How We Lost Our Grip on Reality

And How We Can Get It Back

This is an alternate version of the article found here:

I’ve deliberately used an AI prompt in the attempt to retain as much analytical rigour as possible, but sound less like……well…..myself……in the hopes that this AI prompt version may be more relatable for a broader audience. Let me know what you think everyone. Whether this finally makes Christine comprehensible! I know others have done this with my work and found benefit. My failing is that I seem to sound either like Data from Star Trek, or Katherine Tate’s ‘Gran’ and there’s nothing in between. So if this turns out being helpful, I may consider it more frequently. Here goes:

Every healthy society is built on one simple but powerful principle: some questions matter more than others. Before we can solve problems, pass laws, teach kids, or govern anything well, we need to know what’s real. That means asking the deepest questions first. What is true? What is good? What kind of world are we living in? When we build everything else on top of those answers; science, law, journalism, education, even religion, we get systems that work. We get fairness. We get clarity. We can tell the difference between truth and opinion, between justice and fashion, between leadership and manipulation. But when that order gets flipped; when we stop asking the big questions first and let everything be driven by popularity, politics, or emotion, things fall apart.

Suddenly, we can’t agree on basic facts. Laws contradict themselves. Truth becomes whatever sells, wins, or feels right. We stop discovering the world. We start making it up. That’s why things feel so unstable today; not just in politics, but in everything. We’ve lost the foundation.

The Foundation We Forgot

Here’s what that foundation really is:

Reality doesn’t come from us. It comes to us.

The world exists whether we like it or not. We don’t create truth with opinions or moods.

We recognize it. That kind of recognition is what people used to call “clear thinking” or “common sense.” It’s what we mean when we say a policy is grounded, or a decision is sound. We’re seeing what’s actually there, not just what’s trending.

How Things Are Supposed to Work

First, we learn to see what’s real. Then we ask, how do we know it? Then, how do we explain it?

Then - and only then - do we ask what it might mean. That’s the right order. That’s the blueprint that keeps a country sane, a classroom honest, a courtroom fair, a newsroom accountable and a church faithful. But if we skip the first step; or act like all answers are equal, then what we’re building isn’t society. It’s confusion.

What Happens Next

When we lose that order:

Leaders chase approval instead of truth.

Teachers teach ideologies instead of facts.

News becomes drama.

Religion becomes therapy.

Debate becomes war.

We stop asking, “Is it true?” and start asking, “Does it work for me?” That’s how civilizations lose their way; not in one moment, but in the slow forgetting of how to think.

But Here’s the Hope

That foundation is still there. We don’t have to invent it. We just have to return to it. Truth is real. It can be known. And once it’s known, it can set us free, not just as individuals, but as a people. All we need is the courage to start with learning and restoring the right foundations and structural integrity again.