The whole idea of conspiracy theories has been around for a long time, but they didn’t really capture the public imagination until the rise of the internet and the mainstream popularity of shows like The X-Files.

Since then, conspiracy theories have become a firm part of mainstream culture, with every man and his dog having at least one wacky theory that they just can’t help bringing up at parties. It can be fun discuss whether or not UFO’s exist, or who really shot JFK, or whether or not Michael Jackson or Tupac are really dead or not.

But there is a darker side to conspiracy theories that you don’t often hear about, one which can have a detrimental and even damaging effect on your life, often without you even noticing.

My Journey Down The Rabbit Hole

A few years ago, I started getting into conspiracy theories, and also the whole idea of alternative history. I started on the history first and went from there.

In case you are not aware, there is a belief held by many that the history of the world as we know it is basically false, and that said history was concocted by the ruling elite to hide the real truth of how things went down in the past.

This theory can be applied to everything in the past you can think off. Lets take ancient Egypt as an example. There is a theory that says much of ancient Egypt, including the pyramids and the Sphinx, were built by aliens. In fact the aliens-giant lizards-ran the whole show, as they apparently did in every ancient culture.

This also why you see things like flying saucers and other strange machines depicted in cave paintings or inside of temples, temples and stone structures that many think were just impossible to build back then, but which were built anyway and done so with a skill and accuracy that is still mind boggling even today.

If you go back further than that-right to the beginning actually-we can also postulate that humans as a species were created by an alien race, which is why we appear to be so alien when compared to every other species of animal on Earth, even monkeys, which by the way, we didn’t evolve from. In fact, nothing evolved from anything on this planet. Everything was created. By aliens.

Wacky, I know. But also completely fucking fascinating and ten times more interesting than the version of events taught to most people today.

And you can apply this theory of alternative history to almost anything-to religion, to politics, to every war there ever was, every assassination, every major event, even to entire cultures. There are alternative theories for everything.

Then there are the modern day conspiracy theories, which are in the same vein because they to are examples of history that have been changed or kept secret altogether.

Thus we have conspiracy theories about every major event that happens (such as 911), about governments and corporations and who really runs the world (the Illuminati apparently).

It is all terribly interesting stuff. Even more so because there is always a ton of evidence to back every one of these theories up. Seriously, no matter how strange or fucked up a certain conspiracy theory is, you can bet your directors cut edition of JFK that there is a mountain of supporting evidence in existence that will have you believing said theory by the time you finish sifting through it all.

Name a conspiracy and you can guarantee there will be government documents, news footage, amateur cam footage, eye witness testimonies, expert witnesses, even physical evidence to prove the theory is correct.

In many cases, as in the case against evolution (not in the fundamentalist religious sense, not in the Bible sense that many lose their damn minds over as in God versus Evolution like it’s the Big Showdown) there is a great deal of science to back up the validity of these theories. Hard fucking science that can’t really be argued with.

Which just makes the whole show a hell of a lot more interesting and ridiculously involving.

You see where I’m going with this?

Yeah, that’s right. I became a conspiracy nut. I dived down that fucking rabbit hole until I could barely see anymore, and I stayed there for over a year.

I spent that year learning about all kinds of shit that I didn’t even know existed. Secret government programs, evidence to support the existence of alien life, the way governments and corporations really operate, the falsity of the world economy, the slavery of money, the bullshit that is religion…I learned about it all.

And I loved it. It was like fucking porn and I couldn’t get enough of it. I would spend hours-whole days-watching documentaries on various things, or trawling through websites or listening to radio shows.

It was like I became a pure devourer of information. Information for me became like crack to a junky. I never got enough and always wanted more.

And there was always more out there to find. More than I could ever hope to get through.

I walked around like I was the only one who knew the truth about how things worked in the world. I thought that everyone else around me was just a stupid asleep sheep who had no idea what was really going on around them.

To anyone who would listen, I would preach the way of the world to them. I found a way to inject my newfound truth and belief system into every conversation I had. If I went to the shop for milk and the shopkeeper said hello, I would start to tell the shopkeeper all about the world overproduction of milk, and how it was really a conspiracy to yada yada yada…

I didn’t even care if I came across as a nutcase. Calling someone a conspiracy nut is just a way to discredit them anyway, I thought, so people won’t take them and their wacky theories seriously.

