It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built upon a renunciation of instinct. – Sigmund Freud (Civilization and its discontents)
Section 1: Rational
10
Plato advocates for our rational part to govern our emotions.
“Therefore, isn’t it appropriate for the rational part to rule, since it is really wise and exercises foresight on behalf of the whole soul, and for the spirited part to obey it and be its ally?” (Republic IV.441e)
The Apostle Paul assumed that biological instincts spawn chaos and sought to be purified of worldly desires.
“Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;” (Titus 2:12).
Do we need a manager inside us to control our actions, and do we need our culture to support a rational lifestyle? Does discipline give peace? Consider how Spock, from the “Star Trek” TV series, holds back the emotional side and seems logical. But then Spock loses control in the episode “Amok Time” (1967). Perhaps Spock was too rational. People get annoyed when I use Star Trek references to discuss real situations. So let’s go back to stories about ancient philosophers and Greek Gods. To portray reason, we will use a strange god of purity called Apollo, whose name means “sterilization”, according to Plato.
“But isn’t Apollo the purifying god who washes away (apolouon) such evil impurities and releases (apoluon) us from them?” (Cratylus 405b)
In Revelations, an Angel named Apollyon controls an army of locusts that consumes everything in their path.
“And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.” (Revelation 9:11)
Although Apollo is portrayed as a killer in ancient mythology, the concept of a rational Apollo, the antithesis of Dionysus’s emotional nature, emerged in modern times. The poem “Hymn of Apollo” by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1820) was written at a time when Apollo was associated with harmony, light, moderation, and the rational mind.
Both emotions and reason work together in our biology. Pure reason alone cannot make choices unless guided by emotion, because animals would have no motivation to care without feelings. For instance, you love your parents and rationally choose to take care of them because your emotions care. Pure reason or logic without feelings does not care. Feelings help us develop our sense of how to live, and we must feel the world to truly discover it. Without feelings, we have no way of learning how to live.
Sometimes, philosophers and sociologists will try to define something as correct. Suppose I make a claim that a reflection cannot reflect because it uses its own reflection. This argument sounds rational, although it can be easily disproven with two mirrors. I would have never found my error if I had just sat around and agreed with myself instead of testing the argument. Reason alone cannot make truth. You need a source of information to find the truth.
We gather information through sensory organs, and reason or logic uses this information. However, rational people often fail to use this information properly when they employ reason to create false illusions. Reason and logic support any argument when people ignore facts. Before proper scientific experimentation, Aristotle employed rational arguments to demonstrate that the Sun revolves around the Earth (Metaphysics 1073b). For centuries, scholars accepted the wrong information in the books of Aristotle or the medical manuals of Galen, even though anyone could easily correct these errors with a few simple tests.
Air represents reason, Water represents emotion, and the Lotus flower represents reason when it rises from water into the air. I equate this flower with the Eastern Apollo, called Buddha, who sat under the Tree of Knowledge, listening to nothing but the mind. People fall from Nature when reason is used to find ways to act unnaturally. Nothing in the Tree of Knowledge tells us right or wrong; only Nature does, and Nature talks to us through emotion. I believe that Buddha listened to the deceiver Zeus.
For civilized people, Buddhism offers tranquility when a disciplined person creates an orderly life. However, before following what Buddhists say, remember that it could be a trap. Having unnatural abilities seems like a kind of freedom where the mind can expand into areas that would not have been possible in an untamed state. The structured nurturing of domestication can upgrade people, and civilization provides the resources to create the necessary structures. But what kind of life would that be? This living Apollo could be a hero or a villain. It would be more dead than alive after domestication destroyed the person. It is not the consciousness we should want.
Hippies associate the word “OM” with cosmic harmony and psychological peace. The way mystics in Eastern religions seek the divine, rather than their animal nature, leads me to think that the real meaning of OM is “I am not.” The word is part of the destruction that haters inflict on themselves. Some of you think Buddhism is about mindfulness. So, exactly what do you learn by sitting in a lotus position doing nothing? You learn nothing. Do not expect me to live like Apollo or become a Buddha. Apollo brings about peace after destroying the life of life. Imagine how sterile an orderly world would be. I would rather sink into the ocean of emotion to live life as the beast.
