Philosopher and author Jason Gregory explored the psychological and spiritual cost of modern conformity, describing today’s social systems as fundamentally disconnected from natural human nature.

“As human life is forced into a sheeplike way of being, happiness is reduced to momentary stimulants of excitement,” wrote Jason Gregory in a post on LinkedIn. “In such a life, we can never express our natural divinity because we are following the model of someone else’s idea of life.”

Gregory said that anxiety, depression, and social unrest are symptoms of a deeper crisis: individuals living out lives that are conditioned and artificial. True liberation, he says, occurs when one yokes themselves to the Tao and discards the imposed scripts of institutional society.

In contrast to the conditioned individual, the liberated person sees clearly, aligns with nature, and contributes to harmony rather than chaos.

His message draws from the Taoist tradition of sages like Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, both of whom rejected the unnatural patterns of societal order in favor of effortless alignment with the Tao.

Jason Gregory is a philosopher and teacher of Eastern wisdom traditions, author of Spiritual Freedom in the Digital Age, Effortless Living, and several other works. His upcoming book, The Tradition of Natural Taoism: The Way of Free and Easy Wandering in Oneness, is available for pre-order here.