In this world, the main principle is entropy and the finiteness of everything, and any systems eventually decline and perish without a trace, and among people, the most desirable qualities are adaptability and treachery, while honesty leads only to hatred and a low status.
I see that you have good background knowledge enabling you to grasp the real nature of things here on this planet
@Skr9. I agree with the sentiments of the other members. Although, I feel the guidance you seek is more metaphysical than psychological. i.e. 'Why is it this way? and not, What should I do?'. It is similar in nature to a thread I made titled:
"Can We Talk About Why Ordinary States Of Consciousness Are So Suffocating?"
1. Why Are Things The Way They Are?
If we take things back to first principles (to answer for why things are the way they are in a fundamental sense), then we can ask, what happens when you invent biological machines that are resource dependent and compete for limited resources? (food, intelligence, knowledge, etc). They are driven to find more power to then find more power, and so on ad infinitum.
It is a given then that by cause and effect alone, all of the events will really be as you rightly say "an endless meat grinder: war after war, etc".
However, to bring this back to the meaning of others posts here, inside of all of that busy 'going on' as it were, is the jewel of life, consciousness itself... which gets missed along the way as biological machines seek for resources.
Isn't that what most on this forum know deeply from their experiences? The fundamental awe felt in these states at the simple fact that anything exists at all? Beyond all notion of 'good'/'bad'?
So, yes, you are right. Things are, by default, extremely poor in constitution, but only for those who are fooled by their default programming to overlook whats of most value (which I admit I often am too sometimes). Because we a programmed beings (by genetics and synaptic plasticity), well, tendencies, habits and hierarchies will form and predominate, much to the detriment of the organism at times (war, violence, hatred, delusion, ignorance, etc).
2. Relating The Problem Back To Religion/Metaphysics
Tying this back in now with more of a metaphysical religious framework, that is Perennialism (as you were going for). The Buddhist Monks obtain a level of mental clarity unparalleled to any other individual due to the amount of time spent in meditation. This clarity is rightly considered 'more' free of delusion. Therefore, the insights obtained should logically have higher epistemic value (probability for being true). Thus, reincarnation may very well be true. This leads to the importance of obtaining Nibbana (Nirvana) before death, to prevent reincarnation and endless recycling of Kamma in new lives.
To support this view, we may also like to add the additional premise that the brain is a hybrid room-temperature quantum computer providing information transfer from potentially higher dimensional states or from the quantum vacuum. Such a direction is forthcoming in recent work regarding the NCC (neural correlates of consciousness).
If Christian metaphysics is true, then as you say, life may indeed be a testing ground before the afterlife (which might occur in a higher dimensional space where consciousness is co-located). If we merge these two concepts, we obtain a view of recycling that is dependent on linear branching matrices of choice, potentially within an infinite number of multiverses.
So what though? This doesn't really lead anywhere further than what your position originally was, does it? This is still a prison, by definition. Although, given our limited scope of experience and knowledge (that is inexplicably evident when we encounter hyperspace), who are we really to say what is what in our current reference point? Perhaps there is a grand prize at the end, or perhaps its just an old codger behind the curtain pulling some dials on a machine (Wizard of Oz style). This predicament firmly asserts the importance of Faith. If Faith isn't enough for you, then the metaphysical conclusions sought after about life as hell may lie beyond this state of conciousness, which I bet any money will not be able to be put in to words. This is the same reason many turn to meditation, they perceive the emptiness, the nature of Dukkha (suffering) as pervasive, hence, what monks are disciplined to obtain freedom from). The challenge then becomes, do you have enough discipline or do you not?
The Gnostic view of the Demiurge (a devilish sub-god that toys with its puppets in the prison it created for them before they return to the true God/Source), is quite intuitive when considering an afterlife of eternal bliss (which we can't conceive of). If not, then Absurdism presents itself to you with the exact same predicament: "Are you going to overcome your programming?".
Besides, perhaps there isn't even a physical universe 'outside' of yourself to begin with?
I love this
@CommonConduit. The perceptual signs of the outside world are only ever a mere symbol, a sign, a gesture to drive your decision of what to do with yourself. We can never know of its truth.
A borrowing of Souls here, and then an exertion and pain felt there, but yet an act of creation of good and bad, held in a captivating dance of a divine play (Lila - in Hinduism) by Brahman. Designed especially to be captivating, convcining of its drama. If there's too much pain for you here, that's okay, you can always retreat inside, in to that place within, that's safe, peaceful, quiet. That same place where we may very well have originally come from, or are returning to after this life.