There is an Apollo image associated with feminine people, which can occur whenever someone refers to a successful woman as bold or courageous. This gives the impression that success is a manifestation of esteem. It also implies that esteem fosters great accomplishments. These Apollo myths about esteem are not true. Some successful people are neurotic jerks who have miserable lives. I know some successful businesswomen who are happy. They are happy because they have a family. Those who attempt to find happiness in a career without a family often seem to be unhappy.
In our enormous universe, nonliving things occupy most places. Only a few unusual places ever produce life. Water lets life move. Nothing should stop us from enjoying this unique gift. Too much Sun would dry the Earth and leave it sterile, but the right amount of Sun provides the energy for life to grow on the Earth. Therefore, the Sun has another persona, known as Helios. This Sun is born and dies each day, and this cycle resembles a microcosm of the Sun’s yearly cycle of life, which begins during the winter solstice, coinciding with Christmas, the day Jesus is believed to have been born. Jesus is another role model.
Section 2: Slave of Reason
(Conjecture) 11
“The more violence thou dost unto thyself, the more thou shall profit.” (Kempis, 1418)
This Christian Thomas Kempis was committing punishment unto the self to avoid becoming a slave to emotion, but in the process, was Kempis turning into a slave of reason? My teacher did not want us to become slaves to our emotions. I was told that allowing emotions to take control is the highway to Hell, where the Devil sends desires to lead us away from God. Teaching people to control their behavior seems rational if you want a society with a strong legal framework. Apollo also represents structure for rational and organized individuals.
Of course, there are reasons for having proper procedures when building stuff and for having the discipline to follow these procedures. Still, we have too many organizations trying to impose structure on us. Schools, religions, governments, and businesses want us to conform to their idea of structure. Civilization imposes demands on people to conform, and individuals often push themselves into lifestyles that differ from the way people once lived.
We can also adopt a structure to our activity, and the discipline to follow this structure can give us new abilities. For example, soldiers train their minds and bodies to become tuned machines. I assume that reinforcing one ability suppresses another part of yourself. An athletic person has the discipline to conquer their body, training it to become a new image. A successful athlete might equate the athletic self with the true self. Take the illusion of a true self further by visualizing an enlightened person sitting in the East, with a halo of the Rising Sun shining behind their head. Plato believed that mastering emotions returned us to our divine selves.
“And if a person lived a good life throughout the due course of his time, he would at the end return to his dwelling place in his companion star, to live a life of happiness that agreed with his character.” (Timaeus 42b)
Apollo becomes civilization’s strongest ally whenever the domesticated suppress any desires that will not fit the civilized way of life. Workers often overlook the need for freedom in order to become part of the machine. Eventually, one learns to keep the beast locked up and accept frustration. In modern competitive civilization, the regulated person will be more prosperous, but do we not need society to be so pushy? Under different circumstances, the Devils of passion could be friends.
Instead of being friends, civilization breaks people during the domesticating process, turning the wild beast into a domestic sheep, using punishment, the removal of privileges, threats, psychology, persuasion, torture, rewards, or any number of methods. They want to make you civilized, and to resist openly would provoke them to use more efficient domestication techniques. A few decades ago, discipline was implemented through punishment. Then, schools adopted sneakier methods to control us. Now, educators strive to make students feel that they need equity and inclusion to feel secure. Educators administer an endless series of surveys, which are used to claim that students require additional training. By the time you read this, they might no longer use the words equity or inclusion. They will have new words for you to worry about.
You might think all people are created equal, yet authority figures put themselves on a pedestal above everyone else. In the past, a king embodied law and order. In other cultures, a high priest symbolized authority and power. In our culture, the police get privileges that the rest of us do not get. For instance, an officer accused of a crime receives a paid vacation until a grand jury clears the officer of wrongdoing. In contrast, citizens are often locked up while being forced to undergo additional court proceedings (Packman, 2011).
The uniform lets police feel separate from everyone else, and they treat us as if we were the enemy. Police will blame a suspect’s lack of responsibility for an encounter gone bad. However, thanks to video cameras, the public now sees how the police do not always tell the truth. Everyone suffers from occasional bad reasoning; even good people do evil when given too much authority. Tell someone that people are dangerous, give them a gun, surround them with people who support this paranoia, and then do not be surprised when the men in blue see you as the enemy.
