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I shot a gun. And I liked it.

Written by Juliet Bennett
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The first shot blows me away. I focus my eyes, level the gun and POW! My arms jolt up. The bullet hits the paper target.

The second shot. Ok. I’m getting used to this. No idea where the bullet landed.

The third shot. Bulls eye! Well almost. It went somewhere in the circle, or so some dude tells me.

The fourth shot. Woooo. Feeling a bit dizzy. My eyes. Blink. Blink.

The fifth shot. I rest my arms. Blink…. Blink. Why won’t my eyes focus?

The sixth, seventh, eighth. I imagine the target is a person. I can’t help it. “Are you ok?” The dude asks. I pause. I can do this.

The ninth shot. A little better.

The tenth. One round of ammunition. I’m done.

Ok, so I get the power thing. Shooting a gun was fun. But the reality of guns isn’t. I don’t think the pleasure of guns is worth the pain. Why can’t everyone in the world just decide to destroy all their guns, all at once? Individuals probably would. It’s the big boys earning MONEY from the gun trade that won’t. Corporations have the power. Far more power than the gun I shot. Forget “rogue states”… war wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for these money-hungry corporate rogues who, because of the rules of the game, can’t even be tried for crime.

Do you know anyone in the arms trade? Maybe we can shame them into stopping it??? No money is worth the amount of lives guns take.

BTW the picture above was my 18th Austin Powers birthday party – no party will ever top that one.

Adventure, Peace, Random Life Stuff

A flea on a dog’s back

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Sometimes I feel like a flea on a dog’s back. The great-great-great grand daughter of a family who decided to no longer jump from dog to dog, but instead thought it a good idea to settle down on one animal forever.

My ancestor-fleas thought themselves so smart: finding ways to prevent their eggs from falling down onto the carpet, and discovering ways to protect themselves from flea collars and other flea-rid products. Now the members of our family live for months instead of weeks.

My flea-ancestors were  so “smart” that they create ways to harvest the dog’s blood – with some fleas doing the blood sucking for the “more important” fleas, who sit back and enjoy the ride.

Food was so plentiful we started to multiply. Now our family is in the billions.

But we are starting to realise something… Our dog is not well. His blood is starting to taste different. It’s starting to run out. The host of our last few thousand generations has become anaemic and debilitated. Our dog is dying. It will only be able to provide for us for a couple more generations of fleas, maybe less.

We need to find a new host. The only problem is that after so many generations on this one, living such an easy life, we have evolved to live on that dog and no other. Our eggs can no longer develop in carpet. We are stuck on our dying dog. We are doomed.

Riddle me this: How many humans on earth will it take to become the fleas that killed their dog?

…

Photo Credits:

Photographer: Brian Walker – www.lickthesun.com

Peace

Living too long and popping too many babies

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Today I’m doing a little report for my Dad’s business which is in the Aged Care sector. And I tell you what – I’m learning some VERY interesting (and frightening) facts along the way…

“Around two million Australians are aged 70 years or older. That’s 9 percent of our population. Four per cent of the population are over 80 years of age. The proportion of Australia’s population aged over 70 is expected to rise to 13 per cent by 2021 and to 20 percent (around 5.7 million people) by 2051.” (Australian Bureau of Statistics)

In other words:

In forty years, one-fifth of the Australian population are going to be over 70.

And the ageing population isn’t scary enough for you, put it in this context:

The world population that has gone from 900 MILLION to almost 7 BILLION – in just 200 years!!!

According to the US government census report the current populations of the US and the world are:

U.S. 308,530,840

World 6,797,902,065

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, on 22 January 2010 at 12:25:31 PM (Canberra time), the resident population of Australia is projected to be:

22,124,384

This projection is based on the estimated resident population at 30 June 2009 and assumes growth since then of:

  • one birth every 1 minute and 45 seconds,
  • one death every 3 minutes and 40 seconds,
  • a net gain of one international migrant every 1 minute and 51 seconds leading to
  • an overall total population increase of one person every 1 minute and 11 seconds.

    By the close of this century we could have reached a whopping 14 billion – well that’s the UN’s “high” estimate… (see graph above.)

