Postcard: Decoy
No. 013 - on discerning between the real and the fake.
Postcard is a weekly curation of things I think are beautiful or interesting. Each postcard will be named after a word and contain something to listen to, something to look at, and something to think about. I welcome you to share any thoughts in the comments. Thank you!
decoy:
(n.) A person or object meant to lure somebody into danger.
(n.) A real or fake animal used by hunters to lure game.
(n.) Deceptive military device used to draw enemy attention or fire away from a more important target.
†Meanings from Wiktionary
Something to listen to:
2019’s Parasite is the story of what happens when good people lack discernment. No need to complicate the analysis further. Evil gets off on being let inside.
Something to look at:
Something to think about:
We are living in the Age of Inversion. Up is down, left is right, and golly gee I guess there’s really no way of saying if moral relativism and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. Historically, one of the core purposes of culture was to serve as an inoculation against bad ideas but that too has become corrupted and inverted. Now, the default culture has become one of their chief proprietors.
We worship cynicism as a proxy for wisdom, ceding spiritual territory to people with ugly thoughts, ugly ideas, and loud voices. We assume that because someone is trying to sell us something there must be some kind of inherent value in what they’re selling. We are always looking for external sources of our problems; if you’re unhappy, if you’re depressed, according to the default culture that has nothing to do with what you are thinking or how you are living your life but is instead a “chemical imbalance” that can only be remedied through psychiatric medication.
In this distinctly postmodern cultural environment, decoys are enjoying their day in the sun. We have seemingly infinite substitutes, mannequins masquerading as the real thing. Social media as a decoy for real community. Video games as a decoy for real achievement. Pornography as a decoy for real sexual conquests. ‘Casual sex’ as a decoy for real committed relationships. Foods ridden with preservatives and weird chemicals as a decoy for real nutrition. Even our education system has itself become a decoy-factory, churning out certificates and endless representations of false prestige, false accomplishment.
We even have decoy morality and decoy virtues. For example, somehow it has become insufficient for a business to just be an entity that specializes in something (one of the core precepts of capitalism that has driven the creation of so much prosperity and mutual benefit in the world). No, instead of simply making a really good chocolate chip cookie and selling it to people, decoy-morality demands to be included in the story like: “Baking is just a medium for our TRUE PASSION: ENDING RACISM.”
Virtue that feeds the ego is virtue that has been corrupted. We used to understand that it’s not just about what you do but how you do it. This, too, has been lost.
What happens when you pour your real energy into decoys? You become disempowered. You become disenchanted. You become cynical, full of despair.
Thankfully, countering decoys is easy: get back in touch with meaning. You are real. The world around you is real. Feel that connection and follow it wherever it takes you.
Resanctify the profane. Remember that you do not need to be religious to have religious experiences. Remember that rituals aren’t merely performative but tap into real energy, real emotions. Even making your bed with clean sheets is a powerful ritual that unlocks better sleep, mood, and energy. Cherish the rituals you already know and trust to be real and good. And be curious enough about the world and yourself to discover new ones. The more open you are to the idea that your life can be full of enchantment, the more enchantment will rush to fill that space in your life.
Nobody else will romanticize your life for you, but this is a good thing—a beautiful thing even—rather than a cause for despair. Each of us was born with an infinite capacity to do just that. We can generate deep meanings from what we perceive in the real world, what we exchange with each other. When we practice discernment, when we reject decoys and embrace the real, we can let it all the way into our heart.
Good food, good music, good relationships. There is often such an elegant simplicity to truth, to beauty, to good things. All we need to do is trust ourselves to recognize that when we see it.
People inside of the default culture often say things like, "This won't fix you, that won't fix you.” Respectfully, I have to disagree. A really good sandwich has fixed me. A glass of cold water has fixed me. Making a stranger laugh has fixed me. You can find salvation and enchantment in the simplest of places. It just has to be real.
I’ll close with a question. What if the default culture and its postmodernist orientation towards thinking everything is arbitrary and meaningless is, in fact, exactly what makes everything feel arbitrary and meaningless? What if rejecting that false frame is all it takes to get the real world—the world of the real—to open up to you?
Beyond brilliant words, my friend!
I like what you’ve said here, Mr Kramer