In a world where truth is decaying, how to find an anchor that doesn’t disintegrate with it?
What is wrong with the world? Why is everybody so unwell and lost? There are many ways to approach the underlying cluster of issues (some call it a super wicked problem), but we want to focus on one aspect in particular: people no longer share an anchor. So, when all meaning collapses, they are finally starting to ask the right questions.
Throughout most of human history, religion offered communities and societies a shared framework of meaning, morality, identity, and social cohesion. Religion creates and reinforces collective consciousness.
Then, something changed, gradually but fundamentally. Religion began to lose its links to spirituality as it became more rationalised and institutionalised. Enlightenment and industrialisation were engines of the same change: as science began to gain foothold in how the collective thinks, religions institutions began to lose their monopoly over public truth and social authority.
In many domains, science became the gold standard for explaining reality. It could tell us what things are made of, how they work and often how to fix them. What it could not tell us was what any of it meant.
Many of us can still tap into this internalised conflict vividly:
- Do I believe in the religion of my upbringing, because my ancestors have believed in it? It might even be part of my identity and sense of safety. If everyone else around me is doing fine believing in it, surely it is easy for me to go with it as well. The psychological appeal is enormous, and many religions do contain wisdom and spiritual relevance… among, uh, some other things.
- Or do I face the fact that it makes no logical sense? In that case, my anchor shifts from religion to facts and science. This shift has brought extraordinary benefits: longer lifespans, lower child mortality, modern medicine, technological innovation and an unprecedented ability to understand the physical world. Does it feel whole? No. But it makes all the sense.
If only it was that simple, still.
That stench of truth in decay
Until the arrival of the internet, where was the public consensus created? Small communities can discuss their matters at a gathering, but societies need – media. Books, newspapers, radio and television. They were the platform. Notably, not everyone could access them to say their piece. Social status and profession dictated who could.
Then came digitalisation, like a Santa nobody hired and expected but who showed up anyway, with gifts, slightly drunk, possibly benevolent but who can really be sure? Starting from the 1990s, for the first time in known human history, almost everyone gained the ability to publish globally.
This put something in motion. Researchers describe this shift as a growing disagreement about objective facts, a blurring of the line between opinion and evidence, and declining trust in institutions that were once widely regarded as authoritative. Truth began to decay, as has been said. We can all smell the rot, for sure.
Searching for a resilient anchor
This is what we think: the deeper pattern we are looking at here is the disappearance of common anchors of meaning and truth.
In the past, media played the key role in establishing what information entered public discourse (and, conversely, what didn’t). For most of history, somebody else filtered reality for us.
Today, we are expected to do much of that work ourselves. At the same time, there is simply too much information for a human to even evaluate. And not only that, but fact checking is in fact hard work in the cognitive sense. Yet, as people trust institutions less and less, they increasingly take that burden upon themselves. Human beings evolved to decide whether that rustling in the bushes was a deer or a wolf. We did not evolve to process five hundred contradictory headlines before lunchtime while under voice message bombardment from a friend in a relationship crisis.
Quelle surprise, then, that people are struggling… Brains are getting fired and nervous systems shot. At some point the questions stop being political, scientific, or religious. They become existential. When even the fundamentals are up for debate, where exactly are you supposed to stand? How to tell truth and lie apart? Whom to believe? For godssakes what does any of this even matter? Where’s my remote, maybe there’s something new up on Netflix.
Not for nothing, but your life is on the line
If the search for truth was merely a casual, quasi-philosophical exercise for shits and giggles, we could leave it unsolved. Life would go on, in the Muggle way. The bills would still arrive, the cat’s litter box would still need cleaning, and the Sun would still rise in the morning.
But it does very much feel like the world is getting more volatile by the day. Regardless of whether you are looking at economy, environment or social wellbeing, there seems to be a feeling that something unstoppable is coming our way to upend the entire society. The Sun may rise in the morning but if the Earth gets all nuked, we won’t able to see it for a bit. It’s the proverbial slo-mo train wreck we are all watching and eating popcorn because it’s not like we can stop it. It’s a bit unnerving because we are also the passengers of that damned train. Many of us are already impacted in some way.
This is why a great wave of people have now embarked on the quest of finding an anchor. People approach the same dilemma in many different ways, asking themselves questions such as:
- Why does my life feel like it is collapsing?
- How to find hope when the world seems hopeless?
- I feel like I am looking for something but what is it?
- There are so many different things I could be doing, what to focus on?
- Is there a world beyond the scientifically proven and if yes, how to find it?
- I’ve tried meditation, therapy, yoga, etc., and yet something still aches. What now?
- Is this burnout… or something deeper calling me?
- Can I embrace the world beyond our five senses and still remain in touch with reality and science?
They all lead to the same answer, eventually. That is how we see it.
When external authorities become fragmented, people often turn inward. Some find religion again. Others turn to philosophy, therapy, meditation, nature, creativity, or spiritual practice. The forms differ, but the impulse is the same: the search for an anchor that cannot be taken away by changing headlines, algorithms or institutions. Something that doesn’t disintegrate when everything else does. The answer is age old, of course.
The only truth you’ll find is inside.
None of us is walking alone
Support is available, if you need it. We never tell you what to do, but we have struggled with these questions ourselves and learned a number of things that can help. Most of them are such that once you learn it, you can do it yourself.
You can contact Terhi at her Spiritual Spa if you want to proceed right away with support, energy healing or regression therapy. Alternatively, you can email to us with your questions or thoughts at yes@beingintegrated.com. All information is kept strictly confidential. When we know more about your situation, we can recommend something – either our own services, some great 3rd party providers, or something you can do on your own.