    What I really don’t understand about the “medium” and “low” estimates is what they think will cause people to stop having babies.

    Sure in the rich west we are slowing down, discovering the joys of life without children…

    But what sign is there that the third world are going to stop popping out their five or six per woman?

    In a world where (as a by product of being integrated into an unjust system created by the West) their quality of life is getting worse – why would they suddenly give up their source of joy – their desire to have a big family?

    It’s not like they are going to be brought out of poverty any time soon seeing as (very unfortunately) our system is intentionally designed to keep them poor. Don’t believe me? Think that maybe the wealth will trickle down, bring them out of poverty and then they will stop having babies? Then consider the fact that under the current system, reducing poverty to a state where the poorest receive $3 per day, ‘an impossible 15 planets’ worth of biocapacity’ equivalent to our earth would be required. (says Andrew Simms, the policy director of the New Economics Foundation in London in New Scientist article ‘Trickle-Down Myth’ 18 Oct 2008 – p. 49)

    In other words ‘we will have made Earth uninhabitable long before poverty is eradicated.’

    Ok – this has led me far too far into distractionville and procrastinationville. I’m supposed to be doing the report for my Dad on Aged Care but have spend the last two hours thinking and writing about fleas… (see next entry)… Ok, now back to work Juliet – back to work NOW.


Peace,

We ALL live off a Narrative Of Peace

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Ok so I’m laying in the water enjoying an early morning swim at a nearby harbour-pool when all these thoughts stream into my mind. A sign that my mind has had enough vacation? I’m not sure.. Narratives of Peace is a topic I’m looking at doing a research project on in the second half of this year…

We ALL have a Narrative Of Peace (NOP) – that is, a story we tell ourselves will bring us toward a more peaceful place.

Even suicide bombers have one – acting with the conviction that their action will bring about eternal peace for themselves and their families, and bring about a world of greater peace for their descendants.

Religious narratives are quite obviously based on a NOP. If you do this… believe this… say this… then you will go to heaven and live in eternal peace.

In a capitalist world a majority look for the next purchase that they hope will bring them peace. Or maybe it’s a mortgage paid-off, moving to a bigger house, a better street, buying a boat, accumulating a certain digit on a bank statement. After this and this and this, then I’ll be happy, then I will be at peace.

Politics, ideologies, even the histories as told by the winners – are told in a narrative, one said to lead toward peace. Even our culturally defined pursuits of love and success – are narratives with at root a narrative of peace: a desire for happiness, harmony and completeness.

Evolution is a narrative, although the scientific one might not set its sights on peace. Is that the missing link? Over and above whatever other “missing links” exist… what meaning can be drawn from this 14 billion year process of evolution? What is it that we are evolving towards?

Which narratives are right, which are wrong? I guess that depends on the storyteller. It depends on the lens he or she sees the world through.

Is there a “grand narrative” of truth that transcends them all? If a grand narrative does exist we can be sure we will never know it, not in our present conscious anyway.

I understand where the postmodernists come from – the rejection of a grand-narrative, the rejection of absolute truth. I do see their point.

Today I was thinking about post modernism and the (very little) understanding I have of quantum physics… if all possibilities exist simultaneously until the observer observes one or the other, then surely we, as observers, are the creators of whatever individual truth we wish to create? Maybe postmodernists are right – it seems like at least on quantum levels no one truth exists until we select it.

Ok, crap. Now I think I’ve tied myself in a knot.

I do believe there is a grand narrative in the non-quantum dimension we find ourselves in. Sure I will never know for sure, maybe there are millions of grand narratives sitting, awaiting us to select one to observe. But I like to think there is one grand narrative that exists, one we can engage with and move closer to… and let me tell you why.

I suppose it is reasonable to say that some narratives that exist today are more true than others – depending on the sources of one’s data and the mental processes one engages in.

If we were able to look at our world through a lens that sat outside our universe, observing past, present and future all as one… I suppose it is reasonable to say that this non-earthly perspective or “Godly” perspective, we would be closer to the “truth” than any earthly lens we look through today.

If these to propositions are true then shouldn’t we be setting our sights on discovering this grand narrative, and drawing from it a narrative of peace? What would the world look like from the perspective of The Universe or even from a perspective outside our universe?

