“As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that. … That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life… Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.” ― Anthony de Mello
Oh, please. Not another woo-woo, spiritual exposition!
No, don’t worry: I’m not going in that direction — for now.
Instead, and it won’t take long (phew), I’d like to wonder out loud — as is my way — about a post-Covid19 world. And of course, at the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, I don’t have a crystal ball, nor the science, less still to opine on something that frankly I should know better about than to put my head above the parapet in expressing an opinion.
What the hell!
Here goes.
We have to change. That’s you, me and the majority of the planet.
Why?
Because if we don’t (and I believe I’m entitled to make this argument) we’ll sign (or may have already signed…) our death warrant.
What I really mean, and as I shared in my short voice-recording on Twitter this morning, is to wake up to the fact that, yes, we’re animate but we’re also, save for a big lump of a brain, no different to all other sentient beings, and rather than seeing them and the rest of the world as something to covet, exploit or annihilate, we should cherish them as we would our children, pets or those we deeply, reverently love.
Will we?
The jury’s still out.
Can we?
Oh sure, but there’s little we can do to shape our desires when, in a state of distress, the lizard brain kicks into high gear and we go into full survival mode.
The truth is, I find this subject immensely hard to write about, less still talk openly about to friends and family. It just seems…so, well…, monstrous and so out of whack with our daily lives. And certainly not something that appears to touch our souls as it should or might do.
But it wasn’t always that way, particularly before the industrial revolution. Of course, I don’t know that for sure. Yes, we didn’t weaponise our Agri or Pharma or Capital-exploiting capabilities because they didn’t exist but that doesn’t mean we didn’t possess the DNA that might one day wipe out the very foundation of our being through greed, consumerism and excess. Something tells me though that our indigenous forebears would have thought long and very hard before fouling their nest. Of course, we don’t seem to have the same predilection. I mean, who would have thought we’d have invented a mode of transport that emits, in close quarters, toxic and death-dealing emissions? Yes, that’s right. The motor car dear friends is, for all its utility, not the most environmental enhancing mode of transport ever invented. I could go on but I’m already beginning to feel a bit of a fraud if not a hypocrite, given that I’m part of the problem — still — and all this finger-wagging just ain’t good for the soul.
My real point, and hence the title, is at what stage (and hopefully we’ll see the light or at least a chink of it post-Covid19) will we wake up to the world we’ve engineered for ourselves and perhaps look in a different direction for a life and planet-sustaining mode of living before it’s all too late? Not to be too clunky with my writing but a good place to start might be something more community-minded, egalitarian and less orientated to individual ‘freedom’ but more a tilt to collective responsibility. And I certainly don’t think Government (in the UK) has that in mind but rather feathering the nests of a few chums who seem intent on (amongst many other things) profiteering at everyone else’s expense.
Anyhow, enough of my jaunty little musings. It’s time to get with the Summerhayes programme and, as they say, do my thing.
Have a good week — however it manifests.
Take care.
Blessings, Julian