We have to get creative!  We need to forget all about the current drive for consumption and greed.  Stop teaching this shit in schools, it is never going to work.  We need to start learning how to form sane models for interaction and societal growth (maybe we need to start questioning growth full-stop).  This can exist quite happily along with science and mathematics, and we don’t all have to become hippy flower children in order for the new master plan to work (although it may help with the transition!).  Technology is not the elephant in the room, its all that damn greed, corruption and consumption.  We are going to have to develop a special kind of intelligence in order to survive the economic and cultural holocaust that looms on the horizon of the collective mind.

This intelligence is of the kind that, up till quite recently, has been taboo in our patriarchal, ego driven social paradigm.  It is emotional in nature which freaks the hell out of the ego-driven personality.   Emotion has been seen as a weakness, and probably because of the way that it hinders our ability to be ruthless in business and war of course.  It has led us to the point where we feel nothing almost as a matter of course, which has been reinforced by the media of all kinds, stupid governments, misguided school curricula, and (dare I say it) organized religion.

We have to learn to deal with each other on an emotional, responsible level in order to once again find our sense of humanity.  It is imperative that we are able to put ourselves into the shoes of others in order to gain insight into how they are feeling.  We need to build self awareness in order to figure out what we ourselves are feeling in order to work out what we want, how we are affecting others and how we should act to best effect in any given situation.  All we need to do in order to survive as a species is stop buying into greed, corruption and rampant consumption and develop our emotional intelligence to the point where we are dealing with our fellow humans and our physical environment in the most effective way possible.  We have amazing potential as intelligent (in all senses of the word) human beings, so lets remember what helped us to evolve to the point we are at and start along the sane path to survival.  The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about….

During the Middle Ages, before people in general were able to read and write, they were dictated to by both a coercive and a persuasive source.  On the one hand they were ruled (often aggressively) by a feudal master who dictated the physical nature of their lives.  On the other hand they were controlled spiritually by religious zealots who preached a doctrine that very few people knew first-hand, but only as it was recited by priests from texts.  This defined the way that modern culture thinks and operates.  We are a function of this meta-programming, and it has become so ingrained in our bodies and minds that most of humanity finds thinking in other ways virtually impossible.  We have become consumers without parallel, out of rebellion against this delusional method of existence.  This is a sickness, an addiction, that seems to have no cure.  If this doesn’t change, we will soon become completely dysfunctional as a society, or sink into extinction in our last violent thrust to consume absolutely everything.

There are ways to live that go a long way to circumventing all this bullshit. We mostly just need to change our perspective and try to love what we do again. This helps to alleviate the need to spend wildly in order to satisfy the damaged craving that we have as a hangover from years of slavery to religion and extravagance (maybe that’s a religion in itself). As a step further we can try to live a sustainable lifestyle (yes, grow your own food!) in harmony with our surroundings. Not all of us were built to take things this far, but we should push it as far as we are comfortable. Give it a try!

Greed is a strange animal, especially when faced with finite resources and no escape route (and no folks we can’t go and live on Mars or the Moon).  The monster will continue to consume and consume until there is nothing left.  No rationing occurs… just go go go until the bottom appears, and then the feeling of “this is so unfair” and “why me?” creeps in like ice cold fog.

We see this all throughout history, it just hasn’t ever been this serious and ultimately terminal.  The super-rich will continue to rape the planet long after the poor have succumbed to starvation.  Their unique position allows them to eke out the last of the natural resources for themselves, asserting their unnatural greed.

The rest of us need to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and change the way the world works.  We need to pull the carpet out from under these super-rich, super-powerful creatures of death by turning away from the only holds they have over us – CREDIT and ILLUSION. If we were able to do this, capitalism as we know it would die and money would become meaningless.  We would be free from the only rock that holds us down.  Lets all be brave and just do it.  Stop paying your taxes, cut up your credit cards and start building opportunities for future generations!