We Offend Ourselves

The power behind the rise of humanity has been ignored and forgotten. Jungle law grows in its place with the rise of materialism and financial hegemony. Our shallow presumption of reality has atrophied our imaginations such that we actually avoid what is our very strength.

Our real power is invisible. This is not magical thinking. We cannot see the critical values of humanity such as empathy, generosity, gratitude, humility and inspiration, like the desire to communicate that led to the development of language. From more than the sum of our parts evolved humanity.

Perhaps overwhelmed with the success of our cumulative efforts, we forfeited credit and responsibility to the likes of religion and authority and our values became artificial and less practical.

The anti-social nature of Materialism has mentored a competitive culture to the misery of financial jungle law. It touts the individual drive for success and ignores the likelihood of it being unsustainably and socially destructive. Plus, it’s not even practical. Our ancestors didn’t evolve speech for nothing. It must have been a heavy lift, too. But it was worth it. It pulled us out of the jungle. We don’t respect our power and goodness. Life is tough, so we mistakenly respect our badness, our rugged individualism, and the bullheaded rejection of intellectual mores and analysis.

Many of us have exposed ourselves with that great feeling of fulfillment when we have an opportunity to do something good and beneficial, when we have the ability to promote joy in others or some other way we can meaningfully express our generosity. Good capitalists manage to ignore our inner inclination to help others as impractical, something from a fairy story or as interference with the self promotion of materialism. But we are all human. Avoiding our inner inklings of humanity must be like a jackhammer to the soul.

Perhaps because they are invisible, materialism overlooks or treats our values as optional. They are not. They are required for a healthy civilization.

Our engagement with the metaphysical should result in reducing the idea of materialism down to an insult. Our material world is incomprehensible and never ending. Time and the stuff in it must be appreciated.

The competition of materialism is a limited, superficial agenda. In any possible future event, it will not be missed.

Thank you for your time.