When people get murdered, or even discriminated against, because of their skin color; when I have to think twice about a medical procedure, and more than ½ million people go bankrupt every year because they can’t pay their medical bills; when people work two or three jobs and still barely get by; when sick leave is not encouraged and sick meat workers go to work because they can’t afford not to; when education is discouraged by way of its astronomical cost, and the educational level of the country as a whole stays behind other developed countries; when pollution and deforestation are encouraged through profit oriented policies and we all get sicker; then I cannot live deeply.
This country is convulsing as we are experiencing the flip side and unravelling of a profit-above-all value system that no longer works for the majority of people, and favors an ever slimmer percentage of the population. The American Empire is crumbling because its values are rotten at the core. Racism, the cultural trauma this country is still carrying even after slavery has been long abolished, is still simmering under the surface and has broken out again, and again, and again, because it’s never been healed. And so many other socio-cultural issues are broken as well.
The tectonic shift I referenced in an earlier post is happening in real time. We are experiencing an epic scream for awakening and change on all levels. Inclusivity, togetherness, cooperation, trust, and sustainability are all values that are bigger than racism and social inequality. Moving from Me to We is what we must do to resolve the biggest challenges in the history of humanity. Leaving the myth of separation, as Charles Eisenstein calls it in his recent essay The Conspiracy Myth, behind, and uniting for a common cause, that of a better, more sustainable, life for all inhabitants of this earth, is a consciousness revolution, a shift in perception and thinking.
When that shift happens for a critical mass among us, we will be able to tackle climate change, racism, hunger, and all the other challenges we brought upon ourselves because we believe we’re separate from each other and from nature. Revolutions are often messy because we fear the unknown and thus resist change. But the status quo is no longer acceptable, and neither is going back to whence we came, pre-corona, because we have already moved too far into the space in between. The best thing you can do is embrace the change and imagine a more beautiful new world (actually an Eisenstein book title).