In any event, we got to talking about how quickly everything could go to shit. And then later, I got to thinking about why this would be.
We have imbeciles like Elon Musk and Michio Kaku dreaming of going to Mars. Why? Why can’t we make our civilization defining mission that of getting EVERYONE emotionally healthy at a deep level?
For the life of me, I don’t get futurists who fail to see the urgent necessity for all of us learning to know our own hearts, our own souls. I don’t understand the stubborn failure of mainstream scientists to integrate, or try to integrate, mainstream ideas like Remote Viewing–which was funded by the CIA because it WORKED–into larger, better, more fun, more intrinsically hopeful paradigms.
Socialists think that society will work when we are all taught how to behave. I believe society will work when we all learn who we are, how magical we are, and slowly release all the demons tormenting us. We build a better world by building better individuals, and we build better individuals by creating and distributing the tools and resources for those individuals to do work which is intrinsically valuable, and inseparable from the pursuit of deep, meaningful happiness, and social connection and union.
None of this is the least bit complicated.
What I think is the problem is that our culture not only allows, but in some respects encourages, people to hide from their emotions by retreating into the safe fortresses of seeming rationality and relentless work. If you can produce new data, new ideas, in science, you are considered productive. If you can become calmer, more insightful, more “spiritual”–however you define that–that is not so valued.
Sure, we make rich the people who can give us the “3 simple tricks to. . .”, and who write books about why it isn’t your fault, and how to love yourself, despite being a relentlessly self absorbed, self pitying loser (I could, by the way, in some respects be made to fit that category: I see that).
Everybody loves the Dalai Lama. He says “be nice to people”, and everyone oohs and aahs. But as I have pointed out often, in so doing he omits half of his own religion, the other half being “pursue wisdom”. And frankly, I think he gets it backwards: honest, useful compassion flows from wisdom. I don’t think wisdom flows from compassion. Compassion has no form, and it is far too easy to conflate it with believing nothing is worth fighting for, as so many manifestly do in our own era. This teaching is tailor made for what I call Sybaritic Leftism, and Sybaritic Leftism, in turn, flows naturally and inevitably into cruelty and radical intolerance. You have to start with the form, then fill with the feeling. If you start with the feeling, you flow downhill rapidly.
To return to the topic, there is no way to be optimistic about the future when we cannot set as a civilizational purpose the attainment of universal mental health, based on solid personal boundaries, continuity with history and culture, the eradication of traumatic residue, the empowerment of individuals to achieve and retain strong personal senses of agency, and the generalized capacity for deep relaxation, and spontaneous joy.