“Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.” David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
One of the biggest problems we have is not all the chaos we see in the world, it is how we live with each other. We live in a never ending drama of our own creation. As I have said often in this blog, to live sustainably is as much about our worldview as it is the green technologies that we need to stop the environmental devastation that threatens to ruin our civilization – if we could actually call it that. “Civilization is most commonly defined along the lines of an advanced state of human society containing highly developed forms of government, culture, industry, and common social norms.” Our governments have become chaotic and corrupt entities beholden to the corporations that exist mostly to make this abstract concept called money. Our culture(s) have become soulless constructs that act with malice, hatred, fear, war, and extreme competition with no regard for the role of humanity. Our industry continues along the lines of ‘heat, beat and treat’ with the advanced technologies that could benefit everyone kept locked up or coopted by the soulless corporations. Our social norms now disregard the idea of community and perpetuate the separation of humanity from nature and each other. What we have come to accept as ‘normal’ is truly an aberration of how humanity should, and deep down, wants to live. If that sounds harsh, I mean it to be. Consumerism is like a virus that grows to consume its host (humans) even at the cost of its own existence. Within the films of ‘The Matrix’ trilogy there is a beautiful quote, “The only way for you to survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern… a virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer on this planet, you are a plague, and we… are the cure.” Now in the film, it is the ‘computer’ that thinks it is the cure. In reality, it is simple, WE are the cure and changing our mindset to one of peace, happiness, cooperation, and harmony with the natural world is all it takes. BUT, as long as we continue to let the Cabalistic directors condition us with limited beliefs about ourselves we will mindlessly blunder ahead. In the last post I outlined the steps to become les reactionary and more metacognitive in our thinking. If we are to break the stranglehold of the consumer worldview we need to break free of the hierarchical power that keeps us conditioned over what we consider important.
I recently watched a humorous film about time travel “About Time (2013)” – In it the main character can go back to any event and relive it, even making minor different decision changes so as not to affect the timeline too drastically. In one part of the story, he goes back after each day is over, and now knowing all the negative events that will happen in that day, relives it again but this time making a conscious effort to respond positively and not simply react to every minor event as he did before. If you knew that you were going to react negatively to an event of situation you could consciously stop and change your reaction to a mindful response. The crazy thing is that you can do this without having to have this time travel capability. You can change each day from one of frustration to one of happiness just by living consciously – with metacognition. This extends out to everything you do. When you live life consciously you start to make decisions about the outcome of every moment of your life, which includes your lifestyle. You also become aware of the limitations that you impose on yourself from the story you had been telling yourself about who and what you were. You quickly begin to see how you have been manipulated to be a pawn in this consumerist world hurtling towards its own demise and its addictions to everything unnatural. And that includes the stories we tell ourselves within the hyper-consumer worldview.
Beware ‘Destination Addiction.’ This is where everything in your life is something to be attained in some future time. For example, I will be happy when I get my vacation, or when I get my new house, or when I find that right partner, or when……(fill in the blank). So many people are addicted to looking for some sort of solution in their lives in some mythical future instead of finding them now by changing their limited views of their own story. Our consumer society promotes these addictive perspectives and perpetuates isolation and separation. Johann Hari through his research concluded that, “The opposite of addiction is not simply no longer being addicted, it is connection.” In early behavioral studies, researchers kept rats isolated in a cage with the option to drink from two bottles, one with plain water and the other with water containing cocaine/heroin. The results were that the rats quite happily chose the cocaine and became so addicted they died. These experiments were designed to show how addictive these chemicals were to the rats (and by extension, humans). Hari, however, did something different. He created a ‘rat park.’ He retained the two drinking bottle options for the rat but this time he put the rat in a larger enclosure with lots of other rats and toys with which all the rats could interact. The crazy result? The rats left the drug bottle alone and drank from the pure water bottle. The final conclusion? When offered a full community and mental stimulation (the toys and open space), the rats were able to create bonds with each other and that was as good as finding solace in the drugs when alone. The creation of a simple rat community providing ‘connection’ was sufficient enough for the rats to dismiss the need for drugs. Connection provides the natural internal chemicals, such as oxytocin, that animals get from interacting with each other in positive ways. Now apply that to humans? See any similarities? When we create a society that values true community, we also find that more purpose and satisfaction with life occurs. We need less ‘stuff’ from the consumer system and find that the people with whom we purposefully surround ourselves yields long-term rewards far beyond temporary consumer satisfaction. To break away from consumerism, where mean spirited monetarily rich people control us, is to become consciously aware of the vision of what else we really want, along with the commitment and faith in ourselves to reach for that vision.
To Be Continued……..
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