Humanity Is Deciding If It Will Evolve Or Die

[JGeropoulas]

I happened upon this blog post today. I don't know anything about the author, but she's definitely onto the real challenge set before humanity today. The first few paragraphs could be taken as a call towards post-modernistic thinking, but then she gets to the heart of the matter in terms that resonate well with the "work". Here are the highlights:

Humanity Is Deciding If It Will Evolve Or Die
by Caitlin Johnstone
Medium.com

...we’re realizing on mass scale that all the rules of society were invented by dead people long before any of us got here, and we’re seeing that we are free to re-write those rules in a way that benefits us. From popular grassroots examinations of socialist ideas, to cryptocurrencies and an evolving understanding of what money is, to redefining social institutions as ancient and ingrained as marriage and gender identity, more and more people are saying in effect, “Hmm, it looks like all those old thoughts we’ve been using to describe our reality are causing some problems. Let’s find new ones.” It could be described as a collective awakening to the fact that reality and our conceptual model for it are two very different things, and the model is as flexible as your ability to change your mind...

...Our planet is currently in the midst of a sixth mass extinction. If we dodge that bullet, we’ve got steadily mounting new cold war escalations between the world’s two nuclear superpowers imperiling us more and more with every moronic increase in nuclear tensions. There’s also the looming and seemingly inevitable invention of artificial superintelligence, which could end us in any number of completely unpredictable ways.

If we manage to dodge all of those bullets in the next few decades, we’re still headed straight toward an Orwellian global empire which controls all access to information and ideas using AI-controlled censorship and propaganda. Serving out the remainder of our existence as a sanitized, homogenized and propagandized servile class for sociopathic elites would be a kind of extinction in itself, and arguably a worse fate.

So we’re at a pretty significant juncture here. Our present situation could accurately be described as a question that we are collectively being asked as a species: do we want to (A) live on and find out what the future holds for us, or do we want to (B) go the way of the dinosaur?

...the people who show up in my social media notifications proclaiming that it is naive to think humans will ever cease their destructive patterns...They are choosing (B), extinction, and their prize is that they get to be right and feel good about that if it happens.

Answer A is less sexy. Less egoically satisfying. You don’t get to feel smug and superior with Answer A, because Answer A involves changing. It involves waking up from that same ego structure which gets so much pleasure out of being right and knowing better.

If we’re going to pull away from catastrophe or dystopia and survive, we’re going to have to take full advantage of the unprecedented situation in which we now find ourselves. We’re going to have to make a miracle happen. We’re going to have to evolve beyond our current relationship with thought. We’re going to have to wake up.

Throughout recorded history and across all cultures around the world, there have been individuals testifying that it is possible to undergo a transformation in the way one relates to the world, experiencing life as it actually is instead of filtered through unconscious conditioned thought patterns. After such a transformation, thought becomes the useful tool it’s supposed to be instead of the writer, director and star of the whole show.

If such a transformation is possible on an individual level, it is possible on a collective level as well. With a shift in our relationship with thought and ego, we would become impossible to propagandize, and therefore able to determine a course of action that isn’t selected for us by plutocratic manipulators. We can awaken from the old patterns of fear and greed and need to control which are constantly used to manipulate us, and begin working in harmony with each other and our environment instead.

This as near as I can tell is the only way to avert catastrophe. All the other exits we’ve tried are bolted shut; political attempts at solutions are shut down with plutocratic manipulations, activism is shut down with media propaganda and corporate censorship, and violent revolution just puts the same problems into different hands. The deck is stacked to keep funneling the momentum toward the agendas of the ruling elites. Our only option is to change ourselves.

Such a collective transformation has always been possible, and everyone from Buddha to the hippies of the 1960s has pointed to it and insisted that it is possible. The difference now is that we are in unprecedented times, and that we now have no other choice.

...On an individual level, it means letting go of everything you’ve built your identity on. It means realizing and fully understanding that you’ve been basically wrong about everything your entire life as mental narratives are seen for the babbling nonsense they are...