What is the point? How will it help us?

Ok. Consider the fact that fundamentalist religions are experiencing the most rapid growth they have ever experienced. Why??? I think it is because they offer a grand narrative. Granted they are a grand narratives based on words of historical men misinterpreted in our modernistic mentalities (mythos interpreted as logos, Jewish midrash as literal event, symbolic meanings stripped to create historical “truths” that our degenerating modern minds can understand)… but what they do offer the masses is something that evolution as it stands is often not presented to offer. Religions offer people a sense of wholeness: a sense of completeness; a sense of meaning; a purpose for one’s life.

Ok, now consider the “clash of civilisations” predicted to come from the clash of such fundamentalist movements. And the growing animosity between atheism and theism. Surely that is motivation to identify gaps and seek bridges?

Evolution as it stands, particularly since the dawn of post modernism, has failed to provide such a perspective. Where does my tiny individual consciousness fit into the big monstrous picture of an expanding universe? Evolution provided us a grand-narrative but somehow we abandoned it after WW2. We don’t need to look for a new ideology or new religion to replace it, we just need to take another look – reinterpret what it means to be a part of the grand evolutionary process.

If we little humans are but tiny pieces of a universal puzzle that continuously becomes more complicated as the space expands, what the heck can we do about it? Can we actually have a role to play?

Yes, I believe we can. I believe we do. The self-awareness of human consciousness is more advanced and complex than any other form of consciousness that we are aware of. And rather than running away from this gift we have to embrace it, figure out whatever the heck we are going to do with it in the millions of years to come.

As far as we know this awareness is new, extraordinarily new – given that our bodily shape has only been in this form for 700,000 years, and our minds have expanded exponentially faster through to the speed of change and information transmission we are witnessing today.

Recognising this gift. Living in awe of our awareness. And hopefully preventing it from imminent self-destruction has surely got to be a step in the pursuit of peace.

Have I lost you? I might even have lost myself in this one. Somewhere in my mind this makes sense but the rest of my mind hasn’t quite caught on. Maybe when these ideas are clearer in my own cognition I’ll be able to share this a little better than I’m doing today.

Peace, Truth, ,

DREAMS FOR A NEW DECADE

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Today is 010110. Another year gone by, we farewell another decade. As a society following a human-made calendar we have reached our century’s teenager years.

Time is ticking on, the completion of a rotation. I count my age, evaluate my place. I think about the future, scenarios I desire, those I hope to avoid. It’s a time to reflect. A time to resolve. A time to dream.

I ask myself where I see myself in ten years? Where will I be come 2020?

Will I be rich? Famous? Am I a writer? An academic? A teacher? A photographer? A student? A mother? A wife? Divorced? Unemployed? Am I satisfied? Am I happy???

Where to I want to be? What do I hope for? What do I dream will come of this decade?

I don’t care about marriage but I would like to be in-love: in a relationship that shares a love that grows stronger every day; a love that asks no questions and requires no promises. A love that is true in every way, one that in every moment we are not together because we have to be, but because every day we choose to be.

Children? They are a big responsibility to bring up properly, but the ultimate expression of creation is one worth it’s pain. To create a new life, to see two lives become three… something I’d like to do once, one day.

I don’t care if I have money. I don’t care about fame. I care about my health. I care fulfilling some kind of purpose, doing whatever it is I’ve been put on this planet to do.

I care about my family and friends, and about the state of our world.

I want to be satisfied with my life. And most of all I want to be happy, with happy people surrounding me.

Come 2020, the most important thing for me is that I am still wearing a smile. How can I best give myself a chance at making this so?

I have big dreams. I have lots of goals. Am I setting myself up for disappointment? What if my dreams are never fulfilled? Won’t I be unsatisfied if I don’t make it?

If happiness is based on meeting expectations, would it not be better to set easy goals, have low expectations so they can easily be met? But if I do this, I won’t get anywhere.

“It is better to shoot for the stars and miss

than aim at the gutter and hit it.”

