Ten Reasons Why We Might Be in Hell

Frank Maddish
17 min readJul 14, 2020

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Hell

Some say life is precious and that we should appreciate every moment we spend here on Earth. Unless you step out of line, or just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, then it’s cheap and easily expendable, because money, property, and the status quo have more value than a single human life. If we’re so blessed to be here, then why do we even have laws and rules to control our every move? What about all the blatant disparities of wealth and quality of life in this world, is it fair, or is this system we live in merely designed to torture the soul?

It’s become so bad recently, hardly anybody believes in anything, asides what they’re told, and even then they complain. The general public, in the main, leaves it to government and science to work out the kinks, and do their best to muddle along without a clue why we’re here or where we’re going.

Which got me wondering, should this be hell, it’d need a convincing disguise — something to convince its residents to stick around and not just go crazy and commit suicide. Then again, much like the movie ‘Matrix,’ you can’t make things too perfect, because no one would believe it. The same goes the other way, red devils holding pitchforks by lakes of boiling lava can only last so long before the fear wears off and the mind wanders.

That’s why Earth might just be hell, after all, it’s getting very crowded, and nobody gets along. Imagine if when you die, you have no memory of death and are born into this fragile flesh and given a name and told what to do, including showing gratitude for your new life in hell.

Here are ten reasons why this place might be hell:

1. Mortality

Mortality

Death might be a blessing, dependent on the situation, but it’s not as clear-cut as you might’ve first imagined. First, there’s the pain of birth for all concerned, and once you’re here, you’re prone to a myriad of diseases as well as accidents, genetic deficiencies and conditions, all kinds of problems and this is years before your death.

If you’re a Buddhist you probably believe that ‘from the moment you are born you begin to die,’ but I’d say it’s somewhere around early to mid-twenties, depending on your genetics, lifestyle, etc. Just as a general rule, we slowly lose our propensity to regenerate cells, refresh the system as it were, until eventually, decay turns to entropy and death.

Nobody wants to live forever, but here’s the thing, even science admits they’ve no clue what to do when it comes to the true nature of consciousness. A happy accident, a grand coincidence, evidence of an order to the universe, who knows? There have been so many recorded cases of Near-Death Experiences, some of which are extremely convincing, it’s difficult to nail down exactly what turns a human into a human being.

Death itself is said to be painless, but I have an inkling that dying is the most painful of all experiences. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually catastrophic, uprooting your existence and erasing you from the timeline. Until all you are is a few faded memories in the minds of friends and family.

2. Politics and Law

Law

How did governance begin? Was there a vote? Who would invent and implement such a system, democratic or otherwise and convince the people, obviously so wild and uncontrollable, that they needed a ruler, a leader, a government and law?

So, sure, we get to vote, not that there are any decent choices. Democracy has a habit of pleasing nobody, in particular, the majority feels vindicated and the minority victimised, like a football game full of egomaniacs and bad losers.

What I find creepy is the whole notion of pyramidical power, and how so many old families have dug their toes in and occupied the seats of government for generations. It’s rather like the mafia, at least when it had power, there are ranks and positions, and everybody has to respect the chain of command.

Politicians are paid obscene amounts to turn a blind eye and wave laws through or vote them down because specific wealthy individuals and their multinational corporations have made promises. Once your term is over, you’re guaranteed a job for life, a seat on a board, a silent partnership, a speaking tour for a million per show, or something for your retirement banked offshore.

The whole concept of public representation is distorted by subjective bias. Nobody knows how you feel or what you want, not even you, you just have a good idea. Now, for those like me who still believe in individuality, lumping a few million of us together and making vague promises, is way off the mark. It’s almost as if politics had been created to distract citizens from society’s fundamental flaws. We’re not designed to live this way, for modern life is becoming increasingly artificial.

The most intriguing element of government is the law, and how the hell the masses ever agreed to such a concept. It’s practically an exchange of fundamental human rights for a key to the proverbial city. Yet, that’s exactly how this all started. In the ancient past, cities had walls and if you wanted to enter you had to agree to their code of conduct. You might even have to pay a toll and prove your identity just in case you turn out to be the enemy.

Somehow it stuck and spread, and laws were enforced across the land. Until every country and even the sea was ruled by regulations and controlled by authorities, who had been invested with the power to confine you or even kill you should they desire.

3. Money

Money

We should be born free, for nobody truly owns our body or the land beneath our feet. In the past, we’d have been nomads and went where we pleased. A very long time ago, before cars and online banking, and smart bombs and holograms, and all this stuff we have now. Because that’s the trade-off, give up your liberty, and you can have money to buy what you like, and hoard it or just throw it away.

