we’re long due for a new beginning.
Quite some time has passed since we last had a chat. Let me explain.
Over the past few months, I’ve engaged in quite a bit of thinking, most of which I’ve kept to myself while attempting to sort it all out. Recently, however, my thoughts began to pull themselves together into something (somewhat) cohesive and I’ve come out of hiding to begin to share them with you. To put it simplistically and unnecessarily enigmatically, I want to change your minds. In order for me to attempt this, I’ll need a bit of cooperation and patience on your part and heaps of determination on mine. I wish to share a story with you, one with a plot that exceeds anything I’ve attempted before (if I may say so, myself). Allow me to introduce you to some of these ideas.
I have a message, you see: one that many people (present company included) found difficult to grasp, let alone openly embrace. I felt for much of my life that we lost something vital to our happiness as well as our survival and that we have still yet to recover it. Over the past few months, the identity of that particular something has begun to dawn upon me. As a culture, we do not know how to live.
Just to clarify, I ought to define a few words for you since I use them in a way that falls a little left of your average dictionary definition. When I say culture, the word refers to a specific society with a unique mode of living and a set of behaviors, habits, and so on that makes them distinct from other peoples. We’re still with Merriam-Webster here. When I refer to our culture, however, I don’t mean Western or Eastern culture. As far as I see, the people of Chicago, Moscow, Prague, Johannesburg, Jerusalem, Hartford, Nagasaki, Amsterdam, etc. all have different takes on a single set of principals. In other words, we (as the dominant majority of the species) belong to a single culture. Despite the differences between socialism and capitalism, democracy and dictatorship, religiousness and atheism, the people in both Eastern and Western societies basically lead the same kinds of lives. The rift between East and West causes most to view the two as incompatible, but they see the differences while I emphasize the countless similarities. Bear in mind, though, that our problems are not innately human; they are specific to our one oversized and overzealous culture. Additionally, when I say how to live, I’m not speaking of man-made morals, societal rules, or the beliefs and principles that guide our lives as individuals. You might say that I refer to how to live as a species, preferably without wiping ourselves off the face of the planet while taking as many other living things with us as we possibly can. Unfortunately, we’re heading down exactly that path without so much as a backwards glance.
With that, I’ll permit myself to begin my story. Although gaining your understanding with a single summary or even a dozen blog posts, for that matter, presents me with a near insurmountable challenge, it’s time for me to try exactly that.
If you recall, I wrote that I wish to change your minds. Beyond that, I hope to convince you to make an effort to alter the lifestyle that our culture leads. Our way of life descended and evolved from a single society found in the Fertile Crescent approximately ten thousand years ago. Historians call this event the Agricultural Revolution or the Great Transition and they generally view it as the beginning of what they call human history. Obviously, though, humans survived and even thrived for millions of years previous to the Great Transition and that lost era, again, is what we now refer to as pre-history. Also, it’s worth noting that although the past certainly repeats itself, this event was (and remains) an entirely idiosyncratic happening in the course of human existence. In other words, nothing like this ever occurred before.
Take this next statement with a hefty grain of salt . . . as it is told, they call it a Great Transition because before the Agricultural Revolution, humans primarily hunted game, gathered wild vegetation, and farmed on a smaller, local scale for their food supply and either settled in smaller communities or led a nomadic way of life; afterward, they began to practice large scale agriculture to survive (go figure) and lived rather permanently in increasingly large settlements as trade and commerce took on a more significant role in society. At present, that long-winded account above is the generally given summary of what went on during the Agricultural Revolution and contains nothing that an encyclopedia couldn’t tell you.
More importantly, I’ve just fed you our culture’s own improbable alibi for what made us the way we are today which contains so little actual truth that I only bring it up to reveal it as a lie.
This leads me to what I’d like to ask you before I finish with this not-so-little foreword: ignoring the textbook explanation provided above, what do you personally believe caused us to become the way we are today? Keeping the past and present in mind, where do you think we’re headed? Please, share your thoughts with me; I need you to play just as significant of a role in this as I do . . . think of any online thread or public seminar and recall just how much you learn from the questions and the answers provided by your peers. Talk to me. Talk to everyone here.
In my upcoming posts, expect to see details of this story explained while the plot expands over time. Again, I have a mission to change your minds or, more accurately, allow you to see what I see, but with your own eyes and your own vision with which you enact your own reaction. I fully intend to see this goal through. I hope to hear from you and hope that you will stay with me, but there’s a long road ahead before I start getting to any good news.