I used to hear the words, “Oh, here we go,” a lot from the people I spoke to. My wife hated me for it.

I didn’t give a shit what people thought though. As long as I knew the truth, that was all that mattered.

Did I mention how incredibly self-righteous I became (more than usual anyway)? Well, I was.

Why I Crawled My Way Back Out Of The Rabbit Hole

The shit just got too dark and crazy. That’s the bottom line.

After a full year of immersing myself in a lot of very dark subjects, my world began to darken as well.

When I looked around, all I saw was a fucked up, hopeless world. There was no saving any of it. Humanity was on a path to destruction (I could have named you a dozen plausible ways how) and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

My worldview became so bleak, I could almost see the darkness all around me, like a veil that never shifted from my eyes. It even cloaked my mind, to the point where the concept of hope just became a cruel joke to me.

That’s no fucking way to live folks. And what is most ironic about that is the fact that being aware of all these conspiracy theories is supposed to make you feel enlightened, like you are not a slave anymore, that you are FREE!!!

But after a while down the rabbit hole, you begin to feel the exact opposite. You begin to feel closed off as you start to think of yourself as some oppressed entity trapped inside a slave system, with no hope of ever being free of it, like the plot of a blockbuster young adult novel.

You also become angry all the time. You get angry at every thing you see and read because to you, its all lies and conspiracies and it makes you fucking furious that those at the top are trying to pull the wool over your eyes all the time and everyone is just sitting around allowing it to happen.

You turn into the biggest Negative Motherfucker ever. Even the most hardcore Goths have got nothing on you because Goths only affect being negative while you feel that negativity in your every fucking pore because that’s the only right way to be when you are at war with those who seek to enslave you.

Jesus Christ, it brings me down even thinking about it now.

I had to get out.

You Make Your Own Reality

The way I see it now, it doesn’t matter how much truth there is or isn’t in conspiracy theories. It doesn’t matter how fucked up things really are in the world.

What matters is how you view the world.

If you view the world as a bleak, fucked up and cruel place, then that is exactly how the world will be for you. It will be a lonely place that you hate being in.

Personally, I don’t want to spend my entire life feeling like that.

I mean, say it’s all true. Say every single fucking conspiracy theory ever put out was true. So what? What are you going to do about it?

We all know governments are corrupt and corporations run the world and that dark things happen out there, but what are we going to do about it? Do you have the power to go up against such dark and ruthless forces? Many have tried and lost everything. And for what? For some misguided sense of “justice”? For “truth”?

Please. The world is what it is. That’s just how things work. If some people want to spend their live’s railing against the system only to be made miserable and killed by it the end, then good luck to them. You would just be a fucking hypocrite anyway because it is impossible to exist in this world without also being an integral part of it. While you preach from your ivory tower or shout at your stupid little protests, you still partake of the things the world you rail against created.

Seriously, there are better things to be spending your time on. Like fulfilling your purpose for being here in the first place. If it is your purpose to be a crusader, then go ahead, give it all you’ve got, if that really is your purpose. Who knows, you might even change things. But I doubt it. Nothing really changes. The world turns despite what we do, that’s the real truth and always has been.

I have come to realize that I have the power to create my own reality, one that doesn’t have to include bad, depressing shit. I can fill my reality with purpose and other positive things that will make me a lot happier and a lot more fulfilled in the long run.

So what if the world ends tomorrow? Would knowing it was going to end have made me any happier? Fuck no! At least if I make myself happy now (or try to) then I will have had that time, and my tour here on planet Earth won’t have been wasted, because I would have lived with purpose.

I am certainly not blind to the way the world is, but I chose to ignore most of that now, to block it out.

These days, I chose the Matrix and that fucking steak sure tastes good, I can tell you. Better than all the so called truths out there that are nothing but relative anyway.

I’m here. I’m going to enjoy it as much as I can. I’m going do what makes me happy.

Fuck the truth.