Decisions gone wrong, opportunities denied, a life of regret. There are many sources of fear, sources of sadness, all of which can be avoided – it all depends on the perspective we take, it depends on the lens through which we see the world. Here’s my theory on the spiritual/quantum mechanical side of dreams, goals, plans, expectations and regret:

I think we should dream, plan and make goals, but hold those plans tentative. Even dreams are transient. Dream and strive for those dreams in the conscious you exist in today and if our consciousness evolves to dream new dreams, strive for those dreams in the same way. Give it our all but don’t try to achieve it in our own might. Let the greater energies behind life guide the way.

I seem to find the most happiness and satisfaction when my dreams are connected with the dreams of the greater good, and my timing connected to nature’s time. It is when I share my dreams with “God” and say to “Him”, “not my will, but Your will” and “in Your time, not mine” – it is then that my dreams seem to come true.

I don’t believe the “power of attraction” means we have the power to bring into our lives ANYTHING and everything we want. I think means we get what we wantif it is also what the universe wants. When analysed in a century’s time I think we would find that what the universe wants in fact what we want too. I don’t actually know much about the power of attraction past documentaries like The Secret, so this is more of a reflective observation of my experience of prayer, dreams and attraction... it seems to me that the power of attraction is not a one-way pull – it is a two-way process. Us attracting something from the universe, and the universe attracting something from us.

So I sit here evaluating my place – my little spec of awareness within an 14 billion-year expansion process,  inside a universe of incomprehensible distance, conscious of a shallow number of layers within a deep ocean of frequencies – I feel like I am one cells inside a body. I and you, and everything we can see, and everything we can’t see, all together comprising the body of the universe.

I’m not sure yet if we are cancerous cells, or if together we create a useful organ, maybe the universe’s heart or brain. What I do know for sure is that the six and a half billion of us, together, are a pretty powerful energy. We have the power to destroy the most creative expressions of the universe that we know exists. But also the power to continue this evolutionary expression in infinite new ways, exploring wider and deeper layers of existence.

I guess from the perspective of this body, of the universe’s totality, my wants, your wants, and the wants of the universe are in fact one and the same.

So how will I live my life in this new decade?

Like an actor in a movie I will play out my role, with a director who values his actor’s input. I understand that from where I am standing I cannot see how my scene fits into the final cut. So I must trust the director’s instruction, for he is the one stringing it together. If in 2020 I find myself with dreams fulfilled or with plans that have failed, if I am in-love or if I am alone, if I am a mother, a widow, rich, poor, famous, healthy, or even if I’m dead – whatever happens I trust will be for the greater good, for the benefit of the me inside The Universe, and for The Universe inside me.

…

A note about this photo, taken last NYE on the Bolivian Salt Lakes. This is the original, turned on it’s side:

DSC_0642colem

A friend who has studied Sacred Geometry saw the landscape and immediately identified Angel Wings in the clouds. I rotated it clockwise to check them out closer and on a whim made it black and white. I guess now it’s a bit like one of those pictures where you interpret it for yourself…

DSC_0642bwem

What do you see?

In closing, I wish you and your friends and family a very HAPPY NEW YEAR, and HAPPY NEW DECADE. May you DREAM, may you HEAR THE UNIVERSE, and may you FIND FULFILMENT BEYOND YOUR EXPECTATIONS.

And thank you for reading my blog – if you keep reading and I’ll keep writing. 🙂

With love,

Juliet xx

Peace, Truth, , ,

Helping “developing” nations

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Geez I have been bad at keeping my blog. I’ve had a lot on I suppose… what with uni essays, exams and my Opa slowly dying before my eyes 🙁 … So yeah, haven’t really been so inspired to write just for the pleasure of it. Also I’m soon going to upload some videos, so that will be fun. Anyway, so that I don’t go a whole week without a post I thought I’d share with you what I have learned this semester as I read, heard and wrote about my two subjects: the Politics of the World Economy, and Rethinking Poverty. These subjects, I discovered, are largely interconnected.

