Parallel realities and 'the way'

Today, as Americans, and as humans, we negotiate 2 differing realities. First, there is the reality that we're all born into, that which operates independent of any premeditated construct: the reality of our nature. We, like everything else on earth, are evolved as components in a biological system that functions so long as all parts are synchronous. Physically inferior to most everything else, we are fundamentally social creatures. We've been ever so successful because we work together. We give and take, like everything else, and the balance sheet remains in the black because of the near-endless shower of energy from space that is collected by our selfless green companions - plants.

And then there is the reality of our social order. Entirely the brain-child of we humans, our daily grind mandates that we compete for resources, gathering for our own what we can amidst the myriad legislative controls designed to maintain a certain level of equality and social justice. And over the decades and centuries skilled entrepreneurs have whittled away at the soft spots in that legal perimeter, finding loop-holes and entry points through which to navigate toward bountiful seas. It is the fool who enters the business world of our economy with any mindset but that of the plunderer. His loss is of his own accord, as my success is my own, and damn it to everyone else if they suffer in turn.

But the seas are finite, and the bounty has thinned. In time we'll be picking through the scavenged carcases of our fellows to find morsels of limited value... If we're not careful. Many have already chosen the life of the scavenger.

Why adhere to such a destructive paradigm, when our very nature compels us elsewhere? My answer is fear. Fear of the loss of control that comes with dependence upon others. Perhaps it wasn't the motivation for our system's initial design, but it must certainly motivate the players in today's economic reality.

But together we are so much more. Together we are thoughtful. We will always have some fear, but our modern body of knowledge is adequate armament to stave off much of what plagued our distant ancestors, and the faculty of our current population, largely untapped as it is, far transcends that of those who came before. There is no reason why we shouldn't be able to find unity and empowerment through our connection (to one another and to the world around us); to reclaim the beauty that lies in our very nature, as a reflection of all of nature's beauty. Our souls know the way.