12nov23.
It’s time to ‘shift onto another foot’, to report Good News instead of the endless critical observations of a temporarily failed species; the doom and gloom that’s surrounds so many modern lives, the fantasy play-lives of some. The apocalyptic vortex has only steepened, the madness only accelerated during my lifetime, along with the exponential rise in the human population.
Historically, early European adventurers settled in Britain hundreds of thousands of years ago. Around 8,300 years ago, Britain – Plato’s Albion – became a recognised island [1] with regional nomadic peoples [2], evolving a natural island culture. Following the Roman departure around 430AD, increasing numbers of north-western Europeans came to settle and spread.
The millions of modern day Brits live amidst a confusing clash of cultures, great and small, with astonishing levels of ignorance about the turn of historical events. In an age of increasing technology and access to information, so many young and middle-aged appear mentally locked-in to a level of shallowness, and subliminal depression, masquerading as contemporary ‘hip’, which difficulties appear to develop as time goes by; possibly, harbingers of the all-round disintegration of this modern era of Life.
And I find, too, that I know so little about what happened politically in the years when the last world-war ended. Britain again faced bankruptcy to American war-aid, and the people elected the third Labour government in the face of Churchill’s wartime triumph. What may have started as objection to inequalities of wealth and power, began to be fermented by trouble-makers ‘on the make’ with the advance of industrialisation and its offshoots around a hundred years ago, some justified, some not. Whereas a mix of cultures has been generally a blessing and a boon, over-population has fermented a growing unrest inherent amongst our peoples.
In northern Europe, Anglo-Saxon and Norman descendants share a Viking heredity, a culture of greed, pillage, and violence. For a thousand years and more, this abusive culture, which spread around the globe, adapting to different religions and ‘trade’, led to the present day come-to-pass, to imminent catastrophes, to the unstoppable trajectories of Climate Change [3], such that many people and life-forms will not survive.
That a corrupt culture – expanding delusions of power, wealth and status taking wanton advantage of others – has marched in tandem with escalating technologies and horrific warfare, mass destruction of infants, siblings, parents, and property; so much horror and harm, so much hunger and hurt; and worldwide degradations of species and environments, multiplying migrations, and expanding financial and economic failures, ballooning addictions, sickness and mental-health stresses, relationship failures, and societal breakdowns, is consequential, not coincidental.
So, let’s put all that on one side for now, and move on. Surely, to find a better way for the future can only be seen as a Good Thing ? Tough to find good news within the existing paradigm. That some will survive the inevitable ‘Correction’ [4] has to be Good News, surely, looking at things from specie and environmental points-of-view. That the ‘Correction’ will reduce world human population to manageable proportions, (likely, to be between sub-one and two billion, between now and say a hundred years’ time), and that survivors will need to ‘think it all out again’, have surely got to be Good Things, if bitter pills. Other species surviving on planet Earth will surely rejoice.
Good News that the hitherto unchallenged Gods of Religion and Money will of necessity shortly be ‘put to bed’. People everywhere are ‘reviewing the situation’, looking deeper into their hearts and minds. And there’s little chance that any modern political paradigm, so-called political party, or party politician, can survive much longer. ‘All Change’ time. “Three, Four Cheers – Hurrah !”
Warfare will come to be seen as having been a conjoined breakdown in communication and relationship, promoted by fear and greed, ambition, lust, and human failure. About bloody time humans come to reject all that and anything like it. A safer and positive life awaits us all, if only we will contribute our better selves to it. Has to be Good !
Can we hope for awakened populations to ‘get down and dirty’, meaning to ‘Get Real’, honest and open ? Can we hope that populations worldwide will move from the ‘blink-in-time’ [5] hidebound nonsense toward a resurgence of Truth and Justice ? Sounds potentially like a Global Ethical Revolution – Gotta be Good !
Like me, you might rejoice if and when the media shed their sensationalist shenanigans, and their influence over prominent people and the public at large. So much nonsense tailored to this prejudiced opinion or that; so many wannabes pandering to journalists and cameras to further their dodgy aims to the extent where few intelligent people any longer pay attention to media, other than a passing glance at absurdly pedalled prejudices; a little like reviewing a bookie’s starting prices. The ‘power of the press’, and of media advertising and undesirable promotions will properly decease in the time ahead. Can only be Good.
