Read on Substack

Crashing Into Reality (And Choosing to Fly Free Instead)

This is a bit of a stream-of-consciousness ramble, but I like where it leads.

I’m baffled. And I’m sure I’m not the only one. In fact, anyone who isn’t baffled right about now must be either brain dead or way more enlightened than I am.

What seems blatantly obvious and crucially important to me seems to be insignificant to a large segment of our population.

Things like preserving our planet for future generations, or even simply for itself… because, after all, we are just guests here for a short while and the planet has a life of its own that has spanned millions of years… regardless of what some quasi-Christian cults may preach about Earth being created five thousand years ago. I say quasi, because they seem to have strayed quite far from what Yeshua was teaching two millennia ago… certainly nothing about creation dates and flat-earth theories.

How PubMed Messed with My Mind

One of my brothers (I have eight of them) posted a fascinating PubMed article on Facebook the other day that really got me thinking. It explores “core psychological differences such that liberals [progressives] express compassion toward less structured and more encompassing entities (i.e., universalism), whereas conservatives express compassion toward more well-defined and less encompassing entities (i.e., parochialism).”

The article is titled “Ideological differences in the expanse of the moral circle.“ Here’s the link if you want to read it: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6763434/

There are several charts included in the article showing how opinions differ between liberals and conservatives, depending on how strongly they identify with either side. This one, Figure 4, showed the most glaring differences by far.

“As Fig. 4 shows, the more liberal people were, the more they allocated equally to humans and nonhumans. The further to the right on the ideological spectrum people were, the more likely they were to morally prioritize humans over nonhumans.” In other words, the more liberal (progressive) a person is, the more they appear to care about non-human beings, while the opposite appears to be true for the more conservative people.

For reference, in Gallup’s most recent full-year national average (2025), “35% of U.S. adults identified as conservative or very conservative, while 28% identified as liberal or very liberal. Another 33% identified as moderate; the small remainder did not give an ideological label.”

I Get It, But I Don’t Get It

That explains a lot, though I’m still baffled that anyone could think we have a right to obliterate whole species of animals, and subject other species by the billions—roughly 134 billion animals at the moment—to lifetimes of torture in appalling factory farm conditions just so we can have the pleasure of eating their flesh and secretions.

Or that people don’t seem to think twice about clear-cutting entire forests, wiping out whole ecosystems that took hundreds of years to form. That there is so little concern for the rampant spread of toxic chemicals in our food, water, and air… toxins that poison not only our own children, but all life on the planet. That our soil is being systematically destroyed by industrial agriculture.

There’s more… lots more, but I don’t want to hand you a litany of things that baffle me. I want to understand WHY so many people don’t seem to be bothered by them, when they bother me so much.

Why do people see reality in such different ways? And how can they believe they are right… like I’m the deluded one. Why don’t they see what I see and feel the pain I feel? And what in the world DO they see and believe that allows them to think destruction of the natural world is just okiedoky.

Money? Religion? Or What?

Does it all come down to money? Anything that increases revenues is fair game… even if it destroys all future avenues for increasing those revenues?

Is it some sort of religious brainwashing that vilifies the physical world in favor of promised bliss in the great beyond, so to hell with the planet?

I’ve known people like that… so concerned with their afterlife that they dismiss this world as inconsequential. And maybe, in the whole scheme of things, they’re right. I mean, at some point this world and everything in it will be no more. We will all have moved on to other worlds or other dimensions in our eternal quest to know ourselves.

Then what will it matter if wolves and dodo birds were driven to extinction and the voices of ravens and wild geese fell silent?

I suppose it’s possible that over a third of Americans have such a far-reaching view of reality that they are acting—and voting—in the knowledge that this life is really just a dream. But somehow I doubt it.

Maybe I’m deluded to think it matters that a cow is crying for her stolen calf somewhere, or a child was just diagnosed with cancer caused by industrial chemicals. I suppose they are dreaming all of that too, but it doesn’t lessen their suffering.

I have empathy for them, yet according to Elon Musk, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” To me, that sounds like the pronouncement of a sociopath, but in his view, apparently I’m the problem.

Finding the Way Out of My Dilemma

At this point, I qualify for senior discounts. My generation is being outpaced by younger, hipper generations. Sooner or later I’ll be checking out and leaving these questions for my kids and grandkids to figure out. They are all bright and resourceful, so I expect they will find answers I never thought of, but I’d sure like to make their path a little less cluttered with obstacles if I can.

Bashar claims the world will be a lot more harmonious by 2050, and these obvious divisions will have pulled the world into separate timelines by then. I was hoping it would happen before I’m a hundred years old, but apparently I have to get there on my own and create my personal version of the New Earth here and now without waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

I’d say I succeed at that about 82% of the time. Don’t ask me why that number popped up, but it’s the one that rings a bell, so to speak.

It’s that other 18% that gets me in trouble.

That’s when I worry about mountain lions having enough open space to survive, and the homeless guy in the tent by the local bike path having enough blankets to stay warm through the winter.

If I could just stay focused on the beauty of the monarch butterfly visiting the tithonia in my garden, without accompanying thoughts about the drastic decline of pollinators, I would live in the New Earth all the time. In fact, if my esoteric understanding of the nature of reality is accurate, I would actually BE in a timeline where pollinators are thriving. And maybe that is the key to my whole dilemma.

Escape or Manifestation?

Some would call that escapism, or burying your head in the sand. The world is full of naysayers and people invested in getting you to accept their version of reality at the expense of your own much happier one.

But what if both versions of reality are true and real—their doomsday scenarios and my New Earth filled with harmony and thriving life? What if they are just happening in different timelines, and we get to choose which one we want to live in?

Ah! Just as I wrote that, a dragonfly flew in through my open door, whirled around the room and crashed into a window before finding its way back out the door. And I got the message.

We all have a choice between crashing into the window of a reality that is limited by our perception, or the beliefs foisted on us by others—or leaving it behind and flying free in a reality of our own choosing.

The window is real. All the problems of the world are real, like windows we believe we have to try to get through. We can’t change that. But we can simply sidestep the window and choose a different reality to experience—a different timeline.

Both choices are valid, but one is a lot more fun than bashing your head into a window.

Which doesn’t mean I’ll ever give up on empathy. I’ll keep putting baby birds back in their nests and picking up trash and leaving tips for harried baristas. I’ll keep voting for environmental protections, healthcare for all, and a compassionate world. I’ll just say no to Nazis, drug lords, human traffickers, and anyone who exploits people, animals, or our planet for their own gain.

Apparently I’m in a relatively small minority, but that doesn’t mean I can’t manifest a reality in my own life where people value empathy for all life and celebrate compassion.

I’ll still be baffled by people who don’t think those things are important—but I plan to leave them out of my personal reality. I’ll start with 83% of the time… and work my way up from there.

---

Bernadette Wulf is a Celtic mystic, coach, author, energy healer, and visionary artist who helps people break away from the herd and start following their own Golden Thread.

Ready to make your life a little more magical? Visit Magical-LifeCoaching.com