Hesitant rebellion

The planet is not yet a perfect place. Most of the present prickly problems are a result of the recent rapid rise of the hyperactive naked ape. But there are still 7 billion years before the planet is completely destroyed. Surely we can make the world a better place in that time frame!

Humanity has evolved biologically and culturally at an enormous rate in the last 200,000 years. Changes in body and brain have included a capacity for language. This has made it possible for at least some of us to think in increasingly complex ways.

For about 90% of our time on the planet we lived as hunters and gatherers in groups of about 50-100. Different groups constituted themselves differently and there was competition for limited resources. There was group selection and survival of the fittest. Within groups there would have been the concept of US facing up to THEM. There would have been conflict and tension within and between groups demanding that attention be given to status and hierarchy.

We are here in ever increasing numbers. This is a sign of success. But there are limits on the carrying capacity of the planet. Expectations for everyone to consume like a middle class American cannot be met. Humanity must downsize its expectations. It would be good to have fewer people consuming less.

Having fewer people should not be a problem.  In the developed countries family size is greatly reduced. If we can solve the poverty problem (children are your old age pension) the population problem will take care of its self. For example when I was an impressionable youth I committed to zero population growth and contraceptive devices. I am now an over sixty SINK (single income no kids) – and there are no regrets.

Reduced consumption may not be as tough a problem as it seems. The desire to consume is mind made. It can be unmade through mindfulness. Frivolous fads and fashions come to be viewed for what they are – implants of the advertising companies. “The noise which men call fame, the dross that men call gold.” Step back. Think about thinking. Notice what you are noticing. Frugality arrives by itself as if it is built into the genes.

We spent 200,000 years of cultural evolution living in small groups of hunters and gatherers. Particular behaviours came to be hard wired into our systems. We developed a stone age mind and most of it is still with us today. But, by taking thought, it is possible to nurture the useful stuff and to leave the less useful bits to wither away.

BUT – mind change is not as easy to do as to say. For example, I was born into the upper working class in the rural NE of Scotland in the middle of the 20th century. My default position was to view my elders and betters as the good and great. Those in local and national authority were to be respected and obeyed. This was classic stone age stuff – status and hierarchy.  But happenstances arranged an education and thus a passport to positions in far away corridors of power. I rubbed shoulders with the elders and betters in various cultures and saw that they were rarely good and great.

The mismatch between expectation and reality made me anxious. I was not ‘born to rule’ ie I had not been encultured by Eton and Oxford like a tortured toff. I was not conditioned to be an alpha male and leader. I was more comfortable in my early work years as a teacher and, later, in a support role, as an education advisor and, latterly, as a trainer of agents of change. I learned to think and feel in increasingly complex ways.

I am now retired on a pension with no wife, kids or mortgage. Renunciant frugaltity rules. Much time is spent subjectively investigating mindfulness. And I am a massively unread blogger.

Through being a better meditator, I become a better person - especially through links to other secular and spiritual agents of change. Then, in a small way, even though I still hesitate to rebel, the world will be a better place.