Take a step back and watch your thoughts like old television, and they’ll be no less noisy but much less interesting, and eventually the noise disappears into the background and you can begin engaging with life as it really is.

...It means resolving to hand your desire over to the highest interest, not just when it suits you but every time. It means giving up everything you ever do for anyone else’s approval, including your own. It means admitting to your own arrogance, your own violence, your own hypocrisies, your own projections, your own sneaky manipulations, your own sins, and tracing them back to the point in time where you created this little coping mechanism gone mad...

...It means you will have a much clearer idea of what’s your responsibility and what’s not, but it means taking responsibility.
...it also means getting up the guts to throw out the predators that you suddenly realize have been in your sovereign space this whole time. It means becoming fearless...

...If everyone who is capable took these steps, the world will change at a miraculous pace. Individually we will become ungovernable from the outside, and guided from within, and as a group, our clarion call will siren each other into quietly taking the actions we need to take to avoid extinction...

...The journey out of egoic consciousness isn’t something that can be undertaken lightly. Relinquishing everything that has made up your inner world your entire life is not something you can do as a casual pastime. You need to plunge into it with the intensity of someone fighting for their life, and what we have working in our favor today is the fact that now we collectively are fighting for our lives...

 

[Laura]

Sott.net regularly publishes her essays.

 

[Keyhole]

I am reluctant to say that, most of the time, I fall into "category B" which Caitlin speaks of. The more I learn about reality and witness things progressively going down hill just gradually wears away at the optimist in me. I find myself becoming more and more pessimistic (or could one say realistic?). With the psychos in power, the ever-increasing stupidity of the average population, the sheer assault on every aspect of our health (pretty much every topic that me and the others cover on the H&W show each week), and the planetary/extra-planetary madness that is becoming crazier and crazier each day, I honestly don't have much hope for humanity as a whole.

The idea of a mass "awakening" and people actually deciding to change seems as if it is moving further and further away. Rather, the only way I can see that any major change could happen is perhaps following an extreme shock - which will (likely) involve a great deal of human suffering, death, and destruction. Taking personal responsibility is all that we can individually try to do, and I appreciate the significance of this concept. And although all possibilities are open, in terms of changing anything external, I would say that humanity as we know it is well and truly screwed. I hope that I am wrong, and maybe I actually am being pessimistic here, but that is how I feel at the moment.

Nonetheless, good article and thanks for sharing JGeropoulas.

 

[Laura]

I am reluctant to say that, most of the time, I fall into "category B" which Caitlin speaks of. The more I learn about reality and witness things progressively going down hill just gradually wears away at the optimist in me. I find myself becoming more and more pessimistic (or could one say realistic?). With the psychos in power, the ever-increasing stupidity of the average population, the sheer assault on every aspect of our health (pretty much every topic that me and the others cover on the H&W show each week), and the planetary/extra-planetary madness that is becoming crazier and crazier each day, I honestly don't have much hope for humanity as a whole.

The idea of a mass "awakening" and people actually deciding to change seems as if it is moving further and further away. Rather, the only way I can see that any major change could happen is perhaps following an extreme shock - which will (likely) involve a great deal of human suffering, death, and destruction. Taking personal responsibility is all that we can individually try to do, and I appreciate the significance of this concept. And although all possibilities are open, in terms of changing anything external, I would say that humanity as we know it is well and truly screwed. I hope that I am wrong, and maybe I actually am being pessimistic here, but that is how I feel at the moment.

Nonetheless, good article and thanks for sharing JGeropoulas.

I don't know that the lines I put in bold are more and more my own view. And in fact, it seems that this is what the Cs have been saying all along, but encouraging us to gain knowledge, to be aware, etc, so that we are not beaten down by this view, and may possibly utilize that knowledge to "surf the wave" so to say.

At this point, I think I would rather be pessimistic and be surprised, that to be optimistic and be disappointed.

