We are in tricksville. The lies are truth. The truth is fake. The authority is corrupt.

We are offered rotten fruit stinking of decay as the pulpy juices drip between the fingers of the system Titans. A sense of background anxiety is so pervasive that the Atlantic’s January/February cover screeches “Why Are We So Angry?” in white letters imitating handwriting on a blood orange flame of a cover.

It is a time that is underscored by the presence of hesitation. It is a time that is structured by suspicion. Fight or flight juices are pumping through the body politic. Economic foreshadowing is leering over scholarly articles.

What investment is safe? What action is without impunity? What future is building?

What we do know is that we have been in a fun house of gimmicks. So much of what Western Culture and particularly North American Culture has assumed was a reality is now revealed to be a trick, a device, an attraction meant to pull away our eyes from the underlying truth that we have been betrayed.

And in order to lull the public, there are increasingly more attractive ploys, stunts, contrivances, distractions, strategies. The schtick is laid on thick.

Consumption was supposed to be the cure for the sickness of consumption. Those of us who grew up in the 1950s knew exactly what was real. I remember the new, bigger car. I remember the first black and white TV I watched at the store near my house. We bought one and were the first in our neighbourhood to create an altar for images telling us how the world operated. We were now entrained by the entertainment. A new refrigerator was slid into the kitchen. We were enthralled.

The United States was unchallenged. It was powerful and no other nation had moved so quickly into technology, trade and theatre. America was exceptional. The images told us to consume and that all growth was an investment in the future.

And then other nations appeared on the scene. The American gang was not the only one on the block any longer. In 1986 globalization put the nicely balanced concept of stimulated consumption into a tail spin. The competition could pay low wages. Countries that had not awakened to the new industrial revolution of technology were now learning rapidly and in some cases surpassing the USA.

Some of us learned about the multi-levels of corruption that were the pillars of the avaricious network of politics, corporations and the military. Others would not believe there were rats in the walls until the bulldozer started to open up the structure. Even today, there are those who deny the presence of the razzmatazz reality that kept us trapped.

And now the earth has been insulted into violence. Weather system are destroying towns, coastal areas. The air is thick with poisonous particulates in cities across the globe for weeks on end.

“Anger is one of the densest forms of communication,” says The Atlantic article. “It conveys more information, more quickly, than almost any other type of emotion….. It (anger) has become less episodic and more persistent, a constant drumbeat in our lives.”

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And so we demonize one another. We see the source of all of our fear in others. Even those who started out as left-leaning liberals bent on compassion screech out their condemnation of others who do not align with their perceptions.

Why does this happen? Because it is a world in which Gimmickery is God. We are conditioned to first believe in the “theatre” of information and then to distrust any and all information.

There is no release of catharsis. There is no calvary trumpet telling us we are saved. Diatribes of molten anger spew in social media. We were promised the golden ring. We were promised the gifts of exceptionalism. We have been grifted by the system.

Some react by reaching out for more gimmicks. Some buy into consumption as a soothing ritual. Some continue to gain weight as they fill the sense of emptiness within. Netflix binge watching can put off contact with an individual’s particular circumstances for days on end.

The chichi, razzmatazz, theatre, loss-leader schemes don’t work anymore.

We are waking up. And we start to realize that the only way out of this dystopia of chaos is to take responsibility for our own actions.

Now is the time to observe the self and ask: What am I feeling? What am I afraid of? How do I choose to treat others?

Yes, the system has failed but that failure was always built into it. It is not new. We are just at a conjunction of forces that will not allow us to trance our way through our lives. It is too late for that.

And so we begin by taking responsibility for our own actions. We face the reality of a dying earth. We learn that growth is not good in and of itself and that it is no longer a possibility. The Gimmicky is a trap.

It is up to us to free ourselves, each of us, alone in our own lives.