Photo by Paulina Milde-Jachowska on Unsplash
The people who will save the world aren’t the current leaders — not business leaders, not political leaders, not institutional leaders. WE are the people who will save the world because we are the ones who care.
We live in a world that is failing.
That world is failing because it has embraced terrible ideas. The ideas that our world has embraced are not only cruel. They are also false. They are lies. We live in a world of lies and that is why we cannot cope with the real crises that have emerged and continue to grow.
We ourselves and our toxic ideas are the cause of the calamities we see.
Our leaders and institutions will not save us, cannot save us, because they are born of and beholden to these toxic ideas. They are not bad people at the core. They are, in fact, people just like ourselves. But their hearts have been hardened and their eyes blinded by ideologies and ideas that prevent them from truly comprehending the horrors they have brought about.
We must not hate them. But we must stop them, overrule them, and set them aside where they can no longer do damage. We must take control and fix what’s broken, and especially kill the ideas that brought us to this terrible state.
Nobody is born greedy and selfish and bigoted. Humans are not inherently cogs in an economic system that uses us as tools for the wealth of a few, the realization of an abstract principle that justifies countless generations of suffering and subservience, praising it as “freedom” and “progress.”
We are human beings, born as helpless creatures and cared for by others so we can survive and thrive and fully experience this mysterious gift called life. Each of us exists only because others have cared for us, helped us get through a perilous infancy, and nurtured us to the point where we can live. We are here because of love, not greed.
Greed is not good. Greed is evil. It does not power a beneficial growth or progress of our species. We can see for ourselves where greed leads us. It leads to ecocide. It leads to immolation of ourselves, of our children and of the other species with which we share this Earth.
This is true in democracies and capitalism as well as dictatorships and communism. Our current systems — all of them — are underpinned by acceptance of greed and power as the animating principle that drives human beings. We have either embraced this lie or, at minimum, accepted it. We do not question it. We simply say “this is how things are.”
We have made bad choices and then forgotten that we have the ability to choose.
All current systems are powered by lies, destructive lies which are killing all of us, whatever our ideology. But there is another way.
The cure for the climate crisis and the other challenges we face is embracing reality, and rejecting lies. We need to release the repressed goodness in ourselves, because that is our real selves. Love, not greed or fear or hatred, is the real human nature. That is why we are here, and denial of our nature is what is killing us.
And so, what do we do? Each of us as individuals? Or collectively in groups? What steps must we now take?
We must each go and do what our heart asks. We must look into the eyes of children and ask “what does this child need to live a truly human life?” We must look at animals and trees and mountains and ask “how should we treat our lovely home, this lovely Earth?”
And then it will be impossible to raise children to be slaves to the greedy. It will be impossible to treat the Earth that sustains us as a toilet for industrial waste. It will be impossible to continue in the direction we have been going. We have been going full speed away from our own humanity, and towards certain doom.
By accepting the lies and going along with greedy leaders, we have been as foolish as those who are causing this crisis. We have been accomplices. But, when we look into our hearts, we cannot continue. We will be different.
We will become human. We will become ourselves.
Each morning, we should wake up and be thankful for life and ask ourselves, what will we do for the people of this Earth, for the others who share this Earth with us, and for the Earth itself? Because, like the mother who brought us into the world, the Earth itself also nurtures and protects us. In return, we have abused her and we are suffering her wrath.
This is why love and only love can save us. This is why greed is inevitable loss, inevitable suffering, inevitable death.
How we answer the question of what we will do each day won’t be the same for all of us. And our answers will be different on different days. But as long as we remain focused on reality, and be our true selves, we will move in the right direction. As long as we have the courage to speak up and act in accordance with our hearts and consciences, we will move the needle and make what’s dismissed as impossible — changing the world for the better — not only possible but unstoppable.
Imagine small groups of people, friends or simply people of like minds, meeting regularly — either virtually or in person. And these groups meet in a spirit of love and action and caring. They come up with ideas and strategies, things to try. Some may turn out to be effective, and others foolish — even embarrassing. But these people are not embarrassed because they are trying and caring and doing things. They are following their hearts, embracing reality and each other.
These groups and efforts become widespread. They are independent but they also watch each other. When something makes a positive impact, other groups embrace the tactic. These groups are numerous and growing and leaderless and unstoppable.
People everywhere see what these groups do, how they behave, and they are aware that these groups are acting out of love. They see what can happen when people follow their hearts and reject greed. They can see what happens when people treat each other as respected beings, not as tools to use for gain of wealth or power or fame
And it becomes apparent how hollow are the lives of the greedy. How empty their hearts. That the greedy are trying to fill their empty hearts with money, and property and praise. And everyone can see that the way of greed doesn’t work at a personal level and that it is catastrophic at the global level.
Follow your heart. Join with others. Do the right things. Be unafraid to fail. Speak out. Set an example. Force chance.
We can do this.