I was told that the police will protect us and they save lives. Police also maintain control and ensure we follow artificial rules. Laws enable authorities to intervene in people’s lives, thereby putting all of us in danger. You could be a harmless old man minding your own business. Five minutes later, the police have pinned you to the ground for reasons you do not understand. The police will use sneaky fishing techniques that result in the arrest of innocent people. These fishing techniques follow department procedures. In a police state, procedures are more important than people. That is not the kind of world I want to live in.
The organization Campaign Zero suggested a limited use of the police force (Rao, 2015). Should we vote for representatives willing to try such alternatives? Social activists talk about defunding the police, and they feel glee while rioters burn stuff downtown. These same people are not enthusiastic about reducing security in their neighborhoods. Defunding the police will not prevent wealthy people from rehiring security under a different name. I am in favor of eliminating the police, but not right away. People in cities would find themselves in danger without the police, and these individuals have the right to feel secure. Though people need to learn how to stop depending on institutions, I don’t want people to suffer. Instead, try living alternatives; if they work, we should invite others to do the same. Some of you might wonder how people would protect their stuff without the police. Why do you have so much stuff that someone would want to steal from you? No one needs to own more than they can carry.
Decreasing your dependence on the police does not mean you should stock up on weapons. We should not substitute one false security for another. Nor should we avoid all weapons. Let us learn to distinguish real dangers from fake ones. We must learn to deal with real situations in ways that do not require fear of what lives inside. Our appetites make life worth living, and when one fears desires, one becomes an enemy of oneself, so reject both the external police patrolling your neighborhood and the internal police patrolling your mind.
The concept of a society without police sounds unrealistic. Are we so dependent on the police that we will never be able to find an alternative? Or are we too scared to try an alternative? Are we not men?
Section 3: Matrix and the Babe
10
People in agricultural tribes once celebrated the Gods of the harvest (Frazer, 1926). Even in Roman times, people still retained some memories of the old religion.
“First Ceres broke with crooked plow the glebe; first gave to earth its fruit and wholesome food; first gave the laws;—all things of Ceres came; of her I sing; and oh, that I could tell her worth in verse; in verse her worth is due.” (Metamorphoses 5.341-345).
Agricultural cycles repeat yearly, and we portray them as a cycle of rebirth. The Pythagoreans altered the story of rebirth to accommodate a more idealized narrative of spiritual salvation.
“And souls are all exempt from power of death. When they have left their first corporeal home, they always find and live in newer homes.” (Metamorphoses 15.158-159)
As the tribes grew, the Greeks built larger cities where people had less contact with the cycles of Nature. Even if salvation ideas existed long before cities, salvation religions emerged as a popular religious movement after 800 BC. By the time of the Roman Empire, mystery cults existed in which a god would live on Earth, die, and be reborn, thereby helping to connect believers with the divine. The names of this god included Dionysus, Osiris, and Tammuz, according to Frazer in The Golden Bough. In the Christian version of these stories, the death of Jesus washes away our sins, allowing those with faith in Jesus to be born again.
“By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Hebrews 10:10)
The pagan Emperor Julian attempted to promote a blend of ideas from Greek philosophy as an alternative to Christianity (Julian Oration). However, the religion of the Roman god Sol Invictus could not compete with Christianity. Sol Invictus was too abstract. The Jesus story provided a person. Stories about the death and resurrection of Jesus attracted a large number of followers, and Christianity became the dominant religion of Rome.
In Egypt, people combined Jewish mythology with Greek philosophy to create Gnosticism, a belief system in which finding a divine light was believed to lead to salvation from the material world. At the same time, similar religions emerged in India, where holy books discuss the concept of people realizing their inner spirit.
“As one abandons worn-out clothes and acquires new ones, so when the body is worn out a new one is acquired by the Self, who lives within.” (Bhagavad Gita 2.22)
According to ancient Indian literature, each age is worse than the last, and we live in an age of violent activity, where we must live as part of a complex law (Vishnu Purana bk. 6). In this point of view, rocks and trees are less real than the law, and this story implies a difference between the creator father and creative mother, though both are parts of the great mystic law. The Hindu Goddess Kali is quite a remarkable symbol, full of Violent images that I do not understand. I attempted to establish a religion with a few mystical laws, where we venture outside to learn about our faith. Look at a tree. It is part of Nature, and when we talk about a tree nymph, we talk about what the tree seems to mean. Today, I see a quiet, nonviolent Great Mother. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll feel different, but I seriously doubt it. In our temple, the perspective of time unites with the Earth Mother, giving birth to physical events, and I think these physical events are more real than any mystical law.
