If there wasn't, wouldn't I have asked that question? LOL
I am partial to the idea that what we call “the individual” is not a solitary node, but a temporary expression of the whole. As Rumi says, “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” I honor lived experience as part of that temporal separation in space and time, while recognizing our common origin and connectedness. Buddhism would call this a duality.
Technically we're all made from the DNA of our parents. And their parents were made from the DNA of their parents. Hmmm... Maybe "individuals" don't actually exist🤔
In addition to the richness of this piece, there's an aspect to add, which is the realization we got from Hubble that the universe is a dynamic, evolving, expanding single entity -- not a static, dead one, where it's logical that the Earth is a resource for us to use. The case to be made from that is that we’re not rugged individualists but are one humanity. Brian Swimme, the charismatic storyteller to tune you into this, says the scientific position now, when it gets interpreted as to its meaning and significance, will institute a bigger change in humanity’s consciousness than Copernicus contributed. As we understand the cosmos differently, we understand ourselves differently. Before Hubble, we thought we were the only galaxy, and we know now that there are 2 trillion. The story we subscribe to, essentially being sinners, has not been rewritten since that discovery. You don’t need to be spiritual for this, just scientific. But the beauty of that is that when you delve into the science, you find the spirit. See my Swimme Substack playlist for more: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/s/brian-thomas-swimme
For some amusement, I have a personal tale. Being an actress, I made many commercials when the audition process was with live advertisers and not, as today, sending video submissions. You’d walk into a room and all the attention of a bank of people was on your performance, where you could turn on your charm in engaging with them. There was one audition where all the advertisers were talking among themselves and barely paying attention, and when I left the room I complained to the casting director about how rough that was. Her dismissive rationalization was, “You all are under the same disadvantage.”
What the fuck does "primitive" even mean? I loathe "modern" life. Cars are a nightmare. Stores are abhorrent. We've destroyed our only environment and for what? Development and progress are four letter words🤮
Essentially, within the weaponized vernacular of the promoters of "Civilization" ( for more info on that term: https://youtu.be/fYVBjgHRmus?si=NFOLiRODTqRH4PLa ) the term "primitive" is used as a dehumanizing and othering label designed to designate a group of people deemed as "Untermensch" by the dominant group within a given empire.
Many people with European genetic lineage have come to think of the weaponized terms like "primitive" and "savage" as being reserved for humans with higher melanin content in their skin living close to the Earth (and far away from cities) but in truth, each and everyone of us (regardless of skin color and geographic ancestral origins) have indigenous ancestors that were, at one time or another, deemed as "primitive", "savages" and/or "heathens" by imperialistic civilizations.
I outlined some of the aspects of how that truth applies to the Gael of the land now known as "Ireland" in this post:
Humans are one species. We're great apes. If it weren't for human/white supremacist, capitalist, imperialism, we could be living like our cousins, the orangutans and gorillas🦍 🦧 🌴 No nation states. No rents/mortgages. No electric bill. No masters. Just paradise 🌳🕊🐪🦭🍄🌷
There is a middle ground between civilization (a system that destroys forests and nature to make way for cities) and living just like primates with no shelters or beds to sleep in. We are capable of building homes with regeneratively grown materials and generating energy off grid to some extent. One does not need to go full luddite to boycott civilization, statism, capitalism and human idiocy. It can be done so that one is respecting nature while also having a comfortable and humble dwelling to live in.
So, if you think that living with orangutans and gorillas is paradise and freedom, and any manmade dwelling is "unsustainable" why are you not leading by example? This makes me think of when people say they advocate for involuntary depopulation of humans (as they see humanity as a "cancer" on the Earth). The very fact that those people are still typing to me on their computer, as opposed to becoming part of the Malthusian "solution" they espouse and signing up for MAID or jumping off a bridge shows me that they are either disingenuous or lack conviction.
Which is it with you? How do you reconcile the fact that you are in a manmade structure now, using electricity, typing on a computer, while advocating people should not be doing those things and instead living with primates in the jungle?
I simply stated the REALITY. Modern life is UNSUSTAINABLE. Which means NATURE CANNOT SUSTAIN US LIVING THIS WAY🤦♀️ You don't have to like that reality but you're going to be living it.
If I’m understanding the thread of thought here, she was talking about advanced civilization. She mentioned no nation states, rents, electric bills… in referencing primates. Not against villages, shelters, human-scale tools.
