from the ground up
Layers of society.
Are we classes? Living life simultaneously as teachers and pupils all in the same life class? Or are we tiers, over and under one another, blind to the pieces of our whole by over-seeking a path of “our own?”
Even as we move towards more technology, our everyday life is shaped by more button pressing than generational button pressings on the industrial revolution’s assembly lines. Can we think without the shape programmed by industrial society, molding a shape that is better than the one from the packaged goods’ rectangle barge complexities? It’s only a mission, some say a mission impossible, but if we’re here co-habitating, part of that is figuring out our place as a peg in the assembly lines of the World. Whether intentionally or mindlessly, either way we are a piece of that grind wheel game. Can we contribute and not solely consume? Can we add value versus simply extracting value? Is our time and mind of value? Or is freedom to thought consume, is that a collectively accepted priority?
How do we compliment one another’s missions? Is it possible to collaboratively build solutions not simply building for product consumption?
Maybe it’s not possible because we have we discarded our human response to consumption by passing on responsibility to "working” supply chains? Much our society only operates as condoners of the “how it is” ways. We buy and discard our waste with no thought in place as to where its original source took place, or the ways in which it is left in decay. Over generations, we have salvaged the waste from past days, dissecting their culture and their process of living, placing those pieces on display in museums. What will the future tell of our “hey days?” Will they gaze in amazement at the technological advancements? Or will they sigh at our piles of technology waste? Will they see the lack of longevity thinking, our constant desire for instantaneous convenience? Is that the fog on the lens we are ok with leaving for the future feet who will live to see beyond us? Will that "leave” them a better day? Or only more mind’s time waste spent developing solutions for the consequences from the inefficiencies of our mass consumption craze?
Currently, we gaze towards the top, towards the executives who built these supply chain ladders. The “thinkers” that are shaping so much of society, do it by the ownership of the resources from which our goods are made, but also by spending time developing mass adoption “solutions.” Can we localize and weld in local links between our global supply chains? Or are our links of inner detachments too weak to establish a public good amongst us as people without the ladders that raggedly attached us? We drive in the same lanes, shop in the same lanes, but for some reason we forget that our “lifestyle” globally is also one same lane, under the same space lane. We’re all one of the same shape, with lungs and brains, with sun and water to maintain. So how do we connect that link—a link that works with nature, without over grazing and over gazing outward and upward? A link that strengthens our responsibility for our place in the World, collaboratively and not competitively forming our vibrations into synch. Beyond us being one in the same as humans, aren’t we also made from Earth which is also the same? Molecules we collectively hardly even try to fathom, leaving that responsibility up to the “top” to imagine. Is it possible to work with teamwork to unfog the lens through which we all see? How can we see the pieces of a unified global piece? Is by not discarding that sense of value for our ego’s false sense of material peace?
Could we start by inwardly visualizing peace? Most of us could probably agree: the flower’s bloom, the wind that moves, the sun’s magical growth…we can all collectively praise those and could probably even agree that that is “peace." Taking a moment individually to praise those moments of peace, no posting to digital timelines for validation, simply appreciating the spaces around us individually. Imagine a world where vibrations of praises are sent out in imaginary waves that reach the new spaces—spaces where the ego mind can’t think. Is that where greater solutions come from…our inner spaces expressing for our outer spaces? Is that the magic that the top minds carry? A mind with time and space to think, to contemplate solutions and see bigger pictures. As I look around at ones who all have great minds from which they could think, many are gazing at the handful of minds that continue to feed us their solutions; many left with no mind time to contemplate their own connection to those daydreams nor dream their own version of a daydream. From media lines, money paths to processed foods…a lot of the space of this place that we choose…has us feeling that we have no other path from which we can live without the handful of minds who make us choose. In order to build better, we must visualize better and when we visualize better, will we see our magic of nature more clearer? A human bond to hold the links genuinely together?
I don’t know if that is the answer. I know I contemplate daily: how do we collectively build not only consensus, but a space for people’s ideas to live as a team in unison for all humans and resources. Where is that individual World that we all need to inwardly see in order to truly see? We say time is an illusion, is that what makes us “believe” that our individual actions have no permanence? It’s as though we forgot that our footprints leave impressions. Minds that are currently shaping idea solutions and fabrics of nations, those minds are also the same that established the rail lines that our supply chains trained us for. We can gaze to the Elon Musks of the World, we can applaud the industrial minds of Ford and automative part supply line founders, but outside of their financial successes, we can see that it was simply their desires to find solutions to the “fabric” of humanity that grew into all of us. A mind’s idea. An industry that was blooming through supply and demand, but really production and consumption. What is built is what there is to buy. The mass producers have trained us. Yet, the demand to care for the resources is too often discarded as we’ve stepped over the “open” land to acquire physical goods. Is mass production worth the price of destroying natural resources, is that a paradigm that could potentially be discarded? One that leaves a new foundation for establishing new human lines, re-visualizing supply chains from an individual perspective where we collectively build for the places and spaces we truly wish to see—ones we need to see. Little links amongst a huge chain, one where we weld and build and not just press buttons and grip tight to maintain.
A two sided coin, one coin where both sides win. On one side of the coin, we open space for a large collective of minds to think beyond the production of consumption. Farmers, factory owners, and resources hoarders…they see the fabric of our collective society, why don’t we all as consumers, is it only for consumption? Can we visualize a space where individuals thrive with nature—not solely consuming nature? We’d preserve our nature’s history, while also maintaining a footprint with intention for the future generations to see. On the other side of the coin, we’d open space for individuals to discover parts of themselves that were fogged out in the rat wheel. Where their unique task, skill, idea, and creation are all needed (and can contribute) in the wheel of humanity.
Each piece we consume, these plastic keys we type one, the minerals our batteries need. Those all come from the organization of human operations. Our labor, our time, our minds…utilized for supply lines, there we all work together in a chain of lines. We are all one in the same, working collectively under puppeteer strings, passing on our own responsibility to maintain many of our human needs. Can the veil of consumerism ever be pulled back with enough strength where those simply surviving will finally see: we are on stage, not the audience.
The lines are there.
As we build the pieces, look around you not above you. No matter your contribution through your occupation and consumptions, there are pieces of life’s “time line” that you can offer for good. From a smile to the neighbor, the tip to the barista who makes you smile, the message to the digital friend who often sends you light. Build a line of trust in the beginnings of a trust-less system. We often instantly trust the top of the ladders, but how do we begin to trust one another? Is that what is needed to see that we as humans can shape a better picture together? A consensus that our basic human needs are priorities that deserve to be efficient. Not just for humans’ consumption, but also for the longevity of land, water and air from which we are able to live through.
Let’s keep connecting the lines together. Trusting one another. Supporting one another. Time is the most precious resource and the most unpredictable. We can never know how much time our life was allocated on this life line, but we can take every thought, every moment and use it for a good that is bigger than achievements our egos go craving. We can look around us and continue paving.
Coalition over competition, always.