 

[Scottie]

I am reluctant to say that, most of the time, I fall into "category B" which Caitlin speaks of. The more I learn about reality and witness things progressively going down hill just gradually wears away at the optimist in me. I find myself becoming more and more pessimistic (or could one say realistic?). With the psychos in power, the ever-increasing stupidity of the average population, the sheer assault on every aspect of our health (pretty much every topic that me and the others cover on the H&W show each week), and the planetary/extra-planetary madness that is becoming crazier and crazier each day, I honestly don't have much hope for humanity as a whole.

Well, I don't have much hope, either.

BUT...

I think "hope" is part of the problem. Why don't we have any hope? Well, because everything's going to pot!

This view necessarily involves the idea that we are powerless to change anything. After all, if I could just change the world, then I wouldn't be worried about it going nuts because I could fix it.

Then of course we have the idea that we're not supposed to fix the world because it is the way it IS, and that's that. One must have the light and the dark, and blah blah blah...

Well, there again, why are we even trying to make a difference if we really believe that we can't have an effect? Just for fun? I mean, in that case, wouldn't we just rather sit around instead and "get all fat and sassy" (as the Schmoyoho video goes)?

So, here's my theory:

We are either freaks, or we're insane.

Seriously, who else would sit around and get all depressed that the world is going to pot while simultaneously trying to make minor changes for the better, all the while realizing that we ourselves CANNOT actually change the world and that a mass awakening of sorts would be required?

Right: Either a freak, or a crazy person!

Thing is, I think there is a certain amount of genius in this process. The world goes to hell, which makes us depressed. After wallowing in it for a bit, we then use it as fuel to carry on and Do Stuff.

After doing that stuff, we see changes - but they're usually very small. Like people talking about psychopathy, or the guys at RT saying, "Oh yeah, we've all read Ponerology," or Russia in Syria, or China buying up the entire world, or Trump getting elected and being the perfect leader for the US since he quite clearly and in-your-face-ly demonstrates everything that is horribly wrong with the US and its historical policies.

Take Trump: love him or hate him, no American (or anybody else for that matter) can ignore him and what he represents, which is quite simply an unveiling of sorts of the real heart and mind of America as a state and its allies... And that really bothers people, which is okay because it should bother people. Those who really cringe at Trump are deathly afraid of their own inadequacies, their own slavery to the Deep State, and their own illusions about How Everything Works. IMO, he's the perfect president at the perfect time.

Their ideas about everything are propped up on a few rickety legs, and Trump just being who he is and where he is just pulled one of those legs out from under them. The hysteria has nothing to do with Trump himself, or rights, or grabbing bits and pieces, or equality. For most people affected in that way, I think those are just convenient narratives leveraged by the radical left simply because they can. It beats looking in the mirror and/or really looking at reality.

Years ago, people said the same about Bush and the right: it's a diabolical millennia-long plan, etc. Well, now it's the left with the diabolical millennia-long plan. Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive given that there are always factions vying for power. And then of course you have the idea of reality shifting, which makes things even more interesting. So, we just keep analyzing and reporting what IS right now.

Anyway, did we actually do all that?

No, not really.

But it's possible - and I would say probable - that we had some kind of an effect in that direction.

Ultimately, real change would require mass consciousness of real problems, and that's hard to do. There aren't enough people who WANT to be conscious of reality. But everyone can be guided - gently - towards a more accurate version of reality. Many people will go along with what others do, and I think many would prefer to follow a better example - even if only subconsciously.

I suspect that there never will be One Big Event where everything changes. We see those things coming (like, all the time), we talk about them, we gather data, we share, we advise... And then we let the chips fall where they may. One catch: the chips won't fall where they may have fallen had we NOT done anything because of our little "radio station" and its signal. But we don't control anything.

When the sun goes down, we just have to wait and see what the next day brings. And that's just part of the process: it's a constant struggle and it's 99% uncertain.

So, if you look at the world and you aren't depressed, then you're doing something wrong. If you see it and get depressed but then do nothing about it, you're doing it wrong.

But you don't have to be like the Buddha or something. You just have to surf the wave. And the more I think about it, the more I think that is exactly what Keyhole described: the process of surfing the wave. Or at least part of it...