I have an addition to this, that goes back to the beginning. The bee, if given an early intellect to begin to acquire further knowledge, would it too start to doubt the hive and worry about its ‘own’ purpose? We are an opportunity of Universal awareness, manifest through intelligence. It took Nature 420 million years to achieve this goal. But like all things in life, the offspring with intellect may abort, be stillborn, die in its infancy. Our knowledge of awareness is still in a very juvenile state.
An interesting thought and great addition. In fact our evolutionary biology tends toward not questioning the group. This is why these myths so easily take hold with little questioning. Our ability to be destructive has outpaced our questioning abilities.
I agree we are in a state of duality btwn the individual and the collective. There is of course the underlying imprint of falsity on our general myth dynamic. Too many still form their collective response from myths that perpetuate from belief as opposed to fact (reality). The universe will repeat this experiment presumably in every of its 100’s of billions of galaxies. As a youth we were taught that only 1 in a million stars ‘birth’ planets. Now we understand there are likely more galaxies than we used to believe there were stars, and stars in such vast numbers, trillions in some galaxies, and that all stars in fact ‘birth’ planets. We do not know much about the totality of what we are experiencing, and our early myths based on nothing more than imagination, still predominate. Personally I hold that we are experiencing something that is part of an inconceivably vast Universal perpetuation, and try to base my actions on earths longevity. We have a very long way to go yet 😀🌀
I feel this so acutely on many levels: as an individual in Western “culture”, as a single-parent raising kids in need of a village, and as a soulpreneur trying to support myself.
I so appreciate this piece - and recognize I’m working to bring kinship into being on many levels in my life… but my immediate local “community” isn’t there yet so I am feeling the tension caused by “building the plane as I am flying it solo”.
_The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity_ by David Graeber and David Wengrow. The book introduces cultures, living and dead, that were structured to do what you describe in the article. It also directly attacks some of the myths of current Western culture. I think it's important to see that a different world as possible, and then it's been done before.
_Mutual Aid_ by Dean Spade. It's a how-to manual for organizing collective groups of autonomous people. I haven't gotten far into it yet, but it came highly recommended.
Valid, and really elaborate thesis! Thanks for the effort. Gentle provocation: what if there isn’t a separate individual AT ALL?
If there wasn't, wouldn't I have asked that question? LOL
I am partial to the idea that what we call “the individual” is not a solitary node, but a temporary expression of the whole. As Rumi says, “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” I honor lived experience as part of that temporal separation in space and time, while recognizing our common origin and connectedness. Buddhism would call this a duality.
Then it won’t come as a surprise that non-duality feels more apt over here!
Technically we're all made from the DNA of our parents. And their parents were made from the DNA of their parents. Hmmm... Maybe "individuals" don't actually exist🤔
In addition to the richness of this piece, there's an aspect to add, which is the realization we got from Hubble that the universe is a dynamic, evolving, expanding single entity -- not a static, dead one, where it's logical that the Earth is a resource for us to use. The case to be made from that is that we’re not rugged individualists but are one humanity. Brian Swimme, the charismatic storyteller to tune you into this, says the scientific position now, when it gets interpreted as to its meaning and significance, will institute a bigger change in humanity’s consciousness than Copernicus contributed. As we understand the cosmos differently, we understand ourselves differently. Before Hubble, we thought we were the only galaxy, and we know now that there are 2 trillion. The story we subscribe to, essentially being sinners, has not been rewritten since that discovery. You don’t need to be spiritual for this, just scientific. But the beauty of that is that when you delve into the science, you find the spirit. See my Swimme Substack playlist for more: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/s/brian-thomas-swimme
For some amusement, I have a personal tale. Being an actress, I made many commercials when the audition process was with live advertisers and not, as today, sending video submissions. You’d walk into a room and all the attention of a bank of people was on your performance, where you could turn on your charm in engaging with them. There was one audition where all the advertisers were talking among themselves and barely paying attention, and when I left the room I complained to the casting director about how rough that was. Her dismissive rationalization was, “You all are under the same disadvantage.”
What the fuck does "primitive" even mean? I loathe "modern" life. Cars are a nightmare. Stores are abhorrent. We've destroyed our only environment and for what? Development and progress are four letter words🤮
Re: "What the fuck does "primitive" even mean?"
Essentially, within the weaponized vernacular of the promoters of "Civilization" ( for more info on that term: https://youtu.be/fYVBjgHRmus?si=NFOLiRODTqRH4PLa ) the term "primitive" is used as a dehumanizing and othering label designed to designate a group of people deemed as "Untermensch" by the dominant group within a given empire.
