What is this thing we're all complicit in?

I don’t like this question, I’m not sure it’s a question that can be answered or even really explored, but still it has been rattling around in my head for so long that I feel the need to preserve it here. I think the thing here is society or culture, the shape, the walls, the trimmings of this world that has been built for us, and which we go on building. There’s a voice in my head – at times angry, at others despairing, joyous, even apathetic – that wants to know what we’re all doing here, and why the hell are we doing it? Who wrote these rules and why do we cling to them?