Poverty, I realise now, is the result of the world’s political economy. It sucks. It’s not fair. It’s a very exploitative system that is designed to take from the poor and give to the rich. Anyone living on more than $2 a day is considered middle class, so probably anyone who is living in Australia, with access to even the most conservative welfare payments, should consider themselves in the rich bracket. We have far more than we need, and we only have it because of so many people don’t. People in poor countries work 12 hour days picking coffee beans so that we can drink our coffee. Then we sell them back some instant Nescafe for 10 times what we pay for their rich delicious coffee beans.

And what I discovered is the worst thing about our system, as I think I may have raved on about in my last entry, is that the economic model our system is based on completely ignores where it gets its inputs from, and where the outputs go. An economist from the world bank wrote in New Scientist magazine that he drew a circle around the economy model and wrote the environment, inferring consideration must be given to the limited resources and limited ability of our planet to absorb our pollution and wastes, but they threw that diagram away as it was too hard for them to contemplate. And so we continue to live in our fool’s paradise, accepting the costs it brings to other’s lives, and the costs it will bring to our own lives in 20 years time, and the lives of our children and their children.

What I am posting below is were conclusions drawn from my last essay Rethinking Development: Seeking Sustainable Alternatives. I’ll post the essay after it is marked but in short the argument it made was that “Development” has largely failed because poverty is not a consequence of the system, it is designed into the system and its eradication, scholars say, has been permanently postponed. In frustration after I finished the essay I wrote this one-page summary of how I see those in the developed world who want to help people in the developing world, can best help. And it is not by giving them money…. but by learning from them. More than anything it is us in the developed world that have to “develop” our own humanity. Developing our own sense of true identity (not one based on ownership and consumption) – and from indigenous cultures like the Incan mother and daughter in the picture from Cusco above.

Ok, so this was my rant:

 

1. Stop exploiting them

Stop imposing our worldview on them, stop imposing structural adjustment programs on them, stop giving them aid they don’t need, help them recognise their own powers, reinvigorate their own cultures, replace our cash-crops with bio-diverse food produce, help them develop their own independent self-sustaining society, remove our barricades, leave them free to design and implement their own solutions and help them only when they ask for it.

2. Take a look at ourselves

Do not think for a minute that we are more advanced than they are. Take a look at our own primitive actions, our lack of cultural and spiritual awareness, the way we are destroying the planet for everyone. We are not the super heroes of this world. We couldn’t be further from it. We may have had good intentions, but they were misplaced. We must try to reverse the damages of colonialism. Where gold, land and other resources have been stolen from abroad, work to give it back as we can, at the very least cancel the debt we think they owe us. Share our knowledge (when they ask for it), share our technologies (when they are wanted), and share our resources until they have recovered from the damage we have caused.

3. Rediscover our true identity

We must work to revitalise our own cultural roots, identity does not come from ownership of goods, buying this or that gadget, car, designer clothing, or house is not going to make us sexy, loved, safe or happy. Nor will the forty years of forty hours of work per week in jobs we do not enjoy. We need to seek ideals that are not dictated to us by advertising. We need to seek the truth behind political ideologies and religions, and see how power has changed them into dogmas they are not. We must think critically, learn from other traditions, religions and cultures, and transcend our problems with creative solutions. Shame those who are rich – everyone knows their wealth, whether directly or indirectly, has come at the expense of others. We must crack down on tax havens, stop giving the banks more money, stop over-consumption and avoid the obesity it brings. Redistribute money to those that don’t have it so that they too can have food and shelter.  Share the work and share the income. Enjoy time for self-development, relationships, leisure and creativity. Decrease stress, decrease consumption, decrease wastes, decrease pollutions; allow resources time to replenish. Bring our children and grandchildren up in a world of peace and non-materialistic prosperity.

The first step is the CESSATION OF EXPLOITATION. A fairer world is a friendlier world. As poverty decreases, so will population, and so will security. There will be less need for weaponry and war, populations will stabilise or decrease, the world will be a safer and happier place.

Human beings created the system. Human beings maintain the system. Human brings can change the system. The power is in the hands individuals. Every individual.

Together let us work toward discovering life’s true potential.

