“We are the most obese, medicated, addicted, and in-debt Americans EVER. Why? We have access to more information, more books, and good science – why are we struggling like never before? Because we don’t talk about the things that get in the way of doing what we know is best for us, our children, our families, our organizations, and our communities.” Brene Brown
Much of what I have talked about these past many blog posts is how most people willingly give away their personal sovereignty. There is nothing accidental about this. It is particularly true for the last 70 years when mass media went into high gear. It seems on the surface to be the onset of advanced materialism with increased technology that came into everyday life in the westernized countries. It is crucial to understand that the loss of personal sovereignty goes back thousands of years. The ultra-elite ancestry of the 1% we like to talk about today have been around a long time. These elites arose at the start of what we call civilization – the beginning of empires. Those people that remained outside the empire influence remained as hunter-gatherer or agricultural tribal systems with personal sovereignty. I have discussed this in previous posts on this blob, (see Reframing and Visualizing a New Society 1 and Transforming the world? NeoTribalism for business and living). Possibly the period that most influenced the modern world we accept today as the ‘way things are’ arose out of the Roman Empire, which was a highly materialistic empire society. While the Romans had a variety of religions like we do today, an underlying idea driving that society was that the material world was the most important part of everyday life. A connection to the natural world seems to have been as spiritually divorced from everyday life as it seems to be today. The simple fact is that Roman technology was simple, although they were brilliant engineers (just look at all the viaducts and great building that still exist from that era). However, the core units of family and community remained intact even within the empire hierarchy where people were able (and actually had to) rely on community to live. The hierarchy’s materialistic focus, however, emphasized the physical world as the dominant frame that continued to hold people’s minds as orthodox religions began to constrain spiritual thinking into dogmatic obedience to the hierarchy.
As we moved through the industrial revolution, even the concept of community was eroded, but it was the more recent social evolution after the second world war where even the family unit was diminished. The individual as independent of family and community, but whose identity is dictated by the hierarchy became the new norm. In family and community, competition is minimized and collaboration emphasized. Yet, the hierarchy, more and more, makes the individual reliant on an economic system that is designed to control them through fear into a complaint worker ant mentality. Free Choice was always used as a mechanism to give the individual a sense of freedom, but what were the choices being offered that gave this sense of freedom? Most often, Vote for the devil or the deep blue sea with the hierarchy in control of both. Think about how our modern lives are controlled by competition – being number one, beating the other applicants, succeeding up the corporate ladder, getting the corner office, becoming the man, etc… (just look at my posts about competition).
The life decision-making ability of most westernized people seems to have been reduced to whether one gets a latte or an expresso. The daily choices we think we have, are mundane and of little real consequence to most people. Daily decisions seems to be mostly about “How can I get the upper hand” even if it is simply to get a seat on the subway ahead of the person next you! Watching people in a stressful situation like rush hour is a fascinating experience in seeing how far humanity has come in being totally separated from the rest of the world and each other. The good news is that I am seeing much more ‘Guerilla Goodness’ happening all the time – little things where people are recognizing their fellow humans by ‘Practicing Random Acts of Kindness (PRAK).’ These are the people beginning to show personal sovereignty! And the wonderful thing is that when others are seen doing PRAK those observing the act also feel good! We are hard-wired to want to help other people – Mirror Neurons are at play in our brains. To put this really simply for now, over the past 25 years, research on mirror neurons in association with neurolinguistic programming (NLP) theory, tells us that humans are particularly adept at mirroring behaviors and feeling empathy. If the situation is negative then NLP can create negative emotions thereby stimulating negative hormone cascades. However, the reverse is also true in that seeing positive social contexts makes us feel good and hence creates positive emotions and a cascade of positive hormones. No big revelation here – we seem to be designed to like positive emotions and events and dislike negative emotions and situations. We help other people not just because it is socially beneficial. To a regular person there is a self-serving aspect to it – we do it because we like to feel good and doing good makes others feel good and that mirrors itself readily with everyone present. More to say on this, but to close for now, I saw this on Facebook without an author, but it hits home well with many of the ideas I have been sharing.
“There was a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the award for the best grown corn. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors. “How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked. “Why sir,” said the farmer, “Didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.” So is with our lives… Those who want to live meaningfully and well must help enrich the lives of others, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all…
-Call it power of collectivity…
-Call it a principle of success…
-Call it a law of life.
The fact is, none of us truly wins, until we all win!!”
TBC…
0 Comments