Even though Kali may seem strange, the great religious scriptures of the West have created a stranger version of the great mother. This feminine presence gives birth to a new world order. Jewish Rabbis have a feminine concept called Shekinah (Maimonides 25), and Catholics have a bunch of regulations called the Holy Mother Church.
“We believe that the Holy Mother of God, the new Eve, Mother of the Church, continues in heaven to exercise her maternal role on behalf of the members of Christ” (Catechism 975)
I suspect this new female presence was invented by lonely men who spent too much time commenting on ancient books. Most of the great religious literature would never have been written if these guys had girlfriends.
Consider the consequences of killing an old self to get reborn. The creative mother gives birth to a hermaphrodite who combines all qualities and carries the primal essence of the universe. Call the Babe ‘Eon,’ when it lives eternally. Call the Babe ‘The One’ when it finds completion. Call the Babe ‘Neo’ when it starts. The creative mother personifies the ideas behind civilized culture, and the Babe personifies a person in tune with the purpose of civilization. According to prophecy, this personification of progress will incite a great civilization. The ancient Roman poet Ovid helped to cultivate this myth.
“Even now I know it is decreed by Fate that our posterity, born far from Troy, will build a city greater than exists, or ever will exist, or ever has been seen in former times.” (Metamorphoses 15.447)
Ovid is talking about Rome. When the Roman Empire was going through a period of decline, Augustine replanted the civilization myth in the book The City of God, and the Roman Catholic Church became the new Rome.
“Incomparably more glorious than Rome is that heavenly city in which for victory you have truth; for dignity, holiness; for peace, felicity; for life, eternity.” (City of God bk 2 Ch 29)
In modern times, the civilization myth began again when Hitler wanted to be the chosen one who was destined to start a Reich. In reality, the world has no inherent purpose, and the universe was never created from a supernatural essence. Hitler’s sense of mystical destiny never happened; the Reich lost the war.
After the eternal kingdom fails, the Babe will take the cowardly way out by shooting itself in its bunker. Unfortunately, throughout history, the Babe is born again as civilizations have a habit of rebuilding themselves. Fortunately, the Babe will never be fully successful, as the false purpose of civilization cannot be achieved, and the utopia ends up a nightmare. Once the lie becomes known, One would learn that it must go back to what it was before One became the Babe, but One cannot go back if it destroyed the Grove while becoming the Babe.
The Babe rescues the creative mother from the material world, and the mother becomes the cup to pour the water of death when civilization uses the environment in unnatural ways. Southern Iraq was once a wet place (Al-Sheikhly, 2017). Civilization killed Tiamat and turned the Absu swamp into a desert. Although the drying in Africa and the Middle East could have been natural, the domestication of animals and their excessive consumption of vegetation also contributed to environmental damage (Wright, 2017). The oldest civilizations developed in lush, fertile areas that were later transformed into barren deserts. Iraq became the mother of modern civilization, and nations still fight over that piece of southern Iraq, where industry drains the Earth of its fossil deposits, turning the blood into smog and poisoning the rest of the planet. Look at what has happened in those scenes of the oil wells burning in the desert during the Gulf War. The area is rumored to have been the Garden of Eden.
Section 4: The Wealth of Nations
8
Perhaps you see an ugly factory, and you think the guy who runs the factory must be evil. The executives in charge are only part of the problem because the factory would not exist if other people did not use its services. People become part of the machine to reap its benefits, and their combined efforts keep the machine running. Even a person who sits at home and reads books is using the services of the factory. Do not build the creative mother. Get away from the books, go outside, and hang out with living people. Feel the Sun, feel the rain, and get to know the original mother.
In large cities, people often live in small apartments with limited physical freedom. To pay bills, people need to push themselves to work. Advanced civilizations cultivate trees in areas of managed forest, where workers are allowed to rest. These gardens appear natural, allowing people to feel a connection to Nature. The gardens, people, and trees all serve the city’s economy. Civilized gardens, such as Zen gardens, are too clean for me.
For thousands of years, significant changes occurred across Asia, Europe, and Africa. Cities, nations, and empires expanded. Armies grew larger and became better organized. Professional soldiers replaced tribal warriors.
