Civilization is a product of the virtualizing ability of the human mind. Symbols and images are manipulated by human conceptualizing to produce scripts of behaviors that facilitate leveraging earth's resources for a less stressful species survival. Language, math, images (depictions), measures of time, paid labor are used to produce secondary virtualized systems of production like agriculture, literature, art, music, religion, money, governing, etc. From these abstracted systems came abstracted systems of organization such as hierarchy and social class.
Many "primitive" societies avoided these artificial organizational systems and maintained systems of universal equality (egaliterianism) among their tribal members, the surrounding tribes and earth resources (environment) that was their provider. They used this form of "civilization" to maintain a successful, balanced relationship with nature for thousands of years. Our current "civilization" took the other fork in the road, choosing to emphasize artificial, synthetic systems dependent upon hierarchy to enforce control over labor and resources. Over thousands of years this has resulted in "civilized" humans divorced from a functional knowledge and respect for earth's life systems. Rather than serving Life, we serve things.
The processes of our conceptualizing - illusions, depictions, scripts, quantifying, specifying, suppositions, stories, agreements - become products and processes of the consumer culture. This spectacle of consumption is facilitated by a sea of imagery urging you to desire the illusionary satisfaction of substitute products and processes that earth used to provide you for free. The result is that we serve things (the realm of the It) rather than things serving us.
One way out of this rat's maze that is the spectacle of civilization, is to reconnect the dots lost 50,000 years ago in pre-civilization. Homo sapiens lived a free existence, supported by the Life systems of earth. Just as all non-domesticated life now live, we need to reconstruct an impact free, sustainable life that works in harmony with our Earthian ecosystem. If we can reconfigure civilization to a technological environment that serves humanity and maintains earth's life systems, we will have combined ancient knowledge and our virtualizing capabilities to produce an infinitely livable future. It will take generations to do but once done, Spaceship Earth will be back in happy orbit about the sun, with satisfied cosmic customers (us) and a survivable future. Sounds good, no? Let's do it! Here's a suggestion on how ...
First, adopt the following paradigm resulting from the combination of the following two thoughts highlighted in bold. Things should be treated as tools only. Tools must serve Life (you). Tools are created to facilitate a successful and satisfying life on Earth. If they do not serve you, then they are not tools, and you should consider ignoring, reconfiguring or disposing of them.(Even the most "precious" object such as the Mona Lisa, is a tool for self knowledge and reflection, and nothing more.) Life is not a thing. Life is never to be treated as a tool. The definition of Life is all of Earth's living systems: human, fauna, flora, mineral, air, water and earthian processes. Products or the processes of the virtualizing mind are not included as Life. These virtualizing processes and the products they make are totally foreign to the functional operation of the universe, and do not exist in nature. Therefore all virtualizing and the products of virtualizing are to be used as tools to facilitate Life or they are to be disgarded.
The following below represents some practical modifications to daily life behaviors to manifest the above paradigm. To have any effect at all, they must be approached with total rigor and conviction. You must do as much as you can within reason, with each next step being a total goal of 100% compliance to Life. Compromise (like doing 10% non-toxic activities allowing 90% to be toxic) plays into the hands of the existing spectacle (the It), which begats little spectacles, which recycle back into the system, and provide more energy for more spectacular junk via ever more spectacular mutations. Remember, this is the It you are battling and it demands compromise from you, seeking to veer you away from Life's values at every juncture. Don't give It the energy of your actions to feed on, and it will starve and wither away.
Reorient your physical being to it's default state of resources
(And all of these must be done without compromise (as much as possible, you find the way). Just as an electrical device requires a fixed amount of power, you require fixed resources as well. But you've been bred to think that compromise such as less sleep or poorer quality food, or less water because you aren't allowed a break, is acceptable and if the results benefit others, or the system, then you have sacrificed for a worthy cause. Right? Hooie!!! This is a con job to submit you to the spectacular system of virtualized values which feed a nether world disassociated from earth's Life systems. The payoff supossedly being an "easy" life. But what kind of "easy" life has it produced? Two worker households, no free time, no family time, no exercise, drug dependent health and psychology, less sleep, more work, less tolerance, more fear, cameras and alarms everywhere, guns, violence, war, poverty, greed and so on. Humans are not naturally corrupt. We have been programmed over the last 50,000 years, by the demands of a civilization we created, that the pragmatics of survival require ruthlessness. If this is true, then why did we create civilization?)
- 8 to 9.25 hours sleep each day (at least 2920 hrs./yr.).
- 8 hours of sweat exercise a week.
- ½ to 1 gallon of plain water each day. (Here's an energy restoring tip to experiment with. Ever feel the "lugs", energy-less? Drink 12 - 16oz of plain water, no soda or fruit drink, and within half and hour, your energy is back. This works everytime for me.)
- 3 balanced meals each day of organic or pesticide-free food, no processed sugar. Natural vitamin supplements as needed.
Consumer Culture - only Green products and services
- Non-toxic, sustainable, recycled, recyclable, reuseable.
- Living wage minimum pay, employee profit-sharing a plus.
- organic or pesticide-free.
- Do not buy a new car that pollutes, convert a used car
to natural gas or ethanol,etc.
- buy only what you will use now.
Work
- Work as little as possible with an initial goal of 32 hours a week maximum,
with the ultimate goal 20 hours a week. (Tribal people living off the land spent about 4-5 hrs a day for their base needs and could spend the rest of the time
in activities of their choice.)
- Take public transit, bike, walk. Get rid of your car or share with
others if possible.
- Find a right livelihood, something you enjoy doing and is beneficial to you, society and earth.
Social Life - make it real Life (this is the hard part)
- Don't gossip about friends, family or neighbors. Talk about things or ideas. Raise the discussion to solving the issues of the day or ways to have fun.
- Let people know where you stand at all times. Communicate your alternative way of life to negate any ideas of complicity with the existing commodity paradigm.
- Read. Research. Study up on the world around you. If you understand the nature of reality you can make beneficial decisions. Don't let anyone tell you that Life is too complex to understand. The spectacle has purposely made itself overly complex so that confusionism is the default state of being, and blocks attempts at purposeful change.
- Be fearless in the face of social pressure to cave-in to the practices of the consumer culture. Maintain all of your default physical needs and if family or friends attempt to erode them, or you are having a difficult time establishing them, consider siting down with your comrades and redesigning every aspect of your life to fulfill those requirements. This is the most difficult obstacle you will face. The permutations of the blockages you will encounter are the core of the spectacle of illusion and the orbit of it's strongest gravity. It is the mechanism that has kept the spectacle together in it's contemporary iteration. But as you become physically stronger and more spiritually in balance from living a real life, you will find you have the strength to resist and actually, never want to go back. Without the peer pressure to conform and be complicite the entire system will come apart at the wheels, and humans will be free again. To live a satisfying, creative, joyful, egaliterian life of peace and harmony with earth, knowing each generation will have an opportunity to do the same.
Copyright free for personal or not-for-profit uses. ©2005 Sandy Sanders.
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