Cut Off From Reality
one
Obligation to the Truth
It’s astonishing, but if you tell people that they have an intellectual obligation to the truth, to acknowledge reality and conform their minds to it, they’ll often push back. They’ll say something like “Listen, I know my truth and my reality, and that’s enough for me.” You might explain at that point that they’re misusing the words “truth” and “reality”. That “truth” and “reality” are words which were invented to designate what is independent of the mind. In that sense, truth and reality aren’t private, and they aren’t yours.
It might be okay to talk about “your experience,” but reality is public, it’s independent, it’s the objective common ground outside the mind where we should all strive to meet together.
When we recognize reality for what it is, that’s called truth.
However, people have gotten so cut off from reality that many of them don’t see any need to try to reach it at all. They might say, “I don’t need objective truth. I don’t need to know about reality. I know my experience, and I know what I want. And that’s all I need.”
What can you do for someone like that?
two
Drugs and Video Games and Pornography
You see, our intellects were meant to be aimed at and reaching for the truth out in the world around us. We were meant to see things, and learn about other people, and contemplate the God who is behind it all. Instead, we’ve turned our own heads in on themselves. We’ve twisted and warped our minds by creating fantasy worlds cut off from the real world, especially the young people, who spend so much of their time in the unreal universe of drugs and video games and pornography.
After a while, their minds have lost their grip, they can’t get a grip on the real world anymore. Then, when you tell them this, when you tell them they’re living in a fantasy world, they say, “Well, what’s so bad about living in a fantasy world?”
What’s so bad about it? What’s so bad about it is that it’s disordered. And disorder of the mind is always a wretched condition.
three
Mental Illness
We were made for truth. We were made to know reality with the mind. When our mind no longer corresponds to reality, we have a name for that. It’s called mental illness. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people, especially young people, suffer from mental illness in our society. Mental illness is everywhere and it’s awful.
We say we don’t care about the truth. We say we’re not interested in conforming our intellects to reality, even though that’s precisely what God designed us to do. Yet, we live lives that ignore truth, that twist the intellect in on itself until we’re stuck in a fantasy world. The result is pure misery.
four
Psychological/Emotional Disorders
Think about every mental illness you know. Look at how all of them involve a disconnection, a lack of correspondence, with reality.
Anxiety is the mental illness where our concern for the future doesn’t correspond to reality. Paranoia is the mental illness where our fear doesn’t correspond to reality. Depression is the mental illness where our unhappiness doesn’t correspond to reality. Mania is the mental illness where our enthusiasm doesn’t correspond to reality. Gender dysphoria is the mental illness where our gender identification doesn’t correspond to reality. Schizophrenia is the mental illness where our beliefs about what’s happening don’t correspond to reality. Anorexia is the mental illness where our body image doesn’t correspond to reality And so on and so forth. The list could continue indefinitely. And all of us either have, or know someone who has, these disorders. We’re pouring into therapists’ offices like an ocean of dysfunction. And then we ask why we should bother disciplining our minds to know the truth!!!???
five
The God of Truth and Sanity
Our mind was made for truth; our intellect thirsts for answers. If we block the mind in its search of truth, it will warp and disintegrate. But there are answers, if we will look for them. There are answers to the strangest, most difficult riddles. To the question, Where did everything come from? There is the answer, From God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth. To the question, What is the point of suffering? There is the answer of God, Jesus Christ, Crucified and Risen Again, the Savior of the World. To the question, What must I do? There is the answer, Allow the Holy Spirit into Your soul, and the Father and the Son will dwell there also within you. And God will enter into your life on earth, so that you can enter into God’s life in Heaven.
This is the truth. It’s strange and surprising and wonderful. It is the truth about the world and about yourself. Just as mental illness brings restlessness and suffering, this truth, which we are called to accept and contemplate with the intellects God gave us, this truth brings peace.