopulation'. But the idea of "over-organization" hit a chord with me.
I'm curious what Huxley had to say about nihilism? Because the whole premise of his book is that people do have a choice. Right now I think the choice is between shutting off and doing nothing or staying proactive to set things on a more sane course. I think a lot of people feel genuinely overwhelmed by all the terrible things unfolding which is more than fair and feel nothing they do matters. Empowerment to me is one of the best countermeasures to this as is compassion, something you mentioned. Staying informed but not to the point of illness is possible but only if we learn to filter out the lies and find sources offering genuine information. Ultimately we need to redirect our personal and collective power toward something more constructive for everyone and world leadership doesn't in this moment reflect that vision to us. We need to formulate the vision we seek for the world and follow through on making that a reality.
Good comment. Yes BE what you want to SEE in the world. Empowerment is the word we all need today. To see things the way they really are whether lies or truths. We have all been fed such lies about everything that we have lost our innate sense of truth. It’s still there. We all have it just like every other mammal on this earth. It just needs to be exercised. I was awakened early in my life after reading “Silent Spring.”
Carol ~ beautifully put. Yes ~ to be what we wish to see in the world is the truest form of empowerment. Our innate sense of truth is not lost; it may be clouded, but it is always within us, like a quiet compass waiting to be exercised.
Awakening, as you experienced with Silent Spring, begins when we recognize the lies we’ve been fed and consciously choose alignment with reality, compassion, and integrity. Every act rooted in that awareness ~ no matter how small ~ ripples outward, shaping a world that reflects the values we embody.
Kirsten ~beautifully said. The tension between feeling overwhelmed and choosing proactive engagement is at the heart of our human experience. Huxley reminds us that surrendering to numbness is a choice, just as engaging with clarity, compassion, and courage is a choice.
Empowerment arises not from denial of the darkness, but from consciously directing our energy toward meaningful action~ however small. Staying informed with discernment, cultivating compassion, and aligning our actions with a vision of a just and humane world transforms despair into agency.
Even amidst overwhelming events, every act rooted in care and integrity ripples outward, shaping both the world we inhabit and the character we cultivate within. The challenge, and the gift, is choosing to act when it would be easier to look away.
I have often referred to this book when discussing this era. The Romans figured this out by putting coliseums around the Empire and staging bloody gladiator battles, the ancient form of entertainment that amused the masses and their efficiency in keeping the masses relatively well fed
These dystopian forecasts have rattled me all my life. Sixty years on, I still feel that there’s something inherently unstable in any radically oppressive society.
But unfortunately my vision isn’t an optimistic one. It’s a vision of cleansing, restorative, annihilation.
I an not saying that we should abandon hope; we must cling to it. I consider this an effort to help prevent the not quite inevitable.
Sera ~ thank you for sharing so candidly. I deeply resonate with your awareness of the fragility of oppressive systems. The tension between acknowledging the harsh realities and holding onto hope is profound.
Clinging to hope, as you say, is itself an act of resistance. It is the seed that allows us to consciously act in alignment with justice, compassion, and truth ~ to prevent what seems “almost inevitable” from taking root. Even small, deliberate actions ripple outward, creating the space where restoration, rather than destruction, can emerge.
i think 'hope' is much too passive, but is the reason it's widely and popularly touted. If you 'hope' you wait for someone else to save you. So i think, yeah, it has its values, yet the main crucial thing is to get to work/play on something that inspires you!
One of my favorite books. I look around and see soma everywhere in society, in so many forms. Why do we crave what’s authentic even if it hurts us? What’s the satisfaction in something gained through blood, sweat and tears? Why does it feel disingenuous to live in bliss if nothing inherently matters? Seeing the character hang himself in the end instead of giving into the matrix was such an incredible end and something to dwell on its meaning.
The craving for authenticity, even when it brings pain, reveals our deepest tether to being fully alive. Bliss without struggle, without risk, without confrontation with reality, is hollow. It is the blood, sweat, and tears~ the lived, raw engagement with life~ that gives joy its depth and meaning.
And yes… the choice of John to resist the Matrix, to confront despair rather than submit to engineered pleasure, is a stark mirror for us all. It asks: will we choose the comfort of illusion, or the sometimes-painful truth of being?
The belief that many have about "nothing really matters" is, in my view (and analysis) a belief trap perpetrated upon us systematically. A belief trap that is held by many elites, notably, whom seem to "like" to see humanity as a mere machine, and all our emotions and intuitions "empty" sentimentality.
Because 'misery loves company' they have gotten everyone (who reads/hears the well-funded media) thinking only within this type of ideological corral! (Perhaps the meta is the desire to find a way out? And by pushing most into it with them, perhaps find, eventually, via a champion, a real solution?!? i have to wonder!!)
“Would I even care that I don’t have a choice if I’m happy not having one?”
Only if I remember what choice used to feel like.
i think the idea of being (outwardly) happy in not having a choice comes with a crucial context: that of our psychological genocide. John Trudell (the late great Indigenous depth charger) said that and i think it's worth thinking through!
The confines of the Frame of Reference corral that surrounds us have us believing, not thinking. Many of us believe we don't have time, even, to think carefully and in nuance. Much less think about ideas that we've been Told, from Day 1 (or thereabouts), aren't "realistic", etc.
