As two young fish passed an older fish, the elder asked, “how’s
the water boys?”. The two youngsters look at each other and responded, “it's
fine!” and swim past. Moments later one
asked the other “What’s water?”
Most people swim in a world without seeing the truth regarding the reality around us that our bodies actually
inhabit. We wander around our home, streets,
offices, or parks with many thoughts in our head, but we rarely consider the
health of our immune system, our flawed global governance system, or nature’s life support systems that all life on this miracle planet depends on. This is an existential problem.
And in the growing chaos around us this reality perpetuates a loss of faith and trust in our political, religious, and scientific
institutions. And one another. We are blinded to the truth that the primary source of
most of our needless suffering, premature deaths, mass murders, and environmental destruction is our collective blindness - our collective mental illness.
This cognitive blindness to our collective truth on fuels the hyper polarization of beliefs (political, religious, and economic) that are eating away at our trust, health, freedoms and security. Neal
DeGrasse Tyson's observation offers a solution. He suggests
there are three types of truth.
Our first ‘truth’ is personal. Dictated by our religious beliefs or lack of. Almost everyone’s mind has a different perspective. Even within the same religion. Second is
our political truth, usually determined by others we love, our education, and/or our experiences. Last is objective truths. Self-evident truths we can argue about,
but reality is simply unaffected by argument or majority view.
Consider this objective truth. The three most complex and complicated
systems in our known universe are nature, the immune system of all higher life
forms now surviving, and the human mind.
It should be self-evident that the degree to which our metal concepts
harm nature or our own immune system, is the degree to which our health will be
harmed.
Rawle
Andrews Jr., Esq. Executive Director American Psychiatric Association
Foundation asserts "there can be no health without mental health."
Another objective truth. Everything is connected, interdependent, and vulnerable. And a universal approach is needed to ensure our balanced and sustainable order needed to ensure our existence.
In Samual P. Huntington's classic "The Clash of Civilizations and Remaking of World Order" the Harvard historian said future conflicts would be between religions and ideologies. He didn't anticipate the threat of pandemics or our wanton destruction of nature.
But nature has sustained our vital planetary life support systems
for millennia. And immune systems evolved
with it or perished. Our mind (within
our brain) evolved with an astounding capacity for solving problems related to
nature’s evolving challenges. This unique skill empowered humans to survive
and thrive within nature for hundreds of thousands of years.
Unfortunately, our mind is now failing us. Its original purpose was solving problems focused on survival and thriving. Eventually it has engineered astonishingly complex and complicated infrastructure systems and structures we now depend on. But our world is always changing. With technology changing exponentially and changing everything around us faster than are changing. But our governance systems and mental
constructs resist change. And failing to adapt
to these accelerating changes is suicide. Adaptations are urgently needed to make our lives safer, more mobile,
and more comfortable. Avoiding change will not end well.
We have prioritized wealth over health, instead of wealth for health. With health being our highest priority within our mind, body, spirit, family, community, environment, national, and governance system.
Unfortunately, the unprecedented wealth now generated - plus the old governance systems driving it - mixed with our unprecedented technological advances - have become the primary destructive forces on our home planet. Resource extraction, competitive nationalism, and advertised materialism are each unsustainable.
The good news is that humanity retains the
capacity to unite and flip this degradation of human and planetary health to
create heaven on earth. By simply using
that same wealth and advances in technologies to remedy the multitude of
globally interconnected and interdependent threats we face. Unfortunately, we remain wedded to our mental
barriers blocking this. Human invented concepts like national sovereignty,
peace through strength, and market forces will protect us.
But today’s growing chaos appears unstoppable. This is a sane evaluation given the multiple of unsustainable trends that most
of humanity believes is getting worse.
And properly anticipates getting worse, much worse, if it can even get better.
Recent research on brain size may explain our conundrum. Why don’t we unite
globally and change our thinking and behaviors - even in the face of such existential
threats. New studies document that our species brain
size has significantly shrunk over the last 300,000 years. And lost a golf ball size of brain matter over
the last 3000 to 5000 years.
Simply put - our mind’s unique problem-solving capacity that gifted us our current level of ‘civilization’ (and I use this word lightly) enabled us to better protect our family and favored tribes by relying on various ideological, political, religious, economic, and/or cultural systems. These enabled larger and larger populations to exist. But these group advantages also ran parallel with often fierce competition between them. Without effective restraints on economic systems, exponentially powerful resource extraction machines, and increasingly powerful weapon systems, modern progress for our species has no guarantee. Not unless our minds change, and we valued nature and the Golden Rule above our previous tribal ideas.