The Healing of Humans will follow along lines of ‘tough love’ – not unlike the inevitable pain of an operation to put right an ailment – which can only be a Good Thing. Small, communicating-for-real communities will reintroduce safe and friendly support and stability for their families, children, and oldies. Land and nature-based education and play will nurture children and adults. Competition will largely disappear, outside passing friendly sporting rivalries. Agape – friendly love – may again come to predominate in all our everyday affairs. Honourable romance will again come to be enjoyed within and between communities. Relationships will find surer footings in understanding that it is natural, and all but inevitable, that in time individual parties may grow apart, which can be celebrated. The children and young people will find love and inspiration within their communities. Such dreams are the real stuff of us human beings, not idle fantasies. They are Surely Good.
If the people, priests, media, and ‘men in grey suits’, will lend themselves to it, there is still time to explore and put in place a fresh, pure, positive and compassionate Culture on Earth. Cultures have tended to be founded on, and adapted to prevailing and promoted spiritual grounds. It is there we could first look. It can only be Good to turn from perdition to salvation, from petty politics to profound spirituality, if only for what will turn out to be a few, mainly young survivors.
Spirituality, eh ? a minefield only if people plant landmines of opinion, pain and prejudice in the way. If we can find our way to the ‘paradox of pure’ in human terms – the highest and lowest common denominators, supreme and simple both – we could find a real foundation for a real future for our children and grandchildren. Gotta Be Good !
Shall we ?
And it can be said that the Anglo-Saxons and Normans of these islands and northern Europe have proved to be innovative peoples. One imagines this intelligence has had to do with the seasonally changing climates of the latitudes, and with the necessary address to coastal winds and currents, and essential relationships with wildlife; possibly a mix of the lot. Possibly some traditional instinct honed by aloneness, awareness, natural cunning, and survival.
Here’s a clue : each one of us has to do all our inner work ourselves; has to undertake that long and troubling inner journey that relies on complete honesty to discover who we really are, on our connection to the Vastness, the Great Spirit. The care and nurture of our children and communities, and right education can and in time will lead to an Ethical Revolution, and the only possible route to salvation. Gotta Be Good !
It becomes the remarkable people of Albion and these fine islands to pioneer such a major historical re-think, to nurture Life, Love, and the Universe.
So, what do you think ?
Shall we ?
[1] Around 8,300 years ago, rising sea levels, from receding glaciation, finally cut Britain off from the Euro-Asian landmass; the final part, from between the Rivers Ouse and Thames, connected to modern Netherlands, we refer to as ‘Doggerland’.
[2] Some shall we say 6,250 years ago, when there were very few people on the land, nomad adventurers travelled freely where they would. Nomadic hunter-gatherers, and herdsmen, tend to return to different home bases regularly.
[3] ‘Even more relevant to present-day Global Warming than the current rate of emissions, is the far greater accumulation of CO2 at the Tropospheric Ceiling of our atmosphere, from previous decade’s emissions, that mainly causes the warming. The time it takes ‘Greenhouse Gases’ to reach the Tropospheric Ceiling can be anywhere between 35 to 65 years. Gases swirl, comingling with other gases around the planet’s surface for a while before beginning to rise, gradually. The higher they go the colder and denser the air becomes and the slower they rise, Earth’s gravity increasing its resistance. Once arrived at the Tropospheric Ceiling, they dissipate slowly over a period from a minimum 55 years to centuries. See also next page.
‘For simple calculation purposes, we may imagine CO2 takes roughly 35 years to reach the ceiling and remains there for say 65 years, a cumulative total of say 100 years. Thus, the Global Warming we experience today may be seen as largely the result of CO2 accumulations from around 1920, about 100 years ago, or more likely from between the mid-1800s and early 1900s.
‘The unavoidable conclusion is that future decades will experience ever more troubling Global Warming from exponentially increasing CO2 emissions since c.1920. For example, 2050 will experience warming from the accelerating CO2 emissions in the 1950s and earlier; 2100 from emissions in the 2000s and earlier, and so on : a deadly prognosis.’ from ‘Charting Climate Change’, Gaunts Publishing, 2021.
[4] Nature always has, and always will find ways to correct or adapt to imbalances.
[5] In the great scheme of things, a handful of thousand years here and there are no more than a ‘blink-in-time’.