To explore beyond the ideologically imposed corrals is to come to recognize that there ARE many choices more than what appears most easily.
Chaz ~ beautifully put. The “Frame of Reference” that surrounds us is subtle but powerful: it shapes what we perceive as possible, often confining our thinking without our awareness.
Recognizing the boundaries imposed by ideology or circumstance is the first step toward reclaiming agency. Once we see that more choices exist than the ones presented as “realistic,” we reclaim not only freedom of thought, but freedom of action.
It is within this expanded awareness that empowerment arises ~ the ability to consciously navigate the world rather than simply react to it. And in doing so, we honor the depth and potential that John Trudell so eloquently championed.
Just last week I found
the book “Critical Lives-Aldous Huxley” (Jake Poller) and look forward to reading it. It would seem rather than choosing depth the future looks like the shallows, fed to us, unchosen, but like a happy pill, we will smile all the while. It’s important to be aware of our Matrix moments, which pill we decide to allow. To know or not to choose to know, that is our question.
I feel we are overwhelmed with media today. Whether it be streaming music, social media or video content. We need to disconnect from this world occasionally to keep our sanity. Your steps for doing this are excellent.
My view of life is less dismal, perhaps the result of having had a NDE at age 14, then having had a life review and being returned to finish my life out much like a fish tossed back into their stream. This changes how a person sees the world much as taking LSD does by lifting the veil of a matrix between ourselves and pure beauty. This is something Aldous experimented with by no coincidence to a much distorted outlook on the world around him. We have epiphanies once touched by forces such as these that forever cling to our inner being and in Aldous’s case sparked the creativity he had held inside onto the written page.
Yeah, i also had challenges thru-out my life, where my life was in peril many times. So i think it's true that such things have a way of helping people to focus on the deeper meanings, past all the hype for surfaces.
I remember reading Brave New World as a kid and identifying with Savage.
There was an OTC sedative drug introduced in 1968 called Quiet World. There were some chilling ads , "When life's everyday ups and downs get to you....Quiet World." Was banned in the early 70s along with Compoz.
Huxley was way more accurate in his forecast for the west
Yes - Brave New World has always struck me as a much more terrifying - and realistic - vision of how we could descend into autocracy than the crude version of control in 1984. And with the Internet and other drugs so totally preoccupying so.many, we are just about there...
I'm afraid our future will consist of a blend of both Orwell and Huxley.
Future? It is already underway.
"Too many shadows, whispering voices
faces on posters, too many choices
If? When? Why? What?
How much have you got?
Have you got it? Do you get it?
If so, how often?
Which do you choose
a hard or soft option?
(How much do you need?)"
- West End Girls, Pet Shop Boys
Scary but possible, very possible. I'll read the book now WHILE I CAN…
Huxley vs. Happiness: Choosing Humanity Over Comfort
Aldous Huxley’s vision in Brave New World is often overlooked in popular discourse, yet it may be more chilling than Orwell’s dystopia. Orwell warned of the external boot stamping on a human face forever. Huxley warned of the internal boot~ of chains we willingly wear, softened by distraction, numbed by pleasure, and convinced that we are free.
In Huxley’s world, control is seduction. Soma replaces struggle. Entertainment replaces reflection. Comfort replaces courage. And, slowly, almost imperceptibly, humanity is eroded from within. We are conditioned to seek refuge in the trivial, to avoid the difficult, to trade genuine experience for fleeting illusion. The cost? Our capacity for deep joy, authentic connection, empathy, and creativity ~ the very qualities that make life meaningful.
John the Savage’s cry, “I claim the right to be unhappy,” echoes as both a warning and a call to arms. The pursuit of happiness, as defined by a world designed to pacify us, can become a trap. By avoiding pain, we also avoid growth; by seeking ease, we sacrifice depth; by indulging comfort, we surrender freedom.
Today, we see echoes of Huxley’s prophecy all around us. Endless scrolling, curated feeds, and instantaneous gratification shape our perceptions, our desires, and even our moral attention. It is easier than ever to become complicit in our own conditioning ~ to accept a painless, shallow existence as enough.
Resisting this subtle tyranny is not a small task. It requires vigilance, courage, and the willingness to embrace discomfort:
Question everything: Examine the narratives presented to you. Seek alternative sources, perspectives, and voices that challenge the dominant discourse.
Embrace struggle: Lean into experiences that demand effort, reflection, or confrontation with uncomfortable truths. Growth lies in the friction, not the cushion.
Reconnect with reality: Step away from endless digital noise. Engage with nature, with work that matters, and with people in deep, meaningful ways.
Prioritize humanity over convenience: Choose empathy, connection, and moral clarity over fleeting pleasure or comfort.
Huxley’s warning is clear: the real threat is not always oppression from without, but complacency from within. We can choose the easy path~ a life of distraction and comfort, designed to pacify ~ or we can choose humanity: the messy, demanding, beautiful engagement with reality that makes life worth living.
The question is not whether we can be happy. It is whether we are willing to be fully human.
I think you should also comment on Huxley's book "BRAVE NEW WORLD--Revisited" as that one (a thin book in comparison) spells out what exactly is on Huxley's mind. Remember, he's writing from his era and the 'frames of references' normalized in his time. Like, i'm not sure i'd agree with him about 'overpopulation'. But the idea of "over-organization" hit a chord with me.