That’s the trick, that’s the hidden hand of the economy. We are all born into debt, and our debtors is the hegemony, the autocracy, the subjugators of our freedom. Without money, there would be no armies or police, or property or society, and we’d all be free to act like savages and kill each other for a loaf of bread. At least that’s what we’re led to believe by just about every mainstream institution in the world.

Money makes the world go round, or not, but debt definitely holds it down. With so many owing so many to so few, what happens if the wealthiest on the planet decide to cash their chips in? If we default on the global debt and wait for the repo man, we’ll soon find out that we are the collateral. Our bodies, our minds, our blood, organs, our genes, they are all patented products and commodities of our corporate paymasters.

One day there will be a financial crash to end all crashes. When people look back in years to come to try to understand this tumultuous period of history, they’ll wonder what the hell we thought we were doing. Playing money games, starting wars for no reason, ending civilisation because they’d caught the flu, destroyed their ancestry and declared a new reality based on the games they played until they were thirty. It’s somewhat similar to the end of the Roman Empire, one ultimately consumed by its own decadence. I guess people never learn.

4. War

War

Imagine how many people now, if they were of conscription age, would agree to go to war for some political or economic reason that they don’t even understand. I guess very few, and even then, they’d sabotage the war effort, because we all live in a global village, and wars are for fascists. Unless it’s deemed culturally progressive, then it’s our fault, and we should take up arms against ourselves.

Most of us are secretly resigned to the idea that things are only going to get worse. We might be invaded, or we may be the invaders, but in truth, we’ve had absolutely nothing to do with all this conflict. Some of us will sign petitions or march against the latest war, but it makes no difference, democracy has no teeth when the government are gunning for a showdown.

Wars used to be between royal families, although they’re all related, so I suppose it used to be some kind of historical public relations exercise. Now It’s more likely corporate concerns that fuel the fires because every enemy is a potential customer. That’s the thing; there’s more profit in war than peace, more funding, more technological advancement. Even the internet is a bi-product of a military operation, meant to create an encrypted communications system, and one undetectable by the enemy.

I think the only way that the military could ever recruit these days is through drugs and games, get those gullible gamers high and put them in front of a screen, place a joystick in their hand and let them play at inter ballistic warfare.

Did you want to play a game?

5. Taxes

Taxes

What a horrible idea, it’s not even enforced on an equal basis. Taxes used to be taken from the harvest, and whatever tin-pot tyrant lived in the castle, and year by year would inevitably confiscate more and more from the poor.

Taxing the wealthy is described as an economic disincentive, while for the wage slaves, it’s deemed a necessity. Taxes are supposed to pay for all the services we need, the upkeep and protection of ourselves and our environment. Yet they never drop, they always increase, no matter how big the population, it’s a never-ending money pit.

The lion’ share of tax revenue is spent on the people who thought them up, and those who enforce them, and collect them, and what’s leftover, which is barely a pittance, is spent on PR to throw the voters off the scent. After all, the last thing you want is a highly informed population, literally millions of experts on politics and the economy, deciding all at once, to stop throwing their money into the pot.

Until relatively recently, countries around the world hardly collected any tax at all, because the people refused and stuck up for each other, and sent the taxman on a wild goose chase. But now, society has broken down, and we all live as strangers. We’re watched day and night, our credit is tracked, our communications recorded, and if we try to break the rules, we’re automatically reported.

6. Food

I’ve never really understood the public’s obsession with food, perhaps it’s just a generational thing, or class, or poverty. But as a kid, I had very little, and ever since then, I’ve not been its greatest fan. The whole process of eating food and excreting waste seems something of a rigmarole. I’m sure if we were born into a photosynthetic world and all we needed was sunlight to stay alive, we’d have a far better time.

Instead, we half destroy the world and everything that lives upon, harvesting whatever we can, making too much, and throwing away what was wasted. Nature was open range, then it was a farm, but now it’s just a factory, and every living thing on this Earth is placed into two camps, edible and inedible.

Who knows, one day the human race may be on that list, approved by the government, organically sourced. If you know your sci-fi, you’ll realise just how much of it foreshadows the future, and most likely deliberately. For Hollywood, at least until recently, has been nothing but a mouthpiece for the military. Of course, their allegiances have changed, since they were bought out lock stock and barrel by China.

Something that isn’t sci-fi but purely scientific is the latest development in genetically modified foods. Meatless meat, grown one cell at a time, with no providence or origin of any kind, simply flesh plucked from the aether, a protein and amino acid treat for the useless eaters.