Lately, I've been trying to think of all these people in the world as children. Sometimes, children act like crazy dipshits, throw tantrums, etc. Well, okay. Maybe they won't listen to reason. Maybe I have no idea what I'm doing as a "parent". But I'm gonna try, make suggestions, give food for thought, etc.

In the end, they will make their own choices, and their collective choices will shape the future. All I can do is provide guidance and show that maybe there is a different way of looking at things - a "better" option (which can also change with time). Like most children, they will probably rant and rail against that, but still take it on board. And in the longer term, who knows...

So, I used to be optimistic. For a long time, I was totally pessimistic. Now I think I'm both at different times. I mean, we're always saying not to think in black and white terms, right? Many days recently I feel both optimistic AND pessimistic! So why do I have to be either or? Why can't I be... yellow? Orange?

If you're too optimistic, you might not Do enough. If you're too pessimistic, you also might not do enough - or possibly even collapse.

So, today I am orange.

 

[genero81]

I happened upon this blog post today. I don't know anything about the author, but she's definitely onto the real challenge set before humanity today. The first few paragraphs could be taken as a call towards post-modernistic thinking, but then she gets to the heart of the matter in terms that resonate well with the "work". Here are the highlights:

I subscribe to her Blog posts. She's a real firecracker! An Australian with an American husband.

 

[munaychasumaq]

I am wondering if only the 1% of the populations controls the economy henceforth our lives, why could be not a possibility that the 1% of the population or a lest a 0.005% of them with the correct vibrational frequency will make the earth balance.After all we live in a probabilistic Universe,maybe at the last moment a tiny factor of STO could be make the difference.I am not naive,i know that we are about to collapse,but comes to my mind the Cs`s session July,14 1996 when Laura asked them if the Holocaust was a simulation of a mayor plan of slavery of human beings and the Cs`s answer was something like that, it was a "testing"of will of the planet.So probably something happened at the last minute that made Hitler's plans fail.And August,22 1994 Cs said the STS rulers will fail due to their wishful thinking.They are not able to see what the Cs are able to "see".

Wait and see meanwhile the change start in our house

 

[Ina]

I am wondering if only the 1% of the populations controls the economy henceforth our lives, why could be not a possibility that the 1% of the population or a lest a 0.005% of them with the correct vibrational frequency will make the earth balance.After all we live in a probabilistic Universe,maybe at the last moment a tiny factor of STO could be make the difference.I am not naive,i know that we are about to collapse,but comes to my mind the Cs`s session July,14 1996 when Laura asked them if the Holocaust was a simulation of a mayor plan of slavery of human beings and the Cs`s answer was something like that, it was a "testing"of will of the planet.So probably something happened at the last minute that made Hitler's plans fail.And August,22 1994 Cs said the STS rulers will fail due to their wishful thinking.They are not able to see what the Cs are able to "see".

Wait and see meanwhile the change start in our house

Precisely. ‘The change starts in our house.’ I love that

 

[JGeropoulas]

Sott.net regularly publishes her essays.

Oh, so that's why her name sounded familiar.

 

[BHelmet]

I see the idea of collective fate here. What about a series of individual fates aligned in different directions with different outcomes? Are all sentient beings on earth collectively humanity or is humanity a subset of the menagerie of characters who have physical bodies? Does the fractured soul unit really include everybody here on earth? Certainly not the OPs. What about the Kantekkians? What about the intermingling of all the disparate groups?

It is a complex kettle of fish.

 

[PerfectCircle]

Interesting topic.

I think we we have gone too far away in order to have any hope for humanity left.
Only kind of hope I see is trying to get more people "awake". Awareness might lead to bigger knowledge and then to more STO candidates, or at least big leap of progress for the next reincarnation.

I often try, directly or indirectly, to give some hints or inspire thoughts to people, depending on their level of awareness and willingness to gain knowledge (in general, not from me). All of this is based on my humble level of estimation and respect of free will, as I try to be as much objective as I can.
Hope this, along with continuous work on myself, will make this life(reincarnation) useful.