If you look out your window, read the news, or learn a bit about the history of our species, you’re hard pressed to miss the many pitfalls and obstacles encountered thus far in our culture, yet we’ve been conditioned to believe that all the tragedy and imbalance is but a necessary evil of humanity. Our culture’s voice whispers over the years and so subtly seduces us to believe that this is an absolute truth that we’ve all but lost any ability to even question its validity. But if you look at the rest of the world, you may notice a certain peculiarity unique to us and only us. Everything else in existence struggles with any opposing forces and thus finds balance while our culture pits itself alone against every other force we meet. Us and them. Not working out so well for anyone involved.
So I raise my final questions before you. What if the voice of our culture deceived us for millennia and continues to do so right up to the present moment? What if the absolute truths that we’ve built the foundations of our society upon are all lies and misconceptions? What if humanity’s necessary evils are invented, or even imaginary, evils? I implore you to believe that together we possess the strength to reverse the flow of this river. Thank you for your time.
Kyle,
I found your squirrel analogy very intriguing and I’m greatly interested in where you are going. So let me throw this out for the fun of it. I agree that humans play G-d in many ways but is that not the nature of a more intelligent being? If the squirrel were human, would he not find other ways (i.e, guns) to defend himself against his enemies. And honestly, what progress is the squirrel making if it lives in a circular existance with no hope for a better life. Why does it not attempt to reach beyond the destructive nature of its existence? Is this an intelligence issue or something more powerful? Nature is a tricky thing (i.e, Gulf of Mexico oil spill) when you mess with it. But how would we survive without our ability to develop? Hope I’m not off the topic here, but this is what I was inspired to write.
Rob,
Thanks for the read and the comment! I appreciate your company. I apologize for the delay as my internet has been down and I’ve been unable to respond, but all is well again. My name does have an “R” at the end of it, though. And if that isn’t confusing enough I have two middle names to boot. =P
Right, moving on. Your argument is one that I have gotten many times and, in fact, produced myself when first confronting this idea. To go back in time, humans survived for millions of years without playing God or living the way that our culture does. Again, I’m referring to a global community. Our population growth was a steady, linear growth for three to four million years, but once the Agricultural Revolution took place, our population growth took an exponential growth curve that has continued since. I’m not referring to Neanderthals or lesser humans, I’m referring to people just as capable of the same intelligence as you or me that simply possessed less knowledge and facts as a collective species. I am not, mind you, a Luddite, but I believe that our culture’s habit of putting industry and material or technological prowess above living conditions is clumsy and not a viable lifestyle.
Basically, I am far from against adaptation, I simply disagree with our culture’s definition of the word. There are many things that the overwhelming majority of us believe to be fact that are simply opinions that are no longer being notably countered. To me, adaptation is not solely the ability to make banging guns to kill things or toasters to toast things or vacuums to suck things. Make no mistake, this is a form of progress as we know it, but I feel that we ought to prioritize human, biological, ethical (as best we can), and ecological stability over technological ability. Both may exist, as they do currently, but (so to speak) we must eat of the tree of life before the tree of knowledge.
Progress and adaptation is what puts human beings on the top of the food chain, nuclear bombs or not. I ask you to question your held beliefs of what progress and adaptation actually are. I’m not suggesting we abandon intelligence, I’m suggesting that we put our intelligence toward something that isn’t going to explode in our face. In the story of our species, everything is not subsidiary to our overall survival. We are smoking a species wide Marlboro Extra-Heavy; we are slowly killing ourselves with our misguided idea of progress while trying to find ways to delay it. I believe that we need to dive deeper into our issues and attack sources instead of symptoms.
I whole-heartedly feel that our way of life attempts to separate our species from nature by suggesting one overlapping way of life and destroying all others. Nature thrives on diversity; we eliminate it. It is foolish to believe that we live outside the boundaries of nature. This strategy will eventually fail and that it will be a disaster. My ambition is to be one of many who promotes alternative visions as opposed to reactionary responses to our issues. We’re hitting our head against a wall while taking constantly increasing doses of pain-killers. I figure it may be easier to simply stop banging our heads against the wall.
That was long and winded, but I hope that I answered your question to an extent. Thanks again for the comment and the read, I look forward to hearing from you in the future.
nice direction you are going here. i’d like to add an example of “us” trying to control things. the volcanic eruption that has been occurring in iceland. i’ve heard countless people and headlines comment in more or less similar ways. “the volcano stopped the world” “it is a worldwide disaster”. the volcano, did what you would expect it to do. it erupted. very predictable actually. not that the “when” would really make any difference. but….”disaster”? “stopped the world”? no one was killed from the volcano from what i’ve heard. the world did not “stop”. air travel for the most part did. major inconvenience for some, yes. but stopped? disaster? it cost alot of companies money yes. i think this is a very good example of how “we” try to control the world and when we can’t, and our commerce is affected and inconvenienced it “stops the world”? i hardly think so. sorry if this is not my best effort of the written word. but it’s late and i’m tired. so…please, stop the world for a few hours till i can jump back on fully alert and awake to see what happens next.
kindly,
e
“But if you look at the rest of the world, you may notice a certain peculiarity unique to us and only us. Everything else in existence struggles with any opposing forces and thus finds balance while our culture pits itself alone against every other force we meet. Us and them. Not working out so well for anyone involved.”
