Whenever in a public place, my eight year old son always asks me, “Why doesn’t anyone smile?” It reminds me of when I was a child and found it ridiculous that everyone always seemed to repeat the same responses to each other. Any discussion regarding important issues always ended in conclusions like: “That’s how it’s always been,” and “You can’t beat the system,” or “This and that government/politiicans are corrupt,” and “You can’t escape death or taxes,” – or at the most optimistic, “You got to go with the flow.” This cemented belief in the inevitability of it all never seemed true to me – at all.
As I grew up and learned how the world “works” – I found myself using the same phrases to put a comfortable cap on bothersome news. This was much easier than considering that we have the freedom, ability, and responsibility to right the world’s wrongs. After all, one could not simply stand against 5000 years of human history based on millions of years of human evolution. We are bound by competition and the survival of the fittest. Most live and die at the mercy of our current economic system that is considered the pinnacle of progress.
Darwin’s Origin of Species is the bedrock of our modern paradigm, and the reason why most feel we can’t have something better. It is natural for us to compete and fight as our primary instinct after all. But in his sequel about human evolution,The Descent of Man, Darwin writes of “survival of the fittest,” only twice, but 95 times of love, 12 times of selfishness, 9 times of competition, but 92 times of moral sensitivity, and 24 times of mutuality and mutual aid. The central role of reason is evident in that he writes 200 times of mind and brain. Why did this get left out of our school curriculum? We are barely taught to reason, but mostly to memorize preconceived perspectives and historical “facts” to support them. Alas, now there is a global brain emerging with the maturing of the internet and the continuous conversation of a new digitally connected clerisy.
For many years it seemed that flowing with the main stream was the only real option. But now there is an emerging truth, and the answer to my son’s question is clearer. Most people don’t smile because they are a river that has been dammed. The premise of competition dams us. Those who have not broken the lid of their box may see this as La La Land. Smiling is a sign of weakness and physical attributes are the most power we have. How well we can throw a ball, be sexy, or “make” money is the main measure of worth. There is however a growing realization and scientific acknowledgment of the quantum connection we have in the creation of our collective reality. This is our true power. When we all come to realize it – our civilization will become civil. A world without leaders where everyone is responsible is not a dream – but the only true reality.
Everything has now changed. With every new truth teller that emerges the cracks in the dam get bigger, thanks to folks like Edward Snowden, Woody Harrelson, and ex CIA intelligence officer Robert David Steele, author of The Open Source Everything Manifesto – Transparency, Truth, and Trust. When the celebrities and leaders of the current machine begin to tell the truth – it is damning to the status quo and the damn gets a nice new crack. Comedian Russell Brand recently called on a 50,000 person protest crowd to stage a “a peaceful, effortless, joyful revolution.” Many criticized this as naive since we all know you have to fight for what we want. Hearing someone speak off script may be difficult for some to understand, but the vibrations of truth crack the dam nonetheless. The dam will certainly fail one day, and the water will emerge with unconstrained strength.
The character Betee said it simply and brilliantly in the Hunger Games movie: “The Quarter Quell were written in the law by man, certainly it can be unwritten.”