 

[fabric]

With the psychos in power, the ever-increasing stupidity of the average population, the sheer assault on every aspect of our health (pretty much every topic that me and the others cover on the H&W show each week), and the planetary/extra-planetary madness that is becoming crazier and crazier each day, I honestly don't have much hope for humanity as a whole.

“Hope for humanity”. Interesting phrase but what does that even really mean? Why is ‘hope’ predicated on the premise that the ‘masses’ have to be awakened or that some global ‘enlightenment’ be reached? Exactly how many people do we need that are considered ‘aware’ to say, “Yes, so there is hope after all!”? During the cold war it was one person, in the right place at the right time, that made a difference, although he wasn’t explicitly trying to. Is one person enough? Or, does it need to be 200 à la Gurdjieff?

Or is hope for humanity the hope that all are going to find love and happiness and everything other good thing under the sun? That’s what everyone wants right? Let’s say they do. Then the question in my mind is what makes those things so valued? Furthermore, if we don’t have hope (or a ‘hope for’) does that make life meaningless? I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive however.

I think there’s a finer point to be made – what is it that we want to change and against what are we judging our ‘power to change’ things, or its effectiveness? Many of those things that can be changed can only affect what’s in your immediate vicinity (and perhaps to a lesser degree that which is communicated on the internet). And maybe that’s enough, or all that’s really needed.

So yes, we’re not supposed to fix THE world but I think we are supposed to fix OUR world (by that I mean what's in our immediate reach, our environment, daily interactions) to the degree that we can. Or if nothing’s ‘broken’ then improve it! That’s where we are NOT powerless to change things. The way I see it, to take the view that we need to fix anything on such a large scale is approaching the same thing the leftists want - to enact “utopia”. Isn’t that really hubris? In other words, we most definitely will make things worse, no matter how much one thinks one knows. Is our version of “utopia”, whatever it may be, really such a good thing? Or is it another STS trap, where it really all boils down to ‘determining the needs of another’? Now, it doesn’t mean we don’t do anything either – part of what gives meaning to life is “putting order to the chaos which manifests while having one foot in chaos with the other foot in order” (to paraphrase Peterson). In fact, I think that’s very much what ‘riding the wave’ is about. So in a sense there is some element of the world mixed in with our world which I think leads one to believe it’s the world that needs ‘saving’ but that’s not necessarily the case.

Which comes back to: dark and light and blah blah. I think that’s the answer to the first question – what makes ‘the good’ a valued thing? In addition, how do we place a correct valuation on things so that something better can be worked towards? By seeing what the worst is and what the best is. Not just seeing but also the experience of it. Considering how shite things are globally the bar is set pretty low. Even then, still considerable challenge when you factor in scale. Raising a low bar on a large scale is probably harder than raising a high one on a small scale. So where is the bar in our immediate surroundings? The fact that most all of us can access the net, are literate, shower, drink, talk to each on the phone etc, etc, is noteworthy and should be given its due.

Of course, we pay the price. There seems to be a link with these chaotic times in terms of how much more knowledge is available and the mediums through which they can be transmitted – it’s almost as if these chaotic energies give rise to some very deep and profound discoveries that we have really just begun to discover and actualize in ways that we have yet to fully understand its implications. Knowledge input on a continual basis – it’s not just for protection!

Caitlin talks about averting catastrophe, through changing ourselves. Gurdjieff said the same thing when he told us our life has been a lie and people need to ‘wake up’ because ‘a bunch of unconscious machines inevitably leads to destruction’ (paraphrasing). So is a group of (200) people acting in a conscious way enough to spare humanity the fate of pending catastrophe? Or maybe it isn’t meant to – at all. Perhaps all that can be done is to seed the potential for a different world to manifest at some junction of space/time. The work done exists in a field of potential from which others can take upon to continue.

