Pathways to a Better Future – Espe part 4: Creating our Sovereignty

“Quite an experience, to live in fear, isn’t it? That’s what it is to be a slave” Roy Batty, Blade Runner (movie). 

“Safety and security have become their own arguments. Officials and organizations seem to believe that the mere mention of these words is enough—no further justification is needed. Safety and security are good things, they figure, and everyone agrees about that. So, it must follow that anything proposed under that banner is a good thing too. Right? Unfortunately, no. There are countless references to safety that don’t make sense even at face value, never mind when you delve into the evidence behind them.” Tracey Brown & Michael Hanlon.

“We are living in the most fearmongering time in human history. And the main reason for this is that there’s a lot of power and money available to individuals and organizations who can perpetuate these fears” Barry Glassner.

“ Instead of living with hope and the positivity that comes from believing in human potential, we now live with fear and intangible anxiety as a basic characteristic of our entire culture.  We have normalized fear into our lives from threats from our air, water and even food to worry about other’s that would oppose our beliefs and even our opinions.  We live with worst case thinking that perpetuates a non-attainable goal of a zero-risk society” Lars Svendsen. 

A continuation of a fictional reflection by a hundred-year-old Esperanza (Espe) from 2112 about the start of the transformation to Sustainable Living.  I add clarification links and quotes as needed.  

The world in 2024 was, as that old saying said, ‘going to hell in a handbasket.’  I was twelve years old and quite aware of the difficulties occurring everywhere.  It seemed like the media and governmental actions served only to increase hatred, fear and suspicion of others.  Indeed, the whole world was laden with fear.  The consequence of this was to create populations that were literally too scared to make decisions, instead relying solely on authorities to keep them safe.  So many were too scared to be individual – peer pressure, fear from being ‘wrong,’ fear of authorities, fear of others, fear in all forms and at all levels from things manufactured to keep us in fear and compliance.  We were slaves to a globalized authoritarian system that used power and control to cow us into compliance for what they wanted.  

I recall a statement from back then by a Hungarian academic, Frank Furedi, about society and fear: “The constant refrain of ‘Scientists Tell Us’ serves as a prelude for a lecture on what threat to fear…those who do not heed the warnings of experts are frequently castigated as irresponsible if not evil.” He believed fear appears to provide a provisional solution to moral uncertainty and was for that reason embraced by a variety of interests, parties and individuals. Furedi predicted that until society found a more positive orientation towards uncertainty the politicization of fear would flourish.

We did find a more positive orientation for how to live, but it was by no means certain back then.  What precipitated the recognition was fuel and food costs and availability.  There was a war going on in the Ukraine in Europe at that time that was used as an excuse by the TNCs (Trans National Corporations) to produce fuel shortages in which they could profit even more and garner more economic control and power from the turmoil.  Grocery store shelves started to remain depleted as food shortages became common.  While there was food on the shelves, it was all produced by the TNC food-agricultural system.  As organic and healthy food became scarcer in 2026, enough people had woken up to the realization of what was happening and started to form communities that grew their own food and other essential resources locally and communally.  Even energy options were managed regionally and away from the national grids that had dominated for decades before that era.        

Governments everywhere, were becoming increasingly more corrupt and ineffective at everything they did.  Debt and inflation were growing and what money was still governmentally controlled and available was becoming harder to get.  The push in 2024 to try and digitize our global fiat system was rejected by too many people so that by 2028 they stopped trying.  This ushered in many local economic systems that relied more on barter and using money as a tool.  We had to make choices that helped everyone out of shred necessity.  We learn by making choices and then learning from the results – life is an experiment in learning to do things that help humanity.  We made the unconscious conscious.  By 2030, most people were now living in relative self-sustaining communities and even within the cities, there were smaller community enclaves for food growing, instead of city wide management. 

The cities were quick to adopt the enclave system as people came together based solely on the old neighborhoods that existed.  People joined communities out of necessity but many had a hard time letting go the need for materialistic control.  In some places there were attempts by gangs to control enclaves but people showed their solidarity to a new way of thinking and quickly ousted anyone trying to maintain an old materialistic mindset.  What transformed us all was the feeling of real freedom that came from release of fear, gaining self-sovereignty to do what we felt was important without any coercion to comply, yet still adhering to fair social norms.  We found connections with each other that were open and relaxed and we had the time to interact in ways rare in the pre-Covid era. 

When I talk with the younger generations today, they know the history, but still have a hard time realizing just what life was like with fear and anxiety as constant companions.  Once we had stabilized our lives starting in 2030, we all started to value each other more and more importantly, we started to value ourselves.  It’s mentioned often in the history books but I grew up with a franchise entertainment view of the future called ‘Star Trek,’ a big thing in the pre-Covid era. It showed us a future with space travel in which Earth’s global society was more egalitarian, even if it still had conflicts – remember it was pre-Covid when conflict was normal.  Back in the early 21^st century it was still a better projection for our future than what we were living through. 

There were a lot of voices back then wanting to take humanity in a better direction.  I recall one astrobiologist called David Grinspoon commenting about ‘Trekkies (supporters of the shows and films), “If you really want a Star Trek future, it’s not just going to space in cool machines. It’s building a society with respect for all life, sentient & otherwise, applying science wisely, and pursuing principles of justice, fairness, and reason. Let’s build that and ride it to the stars.”  Post 2030, it’s what we started to do locally and that quickly spread to all communities.  When people gain respect and sovereignty it quickly becomes an obvious path to follow – it’s what people really need and want.  The transformation was truly started when we gained self-respect for ourselves as well as each other.           

Love of self isn’t egoistic; it is self-appreciation and self-compassion for ourselves as spiritual and physical beings in being authentic people.  Self-actualization (see, Personal Sovereignty 3 – Overcoming Life’s hurdles and Becoming Happy and Free yet still Connecting, Contributing and Creating Positively{November 2018}) is now an accepted expectation for every child and it is a rare case when someone doesn’t become actualized as an adult.  We reach our highest potential that we can and are spiritually connected in ways it was hard to explain to many from the Covid era.  War is a thing of the past, although there are still minor conflicts in places around the world of 2112, but they are not violent, and are short lived as people work to find common ground rather than annihilate opposing perspectives.  The old notions of power and control are outdated.  There may be personal interactions that are still problematic, but on the whole people make the effort to work together and find harmonious solutions.         

The transformation was so much more than personal but also technological.  When we started to recover much of what was hidden by the TNCs for decades.  These technologies seemed almost like magic.  But what would once be considered magic, we now know as science that we did not yet understand?