If similar to myself, then you are still largely insulated from the increasing difficulties in the world. The daily reality we live is not one that either witnesses or feels, fully and constantly, the horrific suffering and destruction that is involved in producing our everyday comforts or our sense of safety and superiority. Therefore, we don’t experience any relief or even elation from knowing this system of destruction is being disrupted, will be reduced, and may even come to an end. If we fully felt the pain of our entanglement with that obscenity, we would be open to an openness and curiosity to that