“but the total of the whole land army was shown to be one million and seven hundred thousand.” (Herodotus 7.60.1)
Trade became more common as wealthy businesspeople would use the land for their perverted cravings (Esther 1). Slavery became common for large populations (Diamond, 1997 p. 279). Poverty became more widespread for families who once lived comfortably off the land. The new poor had to hustle in the cities. People specialized in doing particular jobs, forgetting how to live in small, independent communities. Eventually, more technological development occurred in response to more demand for improved products (Diamond, 1997 ch. 13). One event caused another event, each a part of a growing chain, leading to ecological disasters, starvation, overpopulation, and disease.
Then, around 666 BC, the pace of progress accelerated, and these changes motivated our ancestors to question the value of life. Within a few centuries, Pythagoras, Socrates, Confucius, Buddha, and Lao Tzu all spoke. I believe that the new accelerated pace of progress can be attributed to an event in a country called Lydia, where someone stamped a picture of a lion on a chunk of gold and silver.
“They were the first men whom we know who coined and used gold and silver currency; and they were the first to sell by retail.” (Herodotus 1.94.1)
This created a standardized unit used for purchasing goods. This planted the seed of business. Of course, our ancestors traded stuff long before money, but money lubricated the machine, allowing civilization to become faster, stronger, and bigger. Now, 2,600 years later, people have become tools whose purpose is to own more money, and the plague of businesses covering the Earth will keep growing as long as money exists.
We now live in a global economy governed by the principles of macroeconomics, where governments strive to stimulate economic growth while citizens spend their lives repaying growing debts. We can change the rules that hold the global economy together if we establish economic firewalls to prevent economic crises from dominating our lives. The right set of instructions will protect us, and considering an alternative to the global economy takes the first step in creating a firewall.
The world offers various services; some services give, while others take. If no one situation fits every person, people need a modifiable society where we choose services and set access privileges on what we let in or out. Our instincts will guide our choices as we build our collection of privileges. Imagine a cloud democracy with multiple opportunities from various sources. Start with a small seed pattern and let it grow by integrating more services. After discovering others with similar desires, imagine all the fun we will have sharing services with them. Eventually, you will discover the joy of sharing services with all of life. Eventually, you will share services with the whole Earth.
Civilization never learned how to share. It takes. These takers fail to realize people can follow their bliss and still give a little. A global civilization manipulates every aspect of our lives, and we might be stuck with it forever. Nations rise and fall, yet civilization can rebuild itself. Western Civilization might outlive us when artificial entities one day carry it beyond the solar system. Even if civilization never goes away, the situation will improve if our culture accepts people for who they are. A culture built on hatred for our feelings ultimately becomes hostile to people. Instead, accept the Animal inside us and let us accept the world the Animal needs.
Section 5: Reasonable Goals
10
Before we block out civilization, we need to consider how a world without civilization will not support the large population of today’s world. Technology has enabled a large population; however, improvements did not necessarily lead to overpopulation. Overpopulation might have been the result of bad management. Don’t assume that better healthcare and more food allowed the population to grow. This assumption is contradicted by United Nations research on population growth (Prospects, 2012). Western Europe boasts a wealth of healthcare, abundant food, and stable populations, whereas parts of Africa experience rapid population growth, often among the impoverished, who live unhealthy lives and face hunger. Disease, war, and famine do not reduce the population. Instead, poverty breeds overpopulation, according to the environmentalist Barry Commoner (Commoner, 1975). An enormous economic collapse in this century would create unstable societies, where misery would trigger the surviving people to reproduce quickly, and massive overpopulation would cover the Earth with slums.
To eliminate civilization, we need to find a better way than economic failure. Establishing healthy, happy communities would stabilize population growth. As populations move to the cities, the rural areas will become less populated. Then, if future cultural improvements lead city dwellers to have fewer children, the cities will fade away on their own in a few centuries. Hopefully, some people will develop more permanent communities in the countryside.
The environmentalist Barry Commoner blamed capitalism for the world’s ecological problems (Butler, 2012). Such writers created the impression that Nature lovers need to be Socialists. Such a view is wrong because Nature lovers come from all parts of society, even capitalists and even conservative Republicans. The Republican President Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency (Plan 3, 1970). Meanwhile, industrialized Socialist countries also damage their ecosystem. The environmental damage to the Aral Sea was a result of Socialist programs (Whish-Wilson, 2002). All civilizations commit sins against Nature, and any political organization becomes a biohazard if it has too much industry.