What is the “everything else in existence” from this quotation referring to? I feel like this part is crucial to expand upon if i’m interpreting it correctly, but you may want to clarify a few parts.
The “everything else in existence” I’m talking about is exactly that: everything, animate and otherwise, on this planet and beyond. Hurricanes, lizards, poison ivy, blueberries, wolf packs, oceans, gravity, maple trees, and even other human beings living outside of our culture. Let’s talk about squirrels.
The lives of squirrels revolve around this balanced struggle that I’m talking about. Here goes. Coyote sees Squirrel and tries to catch him to eat him, but fails as Squirrel is very elusive. Then Hawk decides that Squirrel looks pretty tasty and takes a dive at him. Hawk also fails as Squirrel is still just as elusive as he was before. Squirrel is now hungry from all that eluding and goes to eat Walnut, which he manages to do after hitting it on a rock a few times. Next, Tornado takes a trip through town from which Squirrel hides in his nest in Tree. Tornado sends Tree flying (and Squirrel with it), causing Squirrel and his nest to fly splattering onto the pavement.
Our squirrel is struggling against his predators, his preys, and the inevitable pain in the ass that nature can be. We have a different approach. We play god to everything, even our fellow human beings that don’t accept our terrible way of life. We wipe out our predators to the point of extinction, harvest our prey en masse, and do all that we can to even control acts of nature and weather. This is beyond being at the top of earth’s food chain. We consider anything that isn’t convenient to living our lives to be superfluous while every other creature in existence (such as Squirrel) struggles in natural harmony with all the other struggling stuff.
Let me explain that, too, just to be clear. Going back to Squirrel’s eventful day, Coyote goes hungry, Hawk goes hungry, Walnut is eaten, Squirrel is full, and Tornado wipes out Tree and Squirrel. That makes no sense, but it does in this context. See, since Coyote and Hawk are still hungry, they’ll both move on to find another prey which will die at their expense. Squirrel, though, is full and thus will not seek another Walnut, thus allowing these other nuts to go right on existing. That’s nature, give and get, balance, stability, diversity (in a nutshell, pun intended).
We try to move beyond nature, which is impossible, but the effort is still there. We are the only culture that tries to control nature as opposed to living within nature. The thing is, no earthly species can control nature and it is my belief that when we fail, it will be a catastrophic sort of failure. I’d rather avoid that before it is too late.
I hope that clarified things for you a bit.
Kyler,
Nice blog!!
People’s Weltenshuang ( world veiw ) can be startling.
I am curious what you will be laying down here.I will be checking in to see. Illusions are amazing things and the world is full of them on many levels.
Mark, in the name of creating discussion, there is nobody I’d rather have following this blog than you. =P
Yes, it can. Particularly when you realize that you’ve shared that very Weltenshuang for your entire life without even realizing that it was a Weltenshuang in the first place. I look forward to your future remarks and counterarguments as I attempt to shatter some illusions.
Your best composition yet. This is refreshing and well considered. You’ve got yourself hooked on something big and brooding. There’s something in the back of my brain quivering to get loose and follow your gravitational pull here.
May I also add that it might be extremely helpful to your readers if you add footnotes for resources where need be for the facts that you come up with. It makes for great credibility.
I look forward to exploring this new philosophy as you continue to write and share.
Thank you, Savannah! I hope that that quivering something does get loose to travel down this path with me, unless that something is actually just a skull fragment, in which case I hope that it stays right where it is and advise you to rush to an emergency room to seek immediate medical attention.
I was considering including footnotes but a larger part of me wanted people to look up the facts on their own if they wanted to verify them . . . what I’m giving people, as far as the boring statistics go, are details that I have actually looked up myself and I’m almost completely positive are accurate (unless, of course, my references are completely wrong, too). Either way, it’s all just textbook gobbledegook, hanging around out there in informational space awaiting some curious mind to come and check it out.
Thing about this is, you may have some problems, as I stated with credibility. Now, you want to take these thoughts somewhere but, in getting people to believe you there’s a small part that supplying people with your take on the facts just wont be enough. Be prepared for everything.
But you already knew that.