Existence is comprised of energy manipulating matter.
Balance is the necessary condition for flow to occur.
Flow is the essential function of energy.
Love is the unimpeded flow of energy.
Wellness is the balance of food, water, rest, and exercise.
Sustainability is the balance of giving and receiving.
Alignment is the balance of experience with wisdom.
Fulfillment is the alignment of sustainable love with wellness.
Purpose is the fulfillment of our existence.
Red blood cells deliver oxygen to all parts of our body allowing us to function, which provides the environment red blood cells need to survive.
When we exhale, we release carbon dioxide into the air. Trees absorb the carbon and use it for photo-synthesis, which produces food as it cleans the air we breathe.
For over 10,000 years, global average temperature stabilized to within 1 degree Celsius. Stable temperature produced predictable weather that allowed humanity to evolve beyond hunter-gatherer, nomadic communities to develop farming, produce surplus food & products for trade, and create modern civilization. This period that cultivated extraordinary human development is called the Holocene.
In our modern society, each of us contribute our most marketable skill in exchange for money, which we use to purchase all the goods and services we need to sustain ourselves.
This is the pattern of existence in Nature…
A virtuous cycle of interdependence and mutual fulfillment.
Yet since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (1850), human productivity has raised global average temperatures beyond 1 degree Celsius. As human activities pushed our ecology out of the Holocene, the impact on biodiversity has been catastrophic with species extinctions exceeding a thousand times the normal rate.
Today, we are within one average lifespan of depleting our soil of essential nutrients, savannization of tropical forests, ocean acidification, and melting of the polar icecaps.
The virtuous cycle has been broken.
We now face a choice: innovate a modern economic system that supports ecological sustainability, or participate in the sixth mass extinction event.
If you believe you are a stone cold realist who sees truth as it actually is, consider…
Are you free?
Free to choose your life’s vocation unconstrained by how much money you will make?
Free to spend your non-working and sleeping time doing the activities you enjoy most?
Free to invest the time you need to build healthy relationships with family and friends?
Are you independent?
How much of what you do is reliant on what other people have done?
Of all the words you have thought or spoken, which ones did you create?
How much of what you need to survive daily do you (or can you) produce?
Does self-interest really serve you?
Every hurdle you face to all you desire is due to other people advancing their own self-interest.
Is competition really a good thing?
Every person you defeat in the competition for resources is a person you may need to rely on for the goods and services that support you.
The conventional wisdom inherent to each of these bolded questions is the Matrix.
Truth resides in your responses.
As Americans, the virtues we are encouraged to use as guideposts for success impede our personal fulfillment because they are at odds with how we exist each day.
Nothing in nature lives independently. By design, we all are interdependent on each other and the natural environment that provides for us.
When the cells in our body compete we call the condition cancer. Humanity is functioning like cancer to the ecology that sustains us.
We can’t experience the luxuries of our modern lives based only on what our family, friends, and people like us produce. Self interest at the expense of the common interest is self defeating.
Once we remember we survive daily based on the contributions of many people we will never know, the well being of all of us becomes as important as our own well being.
Why must we remember now?
We face global challenges beyond the capacity of self interest to mitigate:
1. Climate crisis – we are within 15 years of exceeding average global surface temperature increase since 1850 of 1.5 degrees Celsius.
2. Income & wealth inequality is destroying democratic institutions and destabilizing national governments, which is leading to severe polarization and mass migration of under resourced populations.
3. Nuclear weapons proliferation – Iran will be the next nation to obtain nuclear weapons because their most powerful enemies (Israel and U.S.A) have nuclear weapons. This is not new. India responded similarly to Pakistan obtaining nuclear weapons.
4. Technological disruption due to automation and artificial intelligence is displacing low skilled labor and ultimately highly skilled labor. Since technology is owned by the wealthy elites through control of multi-national corporations, income & wealth inequality is exacerbated because income from automated productivity goes to the owners of technology. Masses of people are becoming economically irrelevant.
While our Earth is abundant, self-interest has rendered humanity impotent in the face of extinction level challenges.
