Excerpt #27 from my book, Interconnected, Interrelated & Interdependent, Like It or Not:
THE REALITY BASE
The decisions we make have to be grounded in and conform to the reality in which we exist.
Otherwise, the quality of our lives will continue to erode, and our stay on this planet will be relatively brief.
For perspective, Earth has existed for 4.56 billion years.
Us, homo sapiens—modern humans?
We originated in southeast Africa about 300,000 years ago.
Most of our existence has been as Stone Age huntergatherers.
It was about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago with the domestication of plants and animals that our Agrarian Age began.
We have evolved from the Agrarian Age through the Industrial Age (beginning in the late 1700s) and our present Information and Communication Age (began about midtwentieth century) until now, but we have done enormous and unsustainable damage to the womb (Earth) out of which we were born.
If we do not change our ways, that womb will no longer give birth to nor support us.
Because of us, countless species have gone extinct and will continue to go extinct.
If we continue to abuse the web of life; nature—which could not care less about any particular life-form conforming to it—will eliminate us.
The behavior noted in the Reality Base For Decision-Making shown below, is aligned with the essence of the wisdom that has contributed to and formed the foundations of democracy.
Understand clearly that the crises we face today are of our own creation.
We are out of sync with that which stabilizes and sustains life.
Many, if not all, of our problems stem from the destructive side of our nature which specifically includes, among others, a pattern of: Self-centeredness, excessive consumption, and hyperpartisanship.
Through the understanding and application of the reality base below, we can achieve what is sought universally: freedom, peace, and security.
Freedom, peace, and security . . . and self-centeredness, excessive consumption, and hyperpartisanship… are mutually exclusive; they cannot co-exist.
To achieve the stability and quality of life which the majority of us seek requires an immediate new and different way, a paradigm shift.
Yes, immediate.
As many know, we are running out of time.
On top of the severe and complicated problems that need to be addressed immediately in a cooperative and constructive manner, our task is further complicated by the addition of more than 1,500,000 more humans every seven days.
As we are on a crash course with reality, characterized by conflict with ourselves, each other, and our environment, we must change; we must rise to a higher level, or our civilization is finished.
That’s not an overstatement.
Otherwise, self-deceived, we are merely rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic before the inevitable crash.
REALITY BASE FOR DECISION MAKING
REALITY: ONENESS — All that exists is an integral part of a larger whole.
BEHAVIOR: Respect — Respect the sanctity of each part as an integral aspect of the whole.
REALITY: DIVERSITY — The whole is comprised of an infinite number of diverse, dynamic, and essential parts.
BEHAVIOR: Acceptance — Acknowledge the dignity and importance of each diverse part.
REALITY: INTERCONNECTEDNESS — All parts are connected.
BEHAVIOR: Awareness — Be aware that all parts are connected.
REALITY: INTERRELATEDNESS — All parts are interrelated.
BEHAVIOR: Cooperation — Fully cooperate with all other parts.
REALITY: INDIVIDUALITY — All parts have a unique but relatively equal contribution.
BEHAVIOR: Equality — Recognize the equally important role of each part.
REALITY: INTERDEPENDENCE — All parts depend upon each other for their ultimate survival.
BEHAVIOR: Responsibility — Act responsibly toward ourselves, each other, and our environment.
While the realities in the Reality Base for Decision Making are undeniable, they have mostly been not understood, denied, ignored, are of no interest to most people mired in primitive, short-term, and counterproductive thinking.
Consequently, the behavior demanded by reality is not practiced to a degree sufficient enough to sustain humanity.
Instead of the peace and security that is sought, all over our planet, we witness and experience opposition, conflict, and strife up to and including wars.
We fight with each other every day, everywhere about everything imaginable.
Quite a spectacle, it’s the antithesis of that which results in stability and sustainability.
The most extreme manifestation of this is at global level where the amount of our resources and brain-power that we consume in order to create weapon systems to fight, or defend ourselves, is staggering.
Studies show that military expenditures distort and undermine the very basis of sustained economic and social development.
“This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, and the hopes of its children.” (Harold Willens)
It is ironic today that, with the enormous sums dedicated to “defense” there exist precious few beings who consider themselves safe.
Of course, all of this is considered very normal, unavoidable, and persists because that is who we are; that’s our primitive and brutal mentality.
That would be the argument of those who defend the status quo.
Warfare represents the total antithesis of that which is nurturing to each of us and our environment.
It is a course of action that rejects all that is required to sustain the reality in which we exist.
As a means of resolving disputes, it is archaic and foreboding. Its costs are both pernicious and parasitic to every aspect of the world in which we live.
It is the lowest level to which we allow ourselves to sink.
“War in our civilization is as good an example as you can take of the destructive lengths to which the developments of a culturally-selected trait may go. If we justify war, it is because people always justify the traits of which they find themselves possessed, not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits.” Ruth Benedict (Patterns of Culture)
A warfare mentality permeates our culture and civilization.
By evolving into a slightly less bloody and more civilized form of warfare, we find ourselves ensnared within a judicial system that is increasingly costly, wasteful, time-consuming, and inefficient.
Litigation is a less lethal form of warfare, but similar to it in that it stems from our inability far too often to interact amiably, honorably, and constructively.
Some argue that it is a necessary evil.
They are right.
Because litigation is both a response to and symptom of our primitive behavior.
Often, litigation is not about justice.
It’s about winning and financial awards.
It’s the same “maximize profits in the short-term” mentality that too many businesses utilize to justify damage they do to the web of life—the most precious and finite of all resources.
Like warfare, litigation’s pernicious and costly effects on our society are ones which we all suffer.
Until, and if, we rise to a higher level, these avoidable and costly fights—and so many others at every level—will continue until reality strikes back in unpredictable and unprecedented ways.
The ultimate objective of understanding the reality in which we exist, and the behavior required of it, is to bring us together in a cooperative venture for our mutual benefit to achieve stability, sustainability, advance our civilization, and to succeed as a species.
There is no “us” verses “them” as we are all on the same team; to repeat, there is no “them”. It’s just “us”.
Unfortunately, that’s not the track we are on.
Instead, too often, we find ourselves confronting one another in venues as disparate as courts of law and fields of battle, and just about everywhere else, every day, over everything andanything imaginable.
In the end, we all lose.
We are losing now as we have not even begun to tap into our potential.