…

Enough social movement self help benevolent hype for now… I promise that some more light-hearted fun stuff is going to pop up on my blog very soon 🙂

Peace

Internal battles of head and heart

Written by Juliet Bennett
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Sometimes the battles inside your body can provide many insights on the battles of the world. The last couple of weeks have been a struggle – a battle between my head and heart over what the two of them inside my body are going to do with this precious gift of life. In the midst of the battle I spiraled down, my mind clouding over with external events and voices sending it into confusion, depression and despair. My heart was speaking to me strongly but it is easy for the power of fear to overcome the power of faith. Faith has the power to trump yet the strength and courage to listen to your heart over your head cannot be underestimated. And even with the strength, doubts manage to creep back inside, tempting you again and again to choose the easy way out, the safest path, choose the most logical option – all of which are reasoned through the common thought structures of our society. What we so easily cease to realise is that outside the thought patterns of our Western-culture are new ways of thinking, new ways of listening, new ways of acting – new ways of living that prioritise one’s heart over one’s mind.

Similarly in the world today it is the battles between short-term interests lacking long-term visions that drives the heads of the world to a fear-driven system, ignoring and suppressing the call of the heart to care for our planet and for other people. Although without such a long-term vision we are condemning ourselves to a hellish future with insufficient water, food, energy, and the death of billions that will surround.

Where is the vision? These threats are imminent.

Governments are still patterning and planning using international relations theories based on defense and security. They aim to trade and enter relationships with other states in whichever way will increase their profits hence increase their weapons supply and increases their power as well as the well being of its citizens (or at least of the citizens in the groups that have the most bargaining power over them)… in sum, governments are still living in the past. Globalisation calls for global citizens. The well being of people in all countries now affects the well being of people in our own. We would be idiots to think populations can go into the billions in some countries and have a mere 20 or 30 million occupy others. All humans share a common fate. And at the moment, with all humans aspiring to lead consumption-driven lifestyles with cars and dishwashers, that fate is not looking so promising… if everyone lived like Americans and Australians we would need six planets. We have one.

Businesses are not yet investing money or time to reduce their carbon emissions. It all depends on Copenhagen’s decision (Climate Conference of world leaders from 6th till 18th of December) – clearly, unless governments place strict requirements and high taxes, no business will lead the change.

But will a tax and carbon restrictions be enough? Even if we decrease our emissions by our targets, will this prevent the planet from warming? Is a tax going to prevent billions of “poor” people from slowing adopting the frivolous lifestyle of the “rich”? No. And if it did, would that be at all fair? In the last 100 years the “rich” have be frivolous enough for everyone, ruining the planet and losing their sense of self in the process.

The mind of the world wants its cake and to eat it too. Only thing it hasn’t quite realised yet is that it’s already done it. The world has eaten its cake and is beginning to gnaw at its own limbs. It can not be denied or ignored that we are on a suicidal path. Really. I’m not exaggerating. I’m studying the scientific, economic, political and social literature on this stuff – this is the daunting and depressing truth. Something has to change. Now.

The heart of the world calls for a return to our collective purpose – placing people before profits, valuing relationships over money. But the economic system dictates profits as number one. You can’t blame businesses for their wastes – they are only fulfilling their programmed purpose – to earn profit for shareholders. Even if the individuals running the business want to put people first, if they want to keep their job and progress their career then they must put their shareholders needs first. And even if shareholders care more about people than profits, they invest their money in businesses to make more money so they can live without doing any real work. So… what is wrong here? Something is definitely wrong. Something needs to change. But what????? Somehow the rules of the game have to change. Is it unreasonable to request for Business Law to change from a Company’s responsibility being first to society and the environment over and above their commitment to profit for shareholders? Are any of you wonderfully smart lawyers reading this? If so please let me know your thoughts… how does one go about changing such a law?

It seems that these battles of the head and heart run deep through the centre of the universe, from inside each one of our bodies, to our world systems and beyond.

The watermelon picture I headed this post with was taken in Nasca, Peru. Mmmmm was that watermelon sweet! The Peruvian people seem to live a far simpler life than we do in Australia. And you wanna know something, it seemed to me that they are also far HAPPIER than people in Australia too. Why? Could it be that they are heart-driven people who prioritise their community, rather than us mind-driven people driven by individualistic pursuits of money? I don’t mean anything personal by this statement, it’s just my cynical observation of our Western worldview.

