A dying civilization?

Purpose and Commitment Through the Collapse of Civilization

                [thoughts from   ~burning woman~   by Sha’Tara]

 Are we living – forget living, just use the proper term: existing – in the throes of a dying global civilization?  Although many would refute this statement, citing a truck-load of data-based propaganda to the contrary, to me that’s a rhetorical question.  The answer is obvious.  It is, in short: yes. 

For someone like myself, independent of the need for a positive outcome to today’s social and environmental chaos (disaster, terror, horror, choose your own superlative to describe the final act), I find this an interesting time to be alive in.  Note, I’m not using the term “existing” here because I know that I am not just existing, not just a survivor, not just here awaiting the bang or the whimper of termination. I’m here to observe, to learn, to create “remembrances” that will become part of a kaleidoscope of past lives (and future lives) and associated remembrances. What I’m engaging here, now, today, is being added bit by bit to that conscious entity I call “me” which I’m developing.  Hence, I am by definition, alive.  This is way past Descartes’ claim, “I think, therefore I am” because “I am” only arrives at awareness of existence – it doesn’t say more than that. 

In fact there is a joke I just learned, concerning Descartes’ emphatic claim:  “Descartes walks into a bar and orders a drink.  When he finishes, the bartender asks, ‘would you like another?’ to which Descartes replies, ‘I think not’ … and he vanishes.”

 Let me say that I have no idea where this is going; where I am going, in terms of space or time (translating as some sort of “distance travelled” whatever travelling entails in my personal myths).  I have no idea what I am becoming.  All I know is that I have a direction, a sort of map I am following by engaging “Earth” in the here and now.  In other words, I have set for myself a definite, easily identifiable, not so easily accomplished, life’s purpose. 

 To be alive means to be ever changing, and that, by the power of one’s mind alone.  By choice.  One cannot be alive without having a definite, carefully enunciated purpose which, to have any meaning must translate day by day into engagement.  Yes, it is an engagement, one that once entered upon cannot be denounced. It is irrevocable; literally “’til death do us part.” Most people reading this will recognize that trigger word: engagement.  Most will have, at some point, exchanged rings, made vows, declared undying love for one another – yes we all know the routine and we all know how well that works.  I’m not talking about that sort of engagement.  This isn’t about love; it isn’t reciprocal: it’s about commitment which is allowed to take over one’s personality, one’s body, mind, everything.  There is no “life” outside of this commitment.  Everywhere one goes, whatever one engages in, including dreams, all of that committed life revolves, orbits, around this commitment. In a spatial sense, the commitment is the earth, the personality is the moon. Only if the earth ends can the moon be free to choose a new orbit. 

 It cannot be very pleasant these days to exist here without purpose; utterly dependent upon pronouncements by tricksters and well-meaning people, trying to sort through all the conflicting information.  How debilitating it must be to read about wars, civil wars, religious wars, genocides, refugees, pandemics, the certainty of a collapsing global economic system with nothing to replace it in time to prevent massive loss of life; the tragic “die back” of a civilization gone off the rails from the extreme sport called excess.  Excess in one area (called “affluentia” because it is in fact a disease) has created mountains of chaos, injustice and piled up thousands upon thousands of bodies of innocents; sacrificial pyres to the gods of greed and hedonism.    

 Surely, even amongst the most crass and ignorant resides some inkling of this gross moral pollution.  Surely, even among the most rabid, gun-toting survivalists there is a corner of the consciousness aware of the real condition of the world at this moment.  The very fact that they are in survival mode says they know.  It loudly proclaims they live in constant fear of “the starving, diseased masses” oozing out of their dying cities and attacking frontier-style fortified survivalist enclaves.  They know, and knowing, they choose to deal with their fear in the old pattern: kill and kill and kill until it’s safe once more to walk outside, plant seeds, grow food, hunt, whatever.  That’s the plan, and it is utterly laughable. 

 There will be no viable seeds, no viable soil, no viable air even.  Between the billions of rotting human and animal bodies on land and in the waters; remains of pesticides and herbicides and the ravages done by unchecked growth of mutated GMO plants and insects; whatever else will have crawled out of the Dr. Moreau type laboratories of Monsanto, Dow, BASF, university science labs, and Pentagon research, including all the other insane experiments done in Europe, the Middle East, Asia… there will be no viable space anywhere in which to re-establish the old ways.  When “this” goes, so do the old ways.  Old beliefs: of religion, of democracy, of economics, will be cursed.  Computerized technology will be blamed and destroyed.  Historical documents will also be destroyed so the past can be finally, and utterly be put to rest. 

 Then what?  Obviously by following the above we see some people surviving past the decline, fall and horrors attendant to this civilization.  We sense that “something” is going to happen.  But in this climate would we expect religious prophecies to be fulfilled?  No, that will not happen.  The “gods” of the old ways die with the old ways, just like the gods of Greece, Rome, the Celts and Germanic tribes died under the onslaught of the Christian God. 

 The page is turning; but it’s not a new chapter.  It’s the last page in the book.  A new book is about to be written.  It’s a new story.  None of the old ways will be featured in it; none of the old gods will be mentioned in it. Even the language used will be a new language, for a new race of humanity. 

 Are my claims true ?  How do I know?  How can I be sure?  It’s not that difficult.  It’s a matter of travelling, you see.  One day you think, I want to see beyond this reality.  Then you open your mind to the great winds that flow between universes; blowing through the nexus, pushing the unmade into the paths of the being ever-made and here you see that which underlies universal realities.  You see stories becoming monuments.  You see dreams gestated and birthed into new, ever-expanding life into the infinite.  Then you know and you can never be the same again.

Once more, I am going to describe the keys I used to escape the lies, the dread, the horrors, of the Matrix.  I can’t give you those keys since each one is made for a particular individual consciousness.  You have to find your own keys and you have to learn how to carry them, always hidden – or they will be taken from you – and how to recognize the locks that the keys fit.  There’ll be a lot of trial and error and lots of frustration.  My most common complaint at the start was, “This is BS.  These aren’t “keys” they’re just ideas, like millions of other ideas, and they have no power to change anything.  Waste of time. I could be involved in the real world, working for some reasonably reliable charitable organization, doing something real, something I could be proud of, something I could then talk about, write books about so others could be motivated to donate, or to join the effort.” 

On and on went the internal argument.  Then I used common sense: none of what I was going on about even makes a dent in changing the world: it’s at best lesser of evils, at worst, exacerbating the problem.  So I changed horses in mid-stream, even if they were facing in opposing directions.

 Keys: decide on a purpose to dedicate my life to: total commitment.  Then, humility, compassion, joy, sorrow, empathy, total detachment from any emotional cling-ons.  Then, self-empowerment – completely reliant on myself for all of my choices; willing to accept all consequences of involvement, taking full responsibility for what happens to me, in life and in death.  The whole package: engagement without reservations.  It doesn’t change the world, it changes me and how I view everything, but that's what makes all the difference.