‘Useless eaters’ is a term for the elderly; some believe it was coined by Henry Kissinger. Either way, it does fit in with his theories on overpopulation, much like the movie ‘Soylent Green,’ and to a lesser extent ‘Logan’s Run,’ and so many other trashy flicks that hint to a highly sanitised cannibal apocalypse. A time in the future, much like in past farming scandals such as Mad Cow Disease, when humans will find that the only way to survive is to eat their own. Then again, it could be pitched as the ultimate ecological solution, eat your dead relatives and save the Earth.

Who knows what the future grows, I guess it won’t be pretty, it’s bad enough having to eat to survive, but with so many starving and so much waste in the world, why do solutions seem so thin on the ground? I guess that’s why there’s such a clamour for the bio sciences, genetics and food make an unnatural partnership. Food that isn’t real, designed for an artificial race of human copies, serving corporate deities their energetic sacrifice.

7. Language

Language

Since time immemorial, or maybe just the fall of Babel, we’ve been blabbering on in different languages and dialects till we’re blue in the face. Language feels like a half-measure, a cumbersome method of communication. I wonder if that’s why so many people use phones these days.

Imagine if, for some bizarre reason, we were on the cusp of a fundamental jump in evolution. That the crazy people who hear voices in their heads are actually the vanguard of a new generation of a telepathic race.

Of course, there are plenty of ways to prevent such a biological jump; should it happen. Put mercury or lead in childhood vaccines, bombard cities with electromagnetic frequencies, fill the skies with dangerous particulates, and keep your fingers crossed that nobody suspects.

I don’t think they do, for the human race hasn’t a clue, it just keeps on typing texts and taking photos. Maybe we’re even losing the power of speech, what with this glorious technological revolution, and the inconvenience of a worldwide viral lockdown, it doesn’t leave much room for face-to-face conversation.

I found myself watching a streamer struggling in a game called VR Chat. I say it’s a game, but as terrifying as it might seem, at least for me, I think it might be a basic template for the future of humanity. I guess the Wachowskis have a lot to answer for, seeing as they planted the seed of the idea, or whoever their deep state operatives were at the time. They managed to alter the human psyche just enough to distrust its own nature, and even reality, ignore their instincts and embrace the new technocracy.

What tipped me over the edge, was watching this guy sitting dumbfounded as all the other players practised sign language. Then it hit me, there’s the universal communication, the only one we need, to break down all societal boundaries, but I doubt they’ll make it mandatory at school anytime soon. After all, they have more important things to learn, like how they are the oppressed or the oppressors, how feelings come before facts, and how nasty old patriarchal history and all its lessons should be ignored.

All the same, it makes you wonder, if these noises we make with our throats were ever meant to be, as if, somehow, every time we speak these sounds we evoke some resonance that our conscious minds can comprehend. A spoken signal to our masters, calling out the rabble-rousers in the collective consciousness, revealing their intentions to the authorities.

8. Media

Media is much like the goddess ‘Medea,’ who as it happens is the daughter of the sun god, ‘Helios,’ which might explain why there used to be so many newspapers called the ‘Sun.’. Medea was a woman scorned, one favoured by the gods, and sought revenge upon the vile members of humanity.

Media has become the perpetrator of all received truth in the world, fed by authoritative sources, corporate agendas, political allegiances, economic leverage, until nobody can tell the truth from the lies. For the media is protected, legally disguised as nothing more than entertainment, and rarely ever held responsible for its diabolical actions.

It’s informational overload, that’s the whole point, to keep you so distracted that you don’t have a single second to yourself. To sleep, to dream, to think up new ideas, free from the influence of this interconnected, hive-mind world. Which makes a lot of sense, when you realise that what they steal is your time, they break your concentration, so the people don’t become too organised.

All our opinions are used and abused by a hundred others before we have our turn, and even then, most of us would rather not speak up. Instead, we might click a button, give a thumbs up or some glib comment. Nothing too controversial, you don’t want to stand out from the crowd or raise your head above the lowest bar, the common denominator of the cultural cloud.

With the internet, a lot of people thought the informational trickle-down-theory was truly over, and a new age of freedom and expression could begin. But then a particular group of people, most of them raised without rules or boundaries, made unemployable for a generation, received some attention and even some funding by a few billionaire psychopaths. Then before you know it, the media had a revolution on their hands.

They’re taking over everything, and selling it to the highest bidder because whoever’s in the way, has been brushed aside by a phenomenal economic power. It’s why the media have changed their tune so often, and now they’ve turned their sights on their audience and are eating them alive. Their new masters from across the ocean, have a different agenda, a wholly, inclusive and well-behaved society, without opinion or distraction from the goal of making money.