Considering what is known about information theory – one could say that we’re encoding these potentialities into it. It could also be said that one is reducing the amount of entropy (or noise) that is present in the system. It might help to think of as being ‘error-correcting code’. It really is “Debugging the universe” and taken as a whole, it is very important work! As harsh as this might sound, it might actually be the case that 'hope for humanity' is irrelavant. We might not have the pleasure of seeing the results in a direct way but putting it out there by living and being an example of a positive expression of what society could be like adds to this into the system. And to me that’s not insane. In fact it’s the most rational thing we can do. Are we freaks? Maybe. But first we need to ask – what’s normal anyway?

Like Scottie, I used to be pretty optimistic, and then found myself swing full circle and adopt ‘the-way-of-the-pessimist’. So where’s the middle? A balance is good and nowadays instead of being too one or the other, I try to find that sweet spot... for a lack of a better term I like to call it ‘realistic acceptance’. You’ll see what I mean by acceptance at the end.

I say realistic because it has to contain both optimism and pessimism in its evaluation. For example, I was optimistic about Putin winning the election – it was based in the fact that he had a lot of support from the people. Yes, it’s possible that something could have happened that would have prevented that but taking in all available information, it was a safe bet and I like to hedge my bets. It’s also realistic to be pessimistic about Trump doing anything that will really change American politics. Simply put: hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

As the saying goes, ‘the ugly truth’ has inherent in it tones of pessimism. If what we are after is the truth naturally it stands to be perceived as pessimism. However it doesn’t mean that one is a pessimist. To be that way includes the element of anticipation. The same thing applies to being an optimist. A situation is prejudged and potentialities narrowed. A self-imposed limitation in a universe where the future is open; right down to the last second. That’s insanity.

Understandably one can look at the direness of the situation, throw their hands in the air and say ‘the hell with it’ and get all depressed. I admit I still get like that at times but there’s a different flavor to it. It’s not so much a physiological thing (as in ego-based depression) as it is a deep compassion mixed with sadness born out of understanding that the ignorance and suffering of humanity will always be so. If not humanity or this planet then somewhere else in the universe where perhaps even more ‘evil’ and destructive things are happening. We really have no idea of what’s out there. We can barely understand ourselves let alone each other. Nevermind the rest of creation! That fact that we even got this far is a miracle in itself - and am eternally grateful for. How's that for pessimism realism?

What is even more frustrating, in a sense, is that even wanting to take that away is to remove one of the most valuable tools that 3D life has to offer in terms of learning lessons. It’s not fair from my point of view but what the hell do I know? I have no idea what every soul on this planet came here to do, to learn, to experience. Who am I to determine that for them? What if ‘fixing’ things is really to do a disservice to those who came for that experience – no matter how hard it is? Am I really acting in good conscience to wish for everything to be perfect for everyone? Ok maybe not even perfect but even just less ‘shitty’? There’s no way to really quantify that or even qualify it and have no idea of where to begin.

However there’s something that I think is even more important to understand... something that Val Brown said in his interview that struck a chord with me:

Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist who was in the concentration camps, the Nazi concentration camps. Man's Search For Meaning and all that. He said something really interesting that most people overlook when they talk about his work. He said there were people in the camps - first off, most of the deaths occurred randomly. You just happen to be the third person in line and they were counting down by threes that day or whatever it was. Most of it was random. But for those where that didn't happen, and there were other processes going on, he said there was a minority, a group that came through not showing what we would later call 'trauma response' from that horrific experience.

That's partly what he saw as the basis for understanding that it's the meaning of things, not so much the things themselves that count. The folks who came through without any particular signs of trauma response were those who lived a thoroughgoing spiritual orientation in which everything was part of living. Everything was part of their journey spiritually. It's fascinating to me how many of these things just don't get noticed in literature. Same thing with Kübler-Ross, it was never five steps. It was never a 'step program'. It was five points that people bounce around until they get to acceptance. She's always said and there are a lot of people who just are in acceptance from the very beginning. Interestingly enough, it's the same thing. It's those who have a thoroughgoing spiritual orientation in which, "Okay, so I'm going to die. I get it. Of course I am. No one here gets out alive. Just now I know closer when that's going to be and what it's going to be like."

