Modern is far more transactional than relational:
Ø Day care; used to be done by neighborhoods, now it is done by strangers for money
Ø Entertainment; used to be free by neighbors, now we pay subscriptions or purchase media
Ø Food; we used to pick or grow, now everything is purchased, and in search of year-round menu conformity we purchase from thousands of miles away (and externalize the costs of transport)
Ø Education; we used to learn by oral traditions and doing (apprenticeships), now we pay (or rather borrow to pay) to being propagandized by a “professor”
Ø Health; we used to be intricately involved with Nature, and our immune systems were mostly challenged just by infection, now we limit infection with cleanliness, but take chemicals derived from petroleum that could not possibly be proven safe when mixed with other medicines in hopes of dampening symptoms (not a cure)
Ø Justice; we used to investigate and decide based on community values a punishment if someone violated them, now we plea-bargain based on opinions we pay our attorney(s) to provide
Ø Civic engagement (politics); we used to have difficult discussions, again based on community values and needs, and knew a model of power that was not forced but rather fit the need of the moment, now we have a uniparty political structure whose loyalty is bought by a military-industrial- complex that needs continuous death and destruction to maintain a profit
Ø There are more examples, feel free to add to comments…
Transactional seems safer than relations. Quarantine feels safer than immunity. Is it useful, or appropriate for our spiritual development, to attempt to grow this Modern system based on transactions? Do we cling to it because we are told it works, or because the unknown, inherent in change, is scary?
Illusion lights an imaginary inferno before it disappears. Illusion hopes we will put the fire out quickly and salvage what remains, allowing illusion to remain. Evolution wants us to lift the lid on the dumpster and fan the flames, burning out all the rot and decay. Truth does not burn; illusion does.
Let’s look at another type of transaction, between human and Nature. In particular I want to draw attention to recycling, an act we claim is meant to ‘save’ or ‘protect’ our environment. Yet how much of the food-encrusted take-out containers, the plastic laundry detergent bottles, even cans and bottles actually end up in a new, disposable product? 79% of plastic that has ever been made still sits in landfills or the natural environment; Americans purchase about 50 billion water bottles per year, averaging about 13 bottles per month per person; Americans alone throw away around 25 billion Styrofoam coffee cups every year; microplastics are found in air and water and on land everywhere, including human brains (despite a blood/brain barrier Nature ‘thought’ would protect this precious organ). I have pointed in this direction before, but it is a classic example of how the commonly-accepted narrative of CO2 being the high-impact problem needing a solution is really a red herring. Modern can’t continue as we have developed it today. It is physically impossible to maintain a plastic, disposable, free-traveling society like we have today and remain distanced, separated, from Nature itself. We can’t have single-use items that enable our need for income to purchase said items repeatedly and thus keep us enslaved to the masters of money for our subsistence.
My father was beaten by his father, being the middle child who bore the brunt of work on the farm (first born was to go to university, last-born was Type 1 diabetic). I don’t know the ancestral trauma that was the motive for this; and my father resisted quite vigorously, if unsuccessfully, the impulse to do the same. I am his first born and saw the worst of it, although in retrospect, it wasn’t much to worry about. By the time my siblings 3 & 4 were born, Dad had a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology, and that learning relieved most of the trauma and ended the abuse. I am grateful, because I have not perpetrated similar trauma on my children or step-children, an explicit goal of mine since I was a teen. But the key here, since we don’t all need a sociology degree to avoid abusing family, is the self-reflection: who taught me my beliefs, traditions, and way of being? How traumatized were they, as they imparted this ‘wisdom’ to me? IOW how do we mine the gold inherent in our human hearts? Silence, lies, distraction, overwhelm, fear, and disengagement are all tools that perpetrate trauma. A child copies parents, dysfunctional or not. I see this now nearly daily with my 17-month old daughter. Who taught her to walk through a retail outlet, hands clasped behind her back like she is inspecting the facility? This imitating is part of ‘normal development’, as defined by a traumatized community. Just like an individual, a culture has shadow and projection issues, too.
Today we are enamored with technology, as each new product or update/upgrade offers easier, more convenient work. Sadly, tech is always buggy; usually in unforeseen ways. The promise is only a ghost of the reality; promises are, after all, advertising. Tech mediates, or gets in the way, of our innate resonance with the natural world. It filters and dampens our touch, our connection, with what is true and real. We use tech to photograph the sunset, to “capture the moment’, and give no energy to savoring and remembering the moment itself, or to show up in any authentic sense and witness the beauty. Resonance implies connection; a photo does not. If we value wholeness, digital is worth nothing. It is regressing to a time when connection was physically limited, by distance or circumstance. Today we choose limitation by using tech, by accepting separation and, in some cases, making isolation our goal.
Science is material, our world is not. How many agree? It is easy to ‘believe the science’ when all we ‘know’ about it is what we are told. Education today is the end of the arm of business that focuses on on-the-job training of workers. Is it solely the fault of authorities when I believe, unquestioningly, their lies? What is my role as a parent, to teach my child critical thinking, which she will not get in a government funded school system?
A healed psyche is authentic, transparent, able to show up in difficult discussions without flinching, able to react with true compassion, not sympathy, and take an active role in the healing process for children and adults both.
There is nothing left for us to do to heal this broken, Modern lifestyle. We are past the point when reform is possible; so much depends on so much else. Repeat: nothing; not voting, not a Letter to the Editor, not taking or teaching a university class. Not a workshop, a better marriage, a different neighborhood or home, a new lover, an ‘energy-efficient’ light bulb, and for sure (if you’ve been reading me for a while) not electric cars. Only those among us who have done the inner healing work can see a way to heal within their community. The individual, alone, is not enough; but it takes one individual to stand up and start the standing ovation. Once healing is well underway, the path forward is clear: Let’s Go Wild, once more.
I remember listening to a recording of Yuri Bezmenov on subversion tactics. He mentioned much of what you did in the first segment. Something particular to me was what he mentioned about the creation of social workers, a job I once did. This is part of subversion as everything else you mentioned. Remove the basic human duties, the basic principle of love thy neighbor, the basic principle of take care of your people and don’t be a waste of an existence, and replace it with government workers who are there to show up to do those duties for a very minimal paycheck. They have no connection to those they serve and across the various settings and environments, I have either worked or volunteered in, more often than not, they will do more harm than good, because they just don’t actually give a fuck and they are dealing with the most vulnerable situations. Of course there are exceptions but ties into the technology as well. We have been selling out our humanity in the name of convenience and automating every element of human life and there we stand, wondering why nobody knows who they are or why they are here anymore. We fucking outsourced everything to the machine.that is why. Thank you so much for this piece. 🙏❤️🙏
Thank you to all the articulate writers out there who can form into words the swill of thoughts and emotions I don’t seem to be able to articulate on matters pertaining to modern life and the grip hold the state has over our lives. The machine, the system, makes me soul sick. I appreciate this article and knowing that many others out there feel the same way. Much gratitude to you.