“The most powerful person is someone who decides their self-worth is not a group decision” Case Kenny.
We all have myriad beliefs and unconsciously seek anything that confirms such beliefs – belief confirmation is what makes us such good targets for those seeking to control us. Until we consciously look at our beliefs with a critical eye, we literally are living a reality devoid of actually facts.
I have several friends and family members who suffer from digestive complaints brought on by food they eat. Despite the effort to eat well, they all suffer gut issues of one form or another. This is particularly true in the USA. However, when friends travel outside the USA to say Europe, Mexico or Canada, they tell me that their gut issues lessen or even go away, only to return when they get back to the USA. You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to see a connection here. The US food industry, much like everything else in the USA, is based on profit margins and maintenance of the industrial food system.
Americans love their meat and so the meat industry is supported by Big Agriculture to the extent that extraordinary amounts of the crops grown in the USA are used in feedlots. When you consider the loss of energy through the trophic levels (see links 1 and 2 for more explanation), humans (at least in the developed world) eat like top predators, and in nature the numbers of top predators are restricted by this trophic energy loss. In a nutshell, if you aspire to develop a resilient and sustainable future, you have to work within the limits of the natural system.
If we ignore the quality of food for a moment, we produce enough food on global farms to feed everyone on the planet around 3500 Kcals per day – eat that many calories and you will become obese. How that food is then utilized, transported around and then ‘processed’ is another story, one that is rife with problems, not the least, economically driven ones. Our global human systems (food and energy especially) are fragile and incompatible with being sustainable. If we are to foster a changing global sustainable human system then we must make resiliency our primary focus. To be blunt, if our food system or electrical systems fail, or even just badly falter for more than a couple of weeks, then it is game over for many people. That should be sobering enough to make us want to encourage how we look at resiliency!
“The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it” David Attenborough.
When I talk about resiliency, I am referring to the idea that it isn’t having enough on hand that is important, but having a system in place that caters to catastrophes and mishaps and allows us to bounce back – it’s not the nature of any adverse situation that is most important, but how we deal with it and what kind of system is in place that has already anticipated problems. It refers to the ability to adapt successfully and bounce back from adversity, failure, conflict, frustration, and misfortune, whether that be personal or a system.
We have been so conditioned to rely on current human global systems that we have forgotten to consider how we individually contribute to the presence or absence of resiliency. The uncaring global systems think only in terms of financial resiliency and not human socio-cultural resiliency. Until we come together in the spirit of resiliency as one humanity and not simply 8 billion humans struggling to survive, the cabal and the fickle human developed systems will continue to control and reduce us. I think the linked video clip shows how we have come to accept social injustice and lack of empathy as a norm. What keeps us in the norm of being unwilling to stand up and care is simple – fear. Whether that be fear of actual persecution, fear of what others think of you, or fear of whatever you think you need to survive is as consequential to us in not working to be resilient.
Some of the most grateful people on the planet have little material wealth but still thrive because they rely on each other to share the burdens. Meanwhile, many in the developed world become mean and dispirited as they struggle to maintain their ‘monetary wealth’ at the expense of others, so if they fail, they fail alone. In my very first post on the blog I talked of playing the game Monopoly as an exercise in how money works to isolate us and keep us indifferent to other people (see links 3 & 4 ). Resiliency needs all of us. The 0.001% of the uber-wealthy are the only ones able to weather any system mishaps because they can build their ‘bunkers’ whatever. Think about this for a second. Elon Musk or Bill Gates for example are so wealthy that if they somehow lost 99% of their wealth to a global financial meltdown tomorrow morning, they would still be billionaires!
I am not talking about some new form of utopian socialism where wealth is somehow distributed fairly, but a different way of looking at money within society and what that money is doing, or not doing as is currently the case. Monetary wealth has been funneling uphill to the global elites for many decades with the ultimate conclusion that I see as a neo-feudalistic system – the best of a Huxley or Orwell story (see the short video link for a sobering look at global wealth distribution). The hierarchy are literally just amassing money. But money is just a cognitive construct, a tool, not a thing in itself! That is the greatest con we bought into and the con that keeps us enslaved.
When we are sovereign, independent, critically-minded individuals who treat other people with respect, for interdependent community living, then we have the basis for a new kind of community that resembles the best of how indigenous peoples lived with the best of what modern living has to offer, without the control and power grabbing of the hierarchies. As Victor Hugo said, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come” and that idea is a truly sustainable future. Change is the only constant in our world, but many resist change and fear the unknown future – they fight against the current that will happen anyway. As I have said many times, change is coming, it is up to us to choose what kind of change that will be if we wish to thrive.
It starts with us working on ourselves to be the best versions of who we want to be. “Character matters. Integrity matters. Humility matters. Decency matters. Kindness matters. Morality maters. Humanity matters. Our children are watching” School Bells N Whistles. That last part – we were conditioned to be less than we could be, and only those of us who rebelled against the conditioning have we freed ourselves. Now it is time for everyone to free themselves from the ‘matrix.’
We currently live with a survival mindset of victimhood and scarcity that propagates competition and self-centeredness at the individual and group level thinking – the negative aspect of tribalism plus bullying and lack of Love and compassion. It is too difficult to guess what events will promote the birth of a sustainable culture on this planet. While we might not recognize the path that gets us ‘there,’ with some creativity we can visualize what being ‘there’ may look like. To paraphrase a Bernard Cornwall character, Uhtred, “Intention is all.”
There is no Sustainable Living future with technology alone. We first have to learn wisdom and to heal the human mind, body and soul. Then the path to sustainability will become obvious. We are here to live connected purposeful lives. The Vision of a Well-Being Economy must transplant the current money economy. We must shift how we understand and build societal health and prosperity, looking beyond economic growth to collective well-being and environmental/ecological sustainability. That is the next step after we have reclaimed our sovereignty.
“True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” Richard Jurin quoted from QuoteFancy.com.
To Be Continued ………….
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