An internet question: Where can the human will be directed towards?
First you have to determine what your goal is. Is it for the betterment of humanity or for yourself?
If it’s for yourself, interests, intellect and ambition will be your guides in helping you accomplish things that will increase your status in the eyes of others in terms of likability or dominance over them.
In order to work towards caring more about humanity, you have to be called. You have to have asked the questions of: What are we doing here? What is life about?
When you look at the natural world you see balance and interconnections within the soil, vegetation and animals. You see interdependence. It’s a perfect system.
Humanity stands out as the rebel who has sought to tame and control nature and each other. Such is our arrogance and desire to have everything for ourselves. The harm we have caused along the way has filled many books and inspired many songs and movies.
But we haven’t learned from the past or from our mistakes because our desires stem from passions that hear no logic and we seek to fulfill them no matter who or what suffers. It’s part of who we are and the part that needs to change if we expect to have a good future as a species.
Because we are the apex predator, we think that we must constantly strive to accomplish great things. There is nothing wrong with success. We work hard to express our talent and intellect. Many great accomplishments have been cause for celebration. The problem is in harming others in order to get there. We keep forgetting that we are a part of a complex system with rigid rules of engagement. That there are consequences when we go against a system that thrives only when it is in balance.
We are upsetting the balance. The consequence is climate extremes, disease and civil unrest. Technology cannot change or solve the cause of the imbalance. The cause is our insatiable hunger for more. The earth has enough for all but it is the few that want it all for themselves.
Education is our only hope. We must stop competing and embrace cooperation. We must be inclusive instead of exclusive. We need to idealise the people who do the right thing and not those who seek fame and wealth. Those who care to be seen only wearing a certain brand or knowing certain people. We have to redefine the meaning of ‘cool’. I remember my son talking about a well liked guy at school who didn’t wear the latest fashion, yet he had a cool factor the wannabes did not. He wasn’t pretending to be someone he wasn’t.
Individual practice of not doing to others what we hate would literally change the world. We can each do our part to change how we interact with each other. We can choose to express a kind word instead of a criticism.
Achieving balance is a difficult thing. Try finding the center of a ruler [or any object] so that it doesn’t tip one way or the other. With minor adjustments it can be done, with great satisfaction.
Humanity is now at the tipping point. Our collective will needs to be directed towards survival. Our survival means acting on the interconnection and interdependence we share at a deep level we are not fully aware of.
Covid has shown us how we are globally connected but we are still unable to shed our desire/need to dominate each other, nationally and between countries. We are one human family, as species go. We must start acting like one by nurturing connections and relationships we can all prosper from. The repercussions of the war in the Ukraine are and will continue to be felt globally for a long time to come.
What do astronauts marvel at and comment on when they gaze in awe at our beautiful blue planet? There are no borders.
In the trajectory we are currently on, there is no good future waiting for us. The idea and the current push to colonise Mars ‘in the event that this world is destroyed’ is a distraction from our need to change the way we interact with each other. We must break down the walls between us in order to build a better future, together.
So, where can human will be directed? It all depends on the desire, for one or for the many.