I am really seeing beyond the usefulness of completely rational viewpoints at the moment.
What we think of as rational thinking has got humanity so far, but there are so many problems that we face in the future that will need more than just a ‘business as usual’ approach. If we keep on the same course as we are travelling currently then things will change, for the worse. We have hit the limits of growth; resources that our current civilisation depends on are running out (like oil and drinking water). I think we have got to a point where we can’t think ourselves out of the problems we face.
What has been the ‘right thing’ for humanity to do over the past few thousand years (growth, technological advancement, scientific worldview) has now turned out to be the thing that will hold us back. We are slaves to forces bigger than ourselves (business, government) which are beyond the control of just one person, and have a momentum and inertia all of their own, and serve their own interests, not that of the collective people that make them up or the wider society in general. The ‘right thing’ now is to not continue on a crash course with inevitability, but to power down, re-invent ourselves and find other things to keep our monkey minds busy with instead of the systematic turning of petrol into people, resources into dollars and people into slaves.
We need to focus on new problems or perhaps no problems at all. The indigenous people of the world don’t see the world as a problem that needs to be fixed. The live in it, they work with it. They are not against it. They have a logic that is not our hierarchical, structures and modelled view of controllable pieces that we own.
The real truth arises. It does not have to justify itself. It does not have to be economically viable, or fit in with the latest trends, or be consistent with a pre-existing ideology. It just has to be. I feel a real need to break out of my rationalist thinking, which is based on dominator culture morals and value judgements, and to explore reality with an open mind and heart. The real truth is the right thing to do. It is what neo-pagans might call dancing with the goddess. It is what Buddhists might call appropriate action. It is knowledge and conversation of the holy guardian angel, and knowing your “true will”
It is the thought that arises from nowhere, without precedence or reason, to give you knowledge or change your course of action. The quiet voice in the back of your mind that always knows the right thing to do, no matter how hard the rational part of your brain tries to squirm around it and find the loopholes.
Its the voice that tells you that you are wasting your life with that job, that you are wasting a beautiful day staring at a screen rather than out enjoying life.
That’s the voice that humankind needs to listen to . To break the glamour’s of technology, domination, hierarchy and selfishness to realise that we are all in this together.