Guest writer for Wake Up World
As Homo Sapiens, we are a not-so-funny funny species. Each of us are the sum total of our self-limiting belief systems, most of which are a result of our birthplace, culture, surroundings, exposure to other perspectives and thinking, and the limits of our individual and collective ability to hold more and more complex ideas.
Over the blink of an eye — an estimated 300,000 years of humanity’s brief existence on a 5-to-7 billion year old planet — there have only been six shifts in consciousness that have fully emerged: roughly, they are archaic, magic, egocentric, mythic-traditional, rational-scientific, and pluralistic. That’s it!
“Homo Sapiens” basically translates as “wise man”, which is apparently what happens when a so-called intelligent species gets to name themselves. Of course, we only have our own narcissistic example to draw that conclusion, because if there are indeed other, say, smart aliens, it appears they may be too intelligent to fully reveal themselves to us.
Smart move.
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The Evolution of Consciousness
During the last 12,000 years, humanity has moved from the archaic and tribal hunter-gatherer stages through the tribal, egocentric, and mythic stages and emerged into the industrial revolution of the past 200 years, which include both the rational-scientific stages of the “enlightenment”, and the pluralistic, or informational age.
And while we – humans, specifically Homo Sapiens – are said to have been around for these approximately 300,000 years, it has only taken a very, very short period of time – about 150 years – for us to pretty much manage to use up all of the resources of the planet.
These resources have been so depleted, in fact, that we have resorted to creating a “false” wealth that allows to us continue to extract the last remaining resources via an untenable and unsustainable economic system that any truly “rational” person who is not subsumed with greed can see cannot – and will not – continue. Meanwhile, we use the last remaining pockets of the precious water we need to sustain human life on the planet to help us extract those resources. Why? Obviously, because it’s more important for us to be able drive our machines, maintain our standard of living, and to keep on accumulating “wealth” than it is for us to survive.
Perhaps we have been mis-named. We could make a very compelling argument that we should have named ourselves “Homo Insania”, or the insane men. The Latin word Insania is defined as insanity, irrationality, madness and folly.
Hard to argue with that one.
The Collapse of Society
We all know the classic definition of insanity: It’s where someone keeps doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Civilization – and humanity – is a lot like that. Throughout mankind’s brief history we have seen this played out time and time again. Civilizations collapse. The Sumerians collapsed, Mesopotamia collapsed. The Ottoman Empire collapsed, as did the Byzantine/ Roman Empire. The Egyptians, the Maya, the Incas, the Minoans, Easter Island, England as Empire…. and now, even the US is bankrupt.
Next!
Only there may not be a “next.” Here we are today, having apparently learned nothing from all of these collapses, collapsing. Only this time is different. This time everything is collapsing. Yes, pretty much everything is collapsing (well, the new Corvette is pretty amazing, but it’s just a temporary toy and a brief insanity in an insane world). Almost without exception, every collapse of civilization has happened because we weren’t smart enough to pace our populations with the ability to carry them, and we spent and overspent our resources. Sound familiar? As a result, people starved, moved on, died, warred, and sometimes just disappeared, like the Atlanteans, the Clovis People, and the Chachapoya (Google ‘em). There are a lot more.
Yes, this time everything is collapsing: the super-headings consisting of the global economy, environment, and energy, and all of the sub-headings contained within. We can see them all (at least, we could if we weren’t in denial – we are – it’s one of the insanities).
And yet, there those among us who passionately believe that technology and brains will solve our problems and get us out of this mess (another insanity — hope without reality — and we’ve already seen what brains can do), forgetting that’s what got us here in the first place. So we keep on drilling, spending what we don’t have, poisoning what we do, printing promises we can’t keep, creating false prosperity that exists only for a select few, and thinking it’s all going to work out…. at least for us, the chosen few. The “others” are the ones who die. (Losers.)
And then one day, the planet, in its own conscious way, decides it’s had enough from the temporary parasites it’s been hosting for 300,000+ years, burps, and decides the failed experiment has gone on long enough, and takes a brief ten million year nap – a mere blip in planetary history – and waits for the next experiment to begin.
All with our help, of course!
Also by Gary Stamper:
- Empire Serves No One But Itself: It’s Time to Wake Up!
- The Great Disruption and the Transformation of Consciousness
- Masculinity and The End of Time
- The Lifting of The Veil
- Collapse as an Opportunity for Growth
- Creating The New Story: The Masculine And The Feminine
- Collapse and the Changing Face of Suicide
- Making Intolerance Intolerable – It’s Time for America to Face Its Shadow Around Racism
About the author:
Gary Stamper is the author of Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior. The creator of the Integral Warrior Men’s Process, he founded and manages Collapsing into Consciousness, a website and community forum for like-minded visionaries, problem solvers and early adapters, focused on creating real world solutions to the challenges of The Great Turning. Gary holds a Doctorate in Shamanic Psychospiritual Studies. He lives in North Carolina.
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