Yet we still have a choice, if only we remember who we are.
Are you sovereign?
You appear free, unencumbered by physical constraints, and in possession of the ability to make choices.
Yet look where we are…
Isolated, socially distant, living virtually, hiding behind masks, fearful of strangers…finding security in the magic injections provided by multi-national pharmaceutical companies who demonstrate they are more concerned about profits than saving as many lives as possible.
Are you safe now? Just long enough to buy the next booster shot. More magic from the Wizard.
How did we get so weak?
COVID-19 is more than a virus…it is a metaphor for all the reasons we are encouraged to give away our sovereignty.
Life is filled with many possibilities; some good and some bad. What actually happens in our lives is a function of choices we control and choices beyond our control. When a challenge like COVID-19 appears in our lives, we can choose to put our focus on the choices we can control or defer to choices outside our control.
We can make the choice to support our immune system. COVID-19 preys on compromised immune systems. For healthy, fully supported immune systems, COVID-19 is less dangerous than driving your car.
Or we can succumb to the fear that we are unable to protect ourselves without the paid assistance of a for-profit manufacturer who denies the magic injection to billions of people unable to pay their ransom.
What could go wrong?
For those of us with compromised immune systems, take a look at your medicine cabinet. Notice how what ails you never gets cured? Medication is designed to maintain you in relative ‘comfort’, just for as long as you keep taking it…forever. Will you ever get tired of being someone’s revenue stream?
This is what happens when you give your sovereignty away.
Yet you still have a choice.
Our bodies are designed to heal. Find out what your body needs to produce wellness and do that.
The moment we reclaim our sovereignty, we will realize we have nothing to fear.
Wisdom teaches us the only thing we actually know is the truth we are finally ready to realize.
Everything else is opinion tainted by a lifetime of subjective experiences.
As such, the more we know, the more we realize we don’t know.
Yet through this epiphany we discover authentic humility, which slows judgment long enough to create space for more truth to be understood.
We are all victims of cognitive dissonance, inspired by a society based on lies that our souls know aren’t true. Time to call a spade a spade so we can all find peace.
We are not free. If we were, we would spend our time doing what brings us joy.
We are not independent. If we were, we would produce our own air, water, food, shelter, atmospheric pressure, biodiversity, language, and everything else we need to survive.
Competition is toxic when you must compete to eat. Currently, 12% of American households report food shortages. COVID-19 revealed in the competition for resources to take care of ourselves and our families, we are defeating the essential workers of our society…who are amongst the lowest earners in America.
Self-Interest is self-defeating. How long would any of us survive if we had to rely only on what our family and friends produce?
What is true is humanity grew to dominate our planet by working together against our predators. And now that our predators are defeated, we are defeating each other and the natural ecology that sustains us.
To wake up from the nightmare we are living, all we need to do is remember who we are and how we survive each day.
Had enough of this nightmare? Time to wake up and participate in co-creating a world worth living in.
When you strip away all the labels and quiet the noise of our toxic society, you create space to remember who we are and how we survive each day.
We have food to eat because many people we will never know produced it and brought it to market so we can buy it.
We have shelter today because many people designed it, constructed it, and maintained it so we can buy or lease it.
We have clothes to wear…You get my point.
If you are grateful to be alive, and appreciate the lifestyle you enjoy, steep on the fact that none of it is possible if you had to rely only on what your family and friends and people just like you produce.
If you find yourself fearing, hating, or hurting people who appear different than you, take this moment to acknowledge you are harming the hands that support you.
For those of us who have pets, we realize our pets bless us with unconditional love. Ever wonder why? They know very clearly who takes care of them every day.
Nothing in nature lives independently.
If you really want to change this toxic society, start by loving unconditionally the hands that feed you, clothe you, and produce every thing you need that you are unable to produce for yourself.
The life we seek begins the moment we remember.
Compassion is the natural emotional response to all that gives us life.
Consider what gives us life?
