1) I was wandering the grocery store yesterday, and it hit me that it is very possible I have never met a fully sane person. In pursuing optimal functioning, I may need to discover many things no one I have ever met has been capable of teaching me. There is a solitude inherent in this, but over time, I feel, a compensatory relief from the problems that have always dogged humankind.
If we all pursue enlightenment in our own way, we all pursue it, in the end, alone. [Note to self: deal with it.]
2) How inefficient it is to pursue experience, rather than the capability of processing and using experience.
With regard to overpopulation, there seems to be a clear pattern of economic growth, population growth, then population stability, then in the case of all developed nations but the United States and I believe Israel, population decline.
Can we perhaps posit a curve similar to this over time with regard to consumption? Can we not imagine that with a better, more fulfilling culture, we can all learn not just to make do with less, but prefer it?
We are at a point in time where we can turn left, towards the eradication of culture in a socialist tyranny, or turn right to a graceful age filled with a cultural and social fulfillment that satiates even the aspiring despots.