So now these very large and powerful groups (nations,
economies, and religions) defend these outdated mental constructs by relying on wars,
genocides, sanctions- which can be even more deadly, or diplomacy with cannot work without a system of global justice. It is suicide to rely on diplomacy for stability. This would be laughable if it were not so tragically deadly. Governments and groups continue to wage war,
genocide, invent new weapons, repress, torture, assassinate, or finance other violations
of fundamental human rights with the singular intent of protecting their own narrow
interests.
“The fact that millions of
people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that
they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact
that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make
these people sane.” - Erich Fromm, The
Sane Society
There should be no question that these powerful forces now
risk the survival and thriving of the human family. While ‘progress’ persists in bombing, farming,
and paving over nature -- with little regard for the inalienable rights every
human was born with -- things look hopeless. Yet without question, we assume
our modern governance systems can protect both our national sovereignty/security,
global security, personal health, and sustained prosperity. Unfortunately, both our national and international
systems are based on the delusion of independence -- that mental construct that exists nowhere in the known universe. A concept that endangers our freedom and/or our security.
In Thomas Paine’s Common Sense pamphlet, he summarized
that the only legitimate purpose of government is protecting human freedom and
security. I’ll believe he intended it to
be a sustainable government. Our
existing Constitution and UN charter are not sustainable. If you doubt this give a school grade to each
of the seven intentions listed in the preamble of the US Constitution. Or the overall intention of the United Nations. Then considering our world’s accelerating
domestic and globally connected polycrisis of political polarization, truth and
trust decay, unsustainable debt, environmental degradation, evolving pathogens,
unwinnable arms race, escalating refugee flows, and unstoppable WMD
proliferation.
Ignoring the source of these trends is an existential mental
health problem. It explains why we allow the laws created by
these flawed systems to persistently violate ‘the Laws of Nature and Nature’s
God”. What is so complicated about nurturing
nature and each other? There are truths
that we hold to be self-evident. Some
are listed in our Declaration of Independence which Abraham Lincoln called our
Apple of Gold”. Then compared it to our
Constitution which he called its “frame of Silver”.
Are the concepts of nationalism, political parties, splintered
religions, democracy, communism, and unregulated capitalism really worth dying for? And killing for? It seems only sane to put the protection of each other and our environment on this
miracle planet as our human family's highest priority.
“How much
longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?” ― Bertrand
Russell
Humanity needs a bridge to the future. Yes, bridges collapse. But dependable engineering systems and structures are based
on fundamental principles. And they only fail with a lack investment in planning,
maintenance, and accountability. Or resistance to re-engineering when reality changes.
Why do engineers swear an oath to protect public health and
safety, yet US elected officials swear an oath to protect the constitution" Or, why do armies
swear to protect a king, dictator, or religious majority?
When astronauts reach space within their perfectly engineered craft and see the earth from above, they usually experience what they call the “overview effect”. They clearly see our miracle planet we all inhabit and recognize the petty mental differences that too much of humanity lethally experiences.
There is a mental health term applicable to
our earthbound minds resistant to seeing this reality. It's called Anosognosia. We have this mental health problem and are logically saddened or depressed by diminishing
hope. Seeing the ‘overlook’ of reality could fill
us with inspiration and hope. We can resolve
our problems without mass murder or environmental mutilation if we remember
what Golda Meir said. “The only way
to eliminate war is to love our children more than we hate our enemies.”
This is a universal truth!
We must engrain in our brain that physical change is universal. Yet fundamental principles are reliable. Being blind to this fundamental truth is
suicide.
Rotary has thrived on its 4-way test. And serving others based on this fundamental truth,
will pass the other three tests.
It should be obvious that anyone
doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result – has a
mental health problem. ANOSOGNOSIA
It’s time we opened our minds and prioritized our actions starting with taking care of one another and taking care of nature by putting the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals at the top of every national,
religious, and economic agenda.
If we persist in resistance to changing our minds, ‘civilization’ as we now experience it is simply unsustainable.
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again." - Thomas Paine
“We are called to be the
architects of tomorrow. Not its
victims.” R. Buckminster Fuller
"Five percent of the people think; ten
percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would
rather die than think." Thomas
Edison
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