The human community has long known that there is not one but two choices involving the story (our worldview) that contains our beliefs, attitudes and values. The two narratives are radically different.
One choice is Simple Reality (Oneness) which declares that we create our own experience and it’s up to us if we want that to change. Self-reliance and responsibility for our behavior is a given in this choice. This choice promotes long-term sustainability of the Global Village.
A second choice is, sadly, the cause of much suffering due to our self-destructive behaviors which are literally foreshadowing the demise of our species. We have hundreds of examples we could relate but one you might not be aware of is in political and economic systems. “It seems clear that what we have come to think of as ‘late capitalism’–that is, not just the economic system, but all its attendant inequalities, indignities, opportunities and absurdities–has become hostile to reproduction. Around the world, economic, social and environmental conditions function as a diffuse, barely perceptible contraceptive.”[i] Yes, human fertility is steeply declining, and yes, it’s due to the story we are telling ourselves.
Another example of self-destructive behavior is occurring in the technology sector that we believe, paradoxically, is enhancing the quality of our lives. Sherry Turkle, one of our most insightful “big picture” analysts has been sounding a warning for some time. “In time she became persuaded that the image of two people sitting in a restaurant, each looking intently at an iPhone instead of talking to the other, is horrifying. Worse yet is when only one of them is glued to the phone and the other is staring into space. No matter what people tell themselves or each other, she now says, the one not on the phone feels discounted. Feeling discounted, Turkle sincerely believes, one develops defenses that tamper dangerously with the ability to see oneself in others: the essence of what it means to be a human among humans. Her mission became, and still is to sound a warning.”[ii]
There is a definite link between suffering, projection and the other. Understanding each of these from the perspective of Simple Reality is at the heart of identifying how we can transcend the source of our existential fear.
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Supplemental Reading: Suffering, The ABC’s of Simple Reality, Vol 2
#24 Discounted
[i] Sussman, Anne Louie. “The End of Babies.” The New York Times Sunday Review. November 17, 2019, p. 6.
[ii] Gornick, Vivian. “Once More, With Feeling.” The New York Times Book Review. April 4, 2021, p. 12
