Since yesterday was the inauguration day of our deeply pathetic, misogynistic, racist, and megalomaniac President here in the United States (welcome to oligarchy and fascism), I thought it would be relevant to explain the reason I chose “It’s All a Ruse” as the title of my Substack. The title isn’t complicated, nor is the explanation a definition of the term, I’d only like to explain why it was chosen.
Everything we do is fabricated. None of it is inherently real. Yes, it’s real in the sense that we can see it, physically engage with it, or handle it— but it’s all created by us, an advanced race of mammals. Money is a construct. Marriage is a concept we designed. Government, cars, cryptocurrency, stocks, religion, mortgages, celebrity, banks, language, phones, money, art— every bit of it was dreamed up by fallible creatures like us. In a deeper sense, none of it is truly real. We become so consumed by these constructs that we forget nearly everything we interact with, own, or purchase is just “junk.” This “junk,” this “property” we accumulate, exists to distinguish us from one another. Those who own the bigger house, the more expensive car, or have more money in their bank accounts are deemed better than the rest of us. Celebrities are seen as better. Billionaires are treated as superior.
However, all of it is an illusion. We’ve created these conceptual worlds as an escape from the natural one. Don’t worry; I’m not about to go down the path of a peace-loving, granola-crunching hippie preaching that “love is the only way forward.” No, thank you. That said, the worship many of us devote to items and ideas, often to the point of obsession, is a direct path to societal failure. These constructs, born out of thin air, all serve one purpose: to feed into capital. And capital is the system upon which the world currently turns. Capital, physical property, and social status are deliberately crafted tools designed to uphold class divisions and reinforce societal hierarchies. To sustain capitalism, inequality is essential. Without “property,” inequality would hardly exist.
If you strip away the illusion of property, all that remains is ourselves and one another. Yes, we have inherent differences— to whom and where we are born, people we choose to love, characteristics, traits, and so on. These personal differences will always exist. However, at our core, we are fundamentally the same. The illusion of property exists for a reason. It keeps us salivating for more, compels us to compare, fuels our desires, and drives us to work.
I understand that since we’ve created these constructs, they’ve now become real. I get it. I understand the desire for money, cars, marriage, children. None of these desires are inherently bad. I currently participate in the system I speak of. However, I want to highlight how easily we, as humans, fall into the trap of wanting these things so desperately that we lose sight of what is truly real: ourselves and each other. We’re so quick to cast others aside for personal gain, to ignore atrocities, to chase popularity, that we repeatedly fall victim to this illusion. Humans aren’t perfect but we possess the remarkable ability to assess situations, acknowledge wrongdoing, and make amends.
That consciousness, that awareness and understanding, is what I’m striving for. “It’s All a Ruse” serves as a simple, poignant, reminder.
Well said.
I imagined it had something to do with your technique in relation to your resulting dreamy portraits, like "it's not as hard as it looks". But it goes much deeper by your explanation, and I get the constructs of reality we form. Can "it's not as hard as it looks" apply at this level? Or is it the opposite?