Many people with European genetic lineage have come to think of the weaponized terms like "primitive" and "savage" as being reserved for humans with higher melanin content in their skin living close to the Earth (and far away from cities) but in truth, each and everyone of us (regardless of skin color and geographic ancestral origins) have indigenous ancestors that were, at one time or another, deemed as "primitive", "savages" and/or "heathens" by imperialistic civilizations.
I outlined some of the aspects of how that truth applies to the Gael of the land now known as "Ireland" in this post:
https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/decolonizing-st-patricks-day
Humans are one species. We're great apes. If it weren't for human/white supremacist, capitalist, imperialism, we could be living like our cousins, the orangutans and gorillas🦍 🦧 🌴 No nation states. No rents/mortgages. No electric bill. No masters. Just paradise 🌳🕊🐪🦭🍄🌷
There is a middle ground between civilization (a system that destroys forests and nature to make way for cities) and living just like primates with no shelters or beds to sleep in. We are capable of building homes with regeneratively grown materials and generating energy off grid to some extent. One does not need to go full luddite to boycott civilization, statism, capitalism and human idiocy. It can be done so that one is respecting nature while also having a comfortable and humble dwelling to live in.
No. "Modern" life is LITERALLY UNSUSTAINABLE. Therefore it will not be sustained. Always remember: Nature bats last.
So, if you think that living with orangutans and gorillas is paradise and freedom, and any manmade dwelling is "unsustainable" why are you not leading by example? This makes me think of when people say they advocate for involuntary depopulation of humans (as they see humanity as a "cancer" on the Earth). The very fact that those people are still typing to me on their computer, as opposed to becoming part of the Malthusian "solution" they espouse and signing up for MAID or jumping off a bridge shows me that they are either disingenuous or lack conviction.
Which is it with you? How do you reconcile the fact that you are in a manmade structure now, using electricity, typing on a computer, while advocating people should not be doing those things and instead living with primates in the jungle?
I simply stated the REALITY. Modern life is UNSUSTAINABLE. Which means NATURE CANNOT SUSTAIN US LIVING THIS WAY🤦♀️ You don't have to like that reality but you're going to be living it.
Nature bats last. I promise you Nature will win.
If I’m understanding the thread of thought here, she was talking about advanced civilization. She mentioned no nation states, rents, electric bills… in referencing primates. Not against villages, shelters, human-scale tools.
I have an addition to this, that goes back to the beginning. The bee, if given an early intellect to begin to acquire further knowledge, would it too start to doubt the hive and worry about its ‘own’ purpose? We are an opportunity of Universal awareness, manifest through intelligence. It took Nature 420 million years to achieve this goal. But like all things in life, the offspring with intellect may abort, be stillborn, die in its infancy. Our knowledge of awareness is still in a very juvenile state.
https://substack.com/@ianbrodiebrown/note/c-128241976?r=51zv6o&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
An interesting thought and great addition. In fact our evolutionary biology tends toward not questioning the group. This is why these myths so easily take hold with little questioning. Our ability to be destructive has outpaced our questioning abilities.
I agree we are in a state of duality btwn the individual and the collective. There is of course the underlying imprint of falsity on our general myth dynamic. Too many still form their collective response from myths that perpetuate from belief as opposed to fact (reality). The universe will repeat this experiment presumably in every of its 100’s of billions of galaxies. As a youth we were taught that only 1 in a million stars ‘birth’ planets. Now we understand there are likely more galaxies than we used to believe there were stars, and stars in such vast numbers, trillions in some galaxies, and that all stars in fact ‘birth’ planets. We do not know much about the totality of what we are experiencing, and our early myths based on nothing more than imagination, still predominate. Personally I hold that we are experiencing something that is part of an inconceivably vast Universal perpetuation, and try to base my actions on earths longevity. We have a very long way to go yet 😀🌀
ps. I realize that is slightly off topic, thanks for your continuing dialogue on substack, in pursuit of intellectual truth.
I feel this so acutely on many levels: as an individual in Western “culture”, as a single-parent raising kids in need of a village, and as a soulpreneur trying to support myself.
I so appreciate this piece - and recognize I’m working to bring kinship into being on many levels in my life… but my immediate local “community” isn’t there yet so I am feeling the tension caused by “building the plane as I am flying it solo”.
I would add to the reading list:
_The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity_ by David Graeber and David Wengrow. The book introduces cultures, living and dead, that were structured to do what you describe in the article. It also directly attacks some of the myths of current Western culture. I think it's important to see that a different world as possible, and then it's been done before.
_Mutual Aid_ by Dean Spade. It's a how-to manual for organizing collective groups of autonomous people. I haven't gotten far into it yet, but it came highly recommended.