None of us produce clean air, but we all pollute it with each exhale of carbon dioxide. One critical function of the billions of trees on earth is to clean the air of carbon. Accordingly, trees give us life.
Nutrient foods give us life because this is how we obtain critical nutrients not produced by our bodies. Nutrient rich food requires nutrient rich soil, which is comprised of billions of living and deceased creatures accumulated over millions of years. Maintaining the nutrient rich soil requires the accumulation of knowledge built over thousands of years. Accordingly, billions of people and creatures we will never know give us life.
Our bodies use pressure to circulate blood, oxygen, and essential nutrients. While our skin is designed to offer a first line of defense against infection, our skin is incapable of containing the inner pressure of our circulatory system without the assistance of the earth’s atmospheric pressure. In deep space, our bodies would expand to twice normal size as the vacuum of space would pull the air from our bodies, rupturing our lungs and killing us in the process. Accordingly, the Earth’s atmosphere gives us life.
I could go on, but I know you get the point.
The disconnect with most people in our social interaction today is the idea that compassion is discretionary.
Compassion is the authentic response of any person who realizes their existence is interdependent on humanity and the ecology that sustains us.
Advancing our self-interest at the expense of the hands that sustain us is not only self-defeating, it is pathologically detached from the reality of our mortal lives.
Like the air we breathe, compassion is the essential emotion expressing appreciation for our very existence.
Existence has a pattern that replicates from the smallest to the largest.
Consider our human body, which is comprised of over 30 trillion cells and includes about 200 different types of cells. Each type of cell possesses unique characteristics that allow it to perform a specialized function. Our bodies exist because each category of cells execute their unique functions in coordination with every other category of cells, for the good of the whole body.
Consider how we use our bodies daily. We talk, walk, eat, drink, utilize our hands and many more common tasks. Each one of these functions requires the coordinated effort of several component parts, contributing very specialized skills in order to effectively complete the most basic task. For example, the act of grasping a cup of coffee in the morning is only possible because all five fingers, guided by the vision provided by our eyes, work together to secure the cup.
Consider how we function in our modern society. Each of us develop very specialized skills that we contribute in exchange for money, which allows us to purchase all the material requirements of life that we do not produce for ourselves. Imagine how many people are involved in producing our daily food, clean water, clothing, shelter, security and even the beds we sleep in each night. Any one or group of these people who fail to provide good service can lead to very detrimental impacts on our lives. Understood this way, a good day occurs when many people acting in concert, successfully complete their unique functions for our mutual benefit.
As complex a miracle as our modern societies can be, we are unable to survive without the natural environment. Sunlight, water, oxygen, atmospheric pressure, biodiversity and many other factors all combine to create the ecosystem we need to survive.
This is how we exist each day.
Take note of the pattern that produces our existence. Each individual contributor, internally and externally, work in coordination to create the conditions that support our daily physical wellness. The value of each contributor is not how we compare to each other, but where we stand in relation to making our maximum contribution for the good of all. This is the virtue that illuminates our highest purpose.
Yet, where do we stand?
We live in a society that honors independence, freedom, self-interest, and boundless individual accumulation of wealth obtained through competition.
While none of us choose the family or country of our birth, we are drafted into a lifetime of competition that determines our access to information and range of skill development. More than half of the 7.5 billion humans on earth are so resource deprived they rarely have the opportunity to reach their full potential. Even for the wealthiest 11% of humanity living in the United States, Canada, and the European Union, significant parts of the population lose the birth lottery, and are denied full access to the resources needed to reach their full potential.
At what cost?
Imagine the explosion of human potential, innovation, creativity, and productivity if all people were able to access the accumulation of human knowledge? Yet this immeasurable human potential is lost on the altar of competition, which is neither free nor fair. The price we pay is a profound degrading of human development.
Yet we still have a choice.
We can learn the lessons of how we exist. We can take note of the role each component part plays on the whole. We can acknowledge our purpose is tied to the application of our unique talents, contributed for the good of all of us. We will then be free to commit our lives to serve our highest purpose.
And the moment we do, we will find the fulfillment that has eluded us for so long.