Traditional Marxists were not environmentalists. Mao did not want harmony with nature and acted like nature was an enemy that needed to be conquered. The left only recently started pretending to care about the environment. So now, ecological groups have adopted tactics used by political revolutionary groups. These include annoying people with protests, engaging in destructive stunts, spending a significant amount of money on advertising, portraying themselves as advocates of compassion, and implying that anyone who disagrees with them is evil. These activities accomplish very little other than attract attention.
Do not let extremists take control of your organization because having too many speakers who support only one side will harm your efforts when they start to exclude potential allies. One person wants to protect the forest to preserve it for future generations, and another sees the forest as having its own inherent value. Since both people want to protect the forest, both could work together and ignore minor philosophical differences. The fanatical, puritanical, and righteous cannot ignore minor differences, wasting time arguing over political details. We need calm, practical people to bring common sense back to the group. Practical people will walk away from groups that spend all their time bickering.
Real improvements, such as cleaner cars, are being made by selfish capitalists. So, if you want to protect the environment, you need to be able to work with capitalists. The real protectors of the environment are rational people who know how to complete paperwork. They wear suits and have law degrees and business diplomas. Businessmen negotiate and sometimes get stuff done. I have never seen a Marxist negotiate. They have psychological meltdowns when they do not get everything. This behavior can be used to manipulate people, but it ultimately yields no positive results. Capitalism is successful.
Treating the land as a resource has led to the destruction of many natural ecosystems; however, some owners invest in maintaining their land. People might be more inclined to protect the environment if they feel a sense of ownership over it. Perhaps we can make capitalism compatible with Nature, and businesses will work with the environment (Reinhardt, 1999).
“Stable prosperity can be achieved throughout the world provided the environment is nurtured and safeguarded.” (Thatcher, 1988)
People could develop an appreciation of the land that goes beyond politics, but we live in a culture far from such a level of understanding. Someone smarter than me will need to invent a reliable form of ecocapitalism.
Meanwhile, leftist politicians use environmentalism as a dumping ground for all kinds of political ambitions. For example, Alexandrea Cortez loaded the Green New Deal with Socialist plans for job creation, economic growth, and reducing economic inequity (Cortez, 2019). Politicians tend to make high estimates for benefits and low estimates for costs. When a project goes over budget, politicians hide their incompetence by using phrases such as climate change, carbon footprint, and greenhouse gases. We should simply call it pollution, as ‘pollution’ is a less deceptive term. Practical people do not need big words when they work out the small details. People who understand what has worked in the past will develop a pollution program that works with the existing economy.
Perhaps, to save the world, all we need is a good cleaning crew. To clean up our mess, we need people who know how to use a mop and bucket. You might say that a mop and bucket do not deal with the complexities of industrial emissions on the biosphere. Do you have a better solution? Or will you support politicians who keep throwing billions of dollars at agendas, fancy words, and big deals? The last time I looked at an international conference on the environment, there was no concern about the environment. Instead, billions of dollars were thrown on the table, and the international politicians grabbed the money while screaming mine, mine, mine.
I joined Greenpeace, which would send politicians letters about the dangers of nuclear power. The old nuclear reactors were extremely dangerous. I left Greenpeace after learning that new nuclear reactors are safer (Goldstein, 2019). Many environmentalists argue that we should utilize solar and wind energy to generate power. However, solar and wind plants require maintenance, which can use more resources than they produce. We will not be able to stop industrial development in Asia and South America. Pollution will increase if fossil fuels continue to power modern societies. Nuclear power may be the only viable option to reduce pollution for now.
We now live in a global economy where if one country reduces its production to mitigate pollution, another country is likely to increase its production, thereby increasing overall pollution. So, in other words, closing factories for American workers means that China will make its slaves work harder. The environment is not being helped when all we do is move the problem. Ultimately, the world needs to reduce its reliance on industry and strive for a greener world; however, we are not yet at that stage. The real change will occur when people perceive themselves as part of nature, a process that will be gradual and may take centuries. I do not believe that this change will be brought about by governments or institutions. I do not think this change will be brought about by activists or educators. It will happen when regular people discover Nature for themselves.
Section 6: The Monster
(Speculation) 8
People tend to imagine Nature as thinking like a person. Nature is an extremely selective person. A forest can produce billions of seeds, but only a few will ever grow to become trees. You might think that such odds are evidence that nature is cruel. If you are reading this, you are one of the seeds that managed to grow. You beat the odds. Enjoy the privilege.
