To me, the current state of our world provokes confusion. On the one hand, my network of friends and family is so beautiful and loving. Yet, on the other hand, when I dare to turn on the news, the picture looks gray to black. Where are we? Where is our path leading us?
Difficult questions. I can’t say I know the answers for sure, but I like my best guess, and so I will share it. I believe we’re in collapse. The powers that control most daily operations around the world- those with money, mostly corporate, which puppeteer governments- are like sixth grade boys who are seven feet tall: they’re awkward, clumsy, overflowing with testosterone, and they’re not so wise. To clarify, they are smart, but a gulley the size of Texas separates money smarts from true wisdom. We all know these things. We feel less empowered by the day. We ask bills and schedules and manicures and shopping to drown the white noise of frustration, yet, deep down, most of us feel like drones.
However, I have no desire to dwell on the negative. Here’s the positive: collapse might just be our best possibility. Creation buds in the wake of destruction; chaos causes the pendulum to swing towards order. The corporate beasts have fattened themselves (yes, “themselves”: corporations are, after all, persons, as defined by law) to the breaking point; they need cranes to get out of bed these days. Soon, our bills and coins will block their arteries and stop their hearts.
We, the hosts to these obese parasites, are waking up. We are starting to see that the beasts have spun out of control. We are in the midst of a quickening, a storm that’s swirling into a funnel cloud. Soon, a tornado’s going to take the system down.
Right now, we are giving up our privacy at no charge. We are signing up for corporations to examine our very most intimate details on social networking sites, which only provides more calories for the overstuffed turkeys. Why are we surrendering our secrets voluntarily? By revealing our favorite movies, books, colors, political affiliations, and every other demographic detail that makes up our personas, we are handing full control to marketing experts. We are giving it up to the swindlers for free. Even profiles on social networking sites that are mostly set to “privacy” options reveal an amazing amount of detail when one does a simple “google” search. Our computers know our precise longitude and latitude, the time of day, and every website we’ve visited over the course of our relationships with our beloved computers. Why aren’t we suspicious? Why do we participate?
I believe a top reason why we willingly surrender power for the facebook fix is we feel disconnected. Until we sit down in front of our computers, we feel impotent and alone. We no longer know our neighbors’ names. We hear robotic voices asking for touchtone numbers when we try to communicate with the powers that exert control over our lives, like banks and the IRS. We can’t let our kids play outside the boundaries that demarcate our yards because who knows what might lurk outside the lines.
We don’t belong to communities. We are divorced from our locales, and so we reach out to anyone we can. Online, we message people from South Africa, Qatar, New Zealand, and Tibet because we are desperate for some sort of connection. We are meant for communal bonds, yet we have lost our tribes.
Disconnection is the theme that runs through so many of our sad stories. The “owners” of corporations- the shareholders who invest the cash- often have no idea they even own the corporations. Stockbrokers invest clients’ money in diverse portfolios, and it’s tough for shareholders to keep track of the odd-looking numbers and letters that represent one’s holdings. Therefore, said owners have no real interest in keeping the corporations honest or ethical. It’s all about return-on-investment. Where is the moral responsibility with this kind of system? There is none. Owners-the sellers- are disconnected from buyers.
Also, because the people who build and sell practically everything we buy live far, far away, they never have the chance to look us in the eyes. Who buys the products? Do they get sick from the oddly unnatural genetically modified genes we’ve spliced into this half tomato- half salmon product? We see no problems…
We get sick, and we have no friends or family nearby who can take care of us. Therefore, we are forced to rely on broken health care systems. We lose a job or the house burns, and yet again, we must rely on some unseen government power far, far away to take care of us. We have lost our tribes, and it’s a problem. We’ve lost our power. We are disconnected.
With the collapsing of our current system, however, we have the opportunity to reconnect. We have the opportunity to recognize we are more powerful as teams than as individuals.
As the system that relies on money and power sinks, we have the opportunity to rise up with friends, family, and spirit. I think we’ve learned some wonderful lessons about self-expression and embodying individuality over the last fifty-or-so-odd years. Now, I think it’s time to come together as unique, self-realized beings who support each other physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. It’s time to form powerful local tribes.
I believe modern tribalism should allow for respect of individual personalities while working for the common needs of small communities. I don’t necessarily think we need to give up global communications because there’s so much we can learn from people who are progressing in different parts of the world, but I do think we need to fight for more privacy. We have microchips in our passports, for crying out loud. Where’s the uproar? I want to throw my passport into the ocean…but I don’t know if I can swim all the way back home.
To recap, I believe we need to reconnect on local levels and disconnect- to a limited extent- on the global level. We need to spend more time at neighborhood ice cream socials and weenie roasts and hayrides and potlucks. We need to look each other in the eyes and memorize names. We need to offer to babysit our neighbors’ kids and help them with funeral arrangements when parents die. We need to rebraid the bonds of community.
On a tangible plane, building community means buying or trading with local vendors. When a system is more localized, bartering and trading become real possibilities. A handful of spinach for your bunch of carrots? No problem, bring them by my house later. Also, buying local offers the opportunity for sellers to directly connect with consumers, requiring them to accept moral responsibility for the products they sell. Quality control becomes a personal rather than a legal issue. Finally, the amount of oil and gas needed for transportation is significantly decreased for local transactions versus global transactions. Reducing demand for oil and gas not only frees us from dependence on the supplies of foreign nations but also frees us from dependency on dwindling, unsustainable resources.
Neo-tribalism is philosophically similar to the tenets I’m putting forth, but neo-tribalism may be more tightly defined. Honestly, I probably fit the neo-tribalist descriptors pretty well, but I’m still exploring and shaping my ideas. However, I encourage readers to explore neo-tribalism for inspiration: neotribalism
Let’s take the power back from the imaginary figures who live many moons away and place it in the hands of real people who might shelter us if our house burns, even if we don’t have insurance. Seriously, take a damn tray of brownies to your neighbor’s door this afternoon.
The creators of the film “The Green Beautiful” have envisioned a fabulous future. Please have a look:
The Green Beautiful, part 1
The Green Beautiful, part 2
The Green Beautiful, part 3
The Green Beautiful, part 4
The Green Beautiful, part 5
The Green Beautiful, part 6
The Green Beautiful, part 7
The Green Beautiful, part 8
The Green Beautiful, part 9
For more information about my book, please visit: The Apothecarys Song
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