9. Religion

Worst idea ever. Honestly, if you’re going to disguise something, don’t be too obvious or you’ll only draw attention to the problem. It’s bad enough having to deal with the authoritarians of society, telling us what to do, why, where and when. But to have somebody stand between you and your most inner and sacred beliefs, those notions that keep you from going insane, hijacked by some idiot in a costume, reading from a book.

What the hell is that all about anyway, it’s just the sort of cruelty I’d expect from living in hell. To die and kill in the name of a god, what kind of deity would want their creations to destroy each other? Upholding some obscure some misunderstood cosmic principle humanity barely comprehends, let alone practices.

Don’t run before you can walk, I’d say, whatever’s inside you that gives you hope, keep it yourself for a while, let it grow. Nurture your inner life, and you won’t need to prove anything to anybody else. They have their beliefs, and you have yours, and one day, when we’re all dead, if we’re very lucky, we might just work it all out. Until then, nobody knows the truth, neither science nor religion. They’re both little more than subjective belief systems, working upon the notion of mass cooperation and accumulative appreciation.

So many wars, so much suffering and abuse, so many starve so money can be spent on church roofs. All those prayers that remain unanswered, if there’s a god, talk to them, you don’t human telephone standing at the altar, preaching words written long ago by people who had every little else to occupy their time. Same goes for the translations, pieced together through political decision, hoping for a story to unite all warring nations. Until all that’s left are holy wars, fighting over semantics.

If you want to pray then fair enough, but don’t make others do what you do, unless they truly want to, because otherwise, you’re just doing more harm than good. False hope and terror, fantasies galore, penance and purgatory for misinterpretations and disrespecting traditions, it all sounds so mundane, almost profane in nature.

Take a look at the bird in flight, trees rustling in the wind, ocean waves, clear and starry nights, they are your prayers and your answers. Imagine having to recreate your life’s experience, and repeat it in your mind, all those details lost in faded memories, that’s a miracle as far as I’m concerned.

Whatever reality is, the more of us that arrive, the heavier, the more concrete it becomes, for we are the church, the religion of ourselves. We made all of this up because we needed to — because we’re lost or broken inside. In the end, all this will come to fruition, and we can review our metaphysical position. What we know is that there is much we cannot understand and begging a giant ghost to fix everything isn’t going to make it happen.

If there’s a god, I think it’s a state of being, a place to be forever if you please, without fear of upsetting some precarious balance, engineered by those who’ve always lived in hell.

10. People

Hell is other people - Jean Paul Sartre.

Although I’d say it wasn’t quite as clear-cut as that, Sartre was definitely on the right lines. Hell can be other people, it can be ourselves, and sometimes, although very rarely, heaven too, it’s as simple as that.

The more of us that arrive, the more we have to fight, the fewer resources, space and tolerance we have for each other. The price of human life falls by the day, and the big money teaches us not to care for whoever they don’t like. New discriminations replace the old, new bias, new intolerance for groups small and large. The people police themselves, and the world becomes a prison.

Eventually, there will be no one left to blame for the troubles of the world. Then things will return to the beginning, with one family at war with another, block by block, town by town, until finally, everybody’s ready to throw down. After all, it’s far easier to wrestle with one’s neighbour than one’s conscience.

I’m glad I’m well on my way out of here, easily halfway through life if not more. Sooner or later I’ll be moving on, and hopefully to a quieter neighbourhood. I’ve nothing personal against the human race, they’ve achieved many great feats in their time, but I’ve had my fill, and I’d prefer not remain part of the club.

No matter what this place is supposed to be, Earth, heaven, or hell, you can take your pick. I just hope people realise that no matter what if we can’t compromise and go our separate ways, we’ll end up tearing each other apart.

11. Too Many to Mention

Earth

There are so many more I could add to the list, and I’m sure you can think of a few. In case you’re feeling down, remember, it’s not your fault, whatever this life is, it’s far from perfect, and there are plenty of reasons to criticise. But until you’re dead, you probably should stick around, at least until you’re fully aware of your options.

Whatever you do, don’t expect too much from this place, it has its limits, and it’s getting tired and irritable. Time is a murderer, and nature is a beast, and this planet of ours ruled with an iron fist by a bunch of wealthy cowards.

It’s a crying shame we couldn’t have done better, but whoever won the culture war has made their plans clear. Enjoy it while you can, and pray that no matter where we are, let’s hope that wherever we’re going, we’re better off over there.

Read More at: www.FrankMaddish.com

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Frank Maddish
Frank Maddish

Written by Frank Maddish

A homespun philosopher looking for meaning in a meaningless world. www.thinkingallowed.cc

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