So yes, knowing what you know now, learning to see the world as it is – is depressing. But if you really think about it, it’s also liberating. There’s a certain freedom in knowing what’s likely coming. Ok, we’re not in Nazi concentration camps but in a sense spiritually we are. So it’s really acceptance that we’re after – accepting that suffering is part of creation, if not here and now, then elsewhere and later. At some point everything gets its due. Life wasn’t mean to be a walk in the park and if you think it is, then you haven’t learned a thing.

OSIT

And remember folks, the show ain’t over till the fat lady sings!

 

[Glenn]

Well, I guess the crux of the matter is choice. Didn't Ra say, this is the density of choice. So, it seems that things are ramping up so that the choices become clearer. And the choices seem to appear as two separate realities. The one created by the PTB, and the other, objective reality. I kind of see them as two paths. A true, but narrow path, and a wide, but illusory path, with no guide wires, nothing holding it up, but lies. And they are moving away from one another at an ever increasing rate.

I guess humanity needs to see what a glimpse of STS reality is.

I try to keep thinking that this is part of a grand plan, and it will unfold in the way that it is supposed to. That's what keeps me kind of sane anyway.

 

[Divide by Zero]

I am reluctant to say that, most of the time, I fall into "category B" which Caitlin speaks of. The more I learn about reality and witness things progressively going down hill just gradually wears away at the optimist in me. I find myself becoming more and more pessimistic (or could one say realistic?). With the psychos in power, the ever-increasing stupidity of the average population, the sheer assault on every aspect of our health (pretty much every topic that me and the others cover on the H&W show each week), and the planetary/extra-planetary madness that is becoming crazier and crazier each day, I honestly don't have much hope for humanity as a whole.

The idea of a mass "awakening" and people actually deciding to change seems as if it is moving further and further away. Rather, the only way I can see that any major change could happen is perhaps following an extreme shock - which will (likely) involve a great deal of human suffering, death, and destruction. Taking personal responsibility is all that we can individually try to do, and I appreciate the significance of this concept. And although all possibilities are open, in terms of changing anything external, I would say that humanity as we know it is well and truly screwed. I hope that I am wrong, and maybe I actually am being pessimistic here, but that is how I feel at the moment.

Nonetheless, good article and thanks for sharing JGeropoulas.

I just finished the Dopaminergic Mind by Previc and it reminded me of the built in issue humanity faces.

We have the left brained dopamine driven human nature and global society of looking to the future and control of things that leads us into a world that accelerates that behavior. It ends up being a feedback loop, just like what dopamine does with addictions/OCD and so on.

There doesn't seem to be a brake to this behavior... the critical mass has been reached a while ago and the only way this train is going to stop is when it runs off the tracks.

 

[genero81]

Understandably one can look at the direness of the situation, throw their hands in the air and say ‘the hell with it’ and get all depressed. I admit I still get like that at times but there’s a different flavor to it. It’s not so much a physiological thing (as in ego-based depression) as it is a deep compassion mixed with sadness born out of understanding that the ignorance and suffering of humanity will always be so. If not humanity or this planet then somewhere else in the universe where perhaps even more ‘evil’ and destructive things are happening. We really have no idea of what’s out there. We can barely understand ourselves let alone each other. Nevermind the rest of creation! That fact that we even got this far is a miracle in itself - and am eternally grateful for. How's that for pessimism realism?

I know what you mean. There is a definite compassion element there and it's humbling as well to know all you can do is point towards the door, and if others don't see it, you have to let them be. And that's the thing for me, I guess. Everyone around me is losing the plot and I'm like holy Christ! I'm in a bad episode of the Twilight Zone! And yet personally I feel pretty fantastic. Life is interesting as hell if nothing else. And I feel more determined than ever to keep doing what I'm doing. And there's others like Caitlin who are giving them hell. (Yeah, you go girl!)
It's not Nazi Germany, at least not yet. And I'm not going to do what the citizens of Germany did and not speak out while I still can. Heck no!
"Be true to your own nature and fear nothing." That's what I intend to do.