People can want something, even when it will hurt. These conflicts make life interesting. The image we try to portray for others differs from the picture we portray for ourselves. It helps to ask others for advice, as anyone trying to figure this out alone will likely get lost. Sometimes, others see us better than we see ourselves. The longer someone spends alone, the more they believe their lies and become confident in their opinion. This arrogance makes others want to avoid you. You will remain trapped forever inside a deteriorating, lonely mind. A social creature needs others for a happy, healthy life. However, beware of others who might encourage you to live a lie.
Instead of letting political propaganda tell us right or wrong, we should discover the right way to live by finding our place in the song of the universe. Each of us has a place in the world. You only worship Nature if you worship yourself, and you cannot worship yourself unless you worship Nature. Both live connected in one temple. Therefore, how we treat Nature equals how we treat ourselves.
You do not need to adopt an uncomfortable lifestyle to appreciate the wilderness. No one fits the extreme, and life never needs to become an endurance test for the individual, so no one has to live the way the Unabomber lived. Live any way your Beast wants, then encourage others to do the same. You don’t do any good by running off into the woods to die. Since ignorance causes problems in civilization, we need to talk about what it means to live as earthlings, and anyone can contribute a small proportion to this conversation. The Internet offers a valuable means of disseminating information.
Remember to protect your Sacred Grove. You own your body and have the right to choose the setting in your personal firewall. Beware of anyone who says choices do not exist. No one knows if the right choices exist or not unless they try. Then you will know if I lead you down the wrong path.
I do not want to be a new mother. Our Nature must experience the environment to know which way to choose, and we only get the right experience from the old mother. Go out of your house, take a look around, and learn. Look at how life is part of you, and then imagine how you live as part of it. Then, decide if you want to protect this life or not. When people protect Nature, they protect part of themselves. Understanding nature by protecting the natural part of yourself, letting yourself grow, and trusting Nature will lead us to a healthier way of life.
The path people take becomes the world we make, for what we do becomes where we are. The connection goes deeper as each of us needs the Earth. You hurt yourself if you hurt the Earth. Therefore, find your future in the Earth’s future and your Nature in the Earth’s Nature. An even deeper secret says the Earth needs us. Even if the Earth had no conscious desire, losing one of its parts hurts us, and people are the part of the Earth that feels the loss.
So, who is this monster the rationalists fear? The monster says rationalism is unnecessary. I like the monster. We can live without a book to guide us, without a belief in an afterlife, without a sky daddy to rule over us, without police or judges, without kings or presidents, without artificial salvation. People do not need faith or artificial laws, and no one has ever required an Ayatollah, Bishop, Rabbi, Guru, or Lama. These guides are avatars of Apollo, and since elitists do not know what’s right for you, Apollo is the most unnecessary of all the gods.
Next Page Chapter 7
A few mythological names
| Nord | Rome | Greece | Iraq | Egypt | India | Yoruba | ||
| 1 | AIN | Earendel | Lucifer | Phanes | Nusku | Shu | Bodhi | Ori |
| 2 | ANU | Ymir | Caelus | Uranus | Anu | Anubis | Varuna | Orunmila |
| 3 | YEUO | Loki | Saturn | Cronus | Ea | Ptah | Brahma | Oldumare |
| 4 | JOVE | Thor | Jupiter | Zeus | Hadad | Set | Indra | Chango |
| 4 | EVO | Freyr | Bacchus | Dionysus | Tammuz | Osiris | Shiva | Oko |
| 5 | YESUO | Tyr | Mars | Ares | Nergal | Anhur | Skanda | Ogun |
| 6 | OM | Balder | Apollo | Apollo | Assur | Horus | Vishnu | Obatala |
| 6 | OSHA | Sunna | Sol | Helios | Shamash | Ra | Surya | Oorun |
| 7 | MAYA | Frigg | Venus | Aphrodite | Ishtar | Hathor | Lakshmi | Oshuna |
| 8 | ESHU | Odin | Mercury | Hermes | Nabu | Thoth | Budha | Eshu |
| 9 | NEM | Mani | Diana | Artemis | Sin | Bast | Soma | Yemoja |
| 10 | GAIA | Jord | Tellus | Gaea | Ki | Isis | Prithvi | Odudua |
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