I was trying to figure out the Determinate Environment. I was trying to get the hang of it, trying as best I could to suss it out. Were people competing for space on the hard drive, I wondered? Was that it? The argument against that was obvious – the hard drive wasn’t real and so the space on it didn’t exist! So what was everyone competing for, in this case? I found myself at a loss, unable to make sense of what was going on. We were all competing for space on the hard drive and it was definitely a case of ‘the survival of the fittest’. There was no time for anything else, no time to look left or right, and the cruel thing was that there was no space there for anyone at the end of the day. We were ‘the fittest’ for sure, but what were we fit for?

I was trying to comprehend the hidden logic of the environment. I was trapped in it – it was completely opaque to me. Every person I saw was (in their own way) busily engrossed in the task and there was no time to slack off, never any time to slack off. The task was All-Important. The pressure was on in a big way and we all knew that it wasn’t ever going to let up, and yet at the same time there was a tremendous sense of slackness, the tremendous sense of utter hollow futility. We all knew that we were going nowhere and we all knew that we would never would, but we couldn’t access this awareness. We were cut off from it. The awareness was there, as stark as day, absolutely undeniable, but none of us could ever address it, none of us could see what it was that we already knew.

I am integrating the environment and the environment is integrating me. The hidden logic of the system is that Everything Is A Lie – this is the hidden logic that we can never escape. We all know the reality of The Lie; we all know that we can never escape from it. The reality of The Lie is imprinted on us on the molecular level; it is imprinted on our faces, it is imprinted in the tone of our voices. No one can ever escape The Lie, and yet at the same time we are not permitted to address or in any way articulate this awareness. No one can speak of it; no one can acknowledge the lie that determines our lives. We are bowed down by it; we are utterly crushed by it in everything we do. The Invisible Lie is the determining factor of our lives.

We are prisoners of our own tyrannical environment, we are the victims of this shockingly terrible, life-denying thing that we have created! How were we ever clever enough (and stupid enough!) to create it? So very clever and so very stupid, so very clever and so very stupid. What an awesome combination! How does a combination like this actually work anyway, I asked myself? I already know the answer to this of course – I’m just gradually working my way around to articulating it. The Determinate Environment was always out there waiting to be born, you see. There was never a time when it wasn’t there. It needed us in order to be born and so it worked through us, it worked slowly and patiently through us in order realise itself, it manipulated us so that it could fulfil its aim. It worked on is so very slowly, so very patiently that it was always bound to succeed…

The environment is hard to figure out; it’s hard to figure out because it’s so very opaque. It is as opaque as stone, and just as heavy. What else would you expect of the Determinate Environment, after all? The Determinate Environment doesn’t want us to figure it out; it doesn’t grant us the freedom to do so. It doesn’t grant us the freedom to do anything, of course. There is a fantastical paradox in all this, as I am only now starting to appreciate – a paradox that I cannot get my head around at all. The Determinate Environment was patiently waiting to be born (as now it has been born) but it wasn’t a real thing THEN any more than it is a real thing NOW. It is an outright lie that the Determinate Environment is a real thing! This is the lie that the Determinate Environment – by its very nature – never allows us to see.