My heart won my most recent battle. My head feels light and free. I’m no longer depressed but have returned to my usual excitement about life. I know who I am, have a vision of where I am going and letting my heart and soul lead the way. I have let go of my coffee coping mechanism, I don’t feel like a beer at the end of the day, I’m eating healthy, teaching pilates again – spiraling upwards in positivity. Although the war is probably not yet over I hope that in the long run faith can overcome fear – both inside my body and in the body of the world. Fear produces fear and faith produces faith. Everything is a spiral. Do you think it is possible for the world to listen to its heart and spiral upward in faith?

Peace,

At the precipice…

Written by Juliet Bennett
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“Only on the brink of disaster do people find the will to change.” “Our sun was dying, we had to evolve.” “Nothing ever truly dies. Everything simply transforms.”

(I found these quotes in my diary. I think they are from The Day the Earth Stood Still.)

What will it take for us to change? Our future comes at a price – to human lifestyles and choices.

There are few planets hospitable to life. We are ridiculously lucky to be here. AND to be self-aware is a miracle to say the least. Are we going to throw all this away just so we can drive our cars, fly our planes, motor our boats and eat our copious amounts of food???

I’m not sure exactly what any solutions are. But they do start with us…

Last night at midnight I handed in the most difficult essay I’ve every written (thank god for email and midnight deadlines!) It is for a subject called Politics of World Economy, and I titled the essay “Addressing a Structural Violence in the International Political Economy”. I better wait till its marked till i post it, so today instead I decided to just post the reflections that follow on from it which, of course, I had to start from the biggest picture possible…

A macro perspective of our place in space and time reveals three things:

1. An awe of existence;

2. An awe of our place in the evolving creation of an increasingly complex universe;

3. An awe that humans are actually aware of #1&2.

A similar perspective draws one’s attention to the potential calamities resulting from:

4. Over-population, vast inequalities, abusive power structures, over-consumption, and habitat-destruction – effectively placing humanity on a path heading toward extinction;

5. Conflicts rising from with identity, religious, cultural and ideological battles that largely result from #4;

6. A lack of the macro perspective of #1-5, which may lead to an even earlier extinction than forcasted.

Analysis of the international political economy shows that:

7. Global capitalism places with power not in the hands of governments, but in the hands of those with capital; while those in debt (through mortgages, credit cards, or even paying rent on your apartment/house) are in effect their slaves;

8. Capitalism is based on market expansion ie increasing consumption – one thing our planet can no longer handle. Stop consuming = system failure.

9. Social and environmental responsibility is diffused throughout the system so that no individuals feel responsible for anything outside of economic profits and losses.

So who is going to make a change?

10. Governments are representatives of the people’s priorities- the stability of our bank accounts and property markets. Governments are often too short-sighted (and focused on the next election) to work toward any real long-term solutions.

11. A change of economic structure to one that does not prioritise capital accumulation regardless of the social and environmental destructive consequences – requires a change in values – the values of the people at the top, and the people on the ground.

12. Appealing to “enlightened self-interest” – with a widespread realisation that continuing on our current trajectory will, without a doubt, end with devastating calamity – seems to be the only way a change is possible.

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“At the precipice we change”… well guess what ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at the precipice… so we better frickin change!!! Two hundred years ago the world population was 900 million, now it is what like 6 billion!!! Capitalism and industrialisation has caused the humanity to increase by 600%. Insane! What are we? Some kind of virus rampantly spreading across earth’s surface, killing off everything in our path and murdering our host in the process? And kids are still popping out of mother’s bellies at continuing exponential proportions. If this is not the precipice I don’t know what is.

An opportunity stands before us, an opportunity to TRANSFORM. An opportunity to take our old ways of thinking and acting, and create new ones. To take a humanity trapped in a culture-ideology of consumerism ridden with identity battles over religion and politics, and to transform it into one that allows us to realise our intrinsic connection to all life and our planet, and allows us to pursue our individual and collective life purposes in the evolving creation of our increasingly complex universe.

Just like this little lady beetle we have arrived at the precipice and we have a choice: learn to fly, or die!!!

Adventure, Peace, Random Life Stuff,