THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF

At this point, a peaceful nonviolent revolution is the only alternative to a violent one.

ALLVISIONN

It’s not an accident that those doing the most to harm the world are doing the most to protect themselves from the harm they are causing. From building massive nuclear fallout-resistant compounds to rocket ships to take them out of here, those whose idea of utopia is more more more are creating a dystopia for the rest of us called less less less.

It’s not that these guys aren’t brilliant, because many of them are. The problem is that their vision of the future has no soul. Their intellectual prowess is untempered by ethical consideration, as they shrug off criticism saying “Hey, it’s legal” as though the deregulation that makes it so had nothing to do with their campaign contributions. Many of them started out as cool guys, or so we thought, so enamored were we by their entrepreneurial genius. We certainly saw no reason to see them as baby monsters. At that time, I don’t even think they were.

But they became giants, and giantism is a disease. In the body, it’s a condition caused by an overproduction of human growth hormone. In an economy, that growth hormone is called unfettered, unregulated capitalism. The body suffers from it, and so does society.

When bonds are broken between head and heart; intellect and ethics; economic growth and appropriate regulations to protect the common good, malfunctions appear both personal and societal. Such disconnection is easy to register when on a human scale. Something horrible can happen, however, when it becomes so big that we can’t see it. Ironic, isn’t it? It’s not just that things can be too small to see. They can also be too big to see.

I was crossing a street with a lot of traffic earlier today. The traffic signals were working: but when a light turned green before someone had finished crossing the street, it still took a human being driving the car to make sure they held back until a pedestrian was safely on the sidewalk. And they did, of course. The situation was obvious to everyone. It was human scale. People driving cars could see the people crossing the street.

But when the drivers are represented by huge corporate interests untamed by ethical or governmental guardrails, they don’t see the pedestrian crossing the street. They only see the data. The metrics. The quarterly reports. That human being becomes a tiny dot on a much larger power point; someone whose desires, and relationships, and suffering are too easily deemed inconsequential in the boardroom. I remember a very powerful CEO once saying to me, “You’re right, Marianne! But if I was as careful as you would have me be, I would be fired in a minute because I wasn’t producing.”

Oh he was producing, all right. He was producing extraordinary pain among people with no power to fight back.

The situation is more than dysfunctional; it is malfunctional. At this point, from foreign wars to AI to environmental implosion, civilization is already buckling under the weight of our insanity. Make no mistake, the disconnection between head and heart is a form of insanity, leading us - should we not change direction - to species suicide. People sounding the alarm about AI are saying “It could destroy us!” Yet the larger conversation - one we’re far more resistant to having - is that we could destroy us! And we already are. Even if AI ultimately controls or even destroys us, who you do you think invented AI…?

Years ago I was reading a book about possible futures for the human race, and it was terrifying. A lot of it was quite far out there and I didn’t necessarily believe it, yet at the same time I thought to myself, “If even ten percent of this is true, then we’re doomed.” The book was very long, and by the end of it I was agitated and alarmed.

Then, on the next to the last page of the book, the author made some comment like, “If you’re afraid of all this, there is no need to worry. There is a solution Just turn the page….”

I did, my hands practically shaking, and on the last page was written a paragraph from my book A RETURN TO LOVE! It was attributed to Anonymous, although in this instance I was grateful for that. I was laughing and crying at the same time, as I thought, “Now I’m really scared!” Jesus, man! It’s just a paragraph!

But he was right. There is only one problem and there is only one solution. The problem is, in the words of Gandhi, that “humanity is not in its right mind.” The solution is an evolutionary leap from a consciousness of fear and greed and attack and separation, to a consciousness of love and collaboration and forgiveness and unity. Humanity now stands on the brink of an evolutionary cliff. We cannot keep walking. We must learn to fly. At this point, a peaceful, nonviolent revolution is the only alternative to a violent one.

So yes, let’s continue doing all we can on the level of the symptom…traditional politics and so forth. But expanding our hearts is as important as putting our feet on the ground; we must integrate the realms of both earth and sky. In the words of the Dalai Lama, “In order to save the world we need a plan. But no plan will work unless we meditate.” Advancing spiritually is no less important than advancing politically, and the fact that we regressed spiritually is why we regressed politically. An intersection between the two provides the power to change the world. We will not defeat, we will overcome. Like a pilot flying through turbulence who takes their plane to a higher altitude, we will do the same. That is our mission now. To grow our wings. To fly high. To rise above.

The meek shall inherit the earth because their strength will take the place over. The only question before us now is how much human and other species suffering has to occur before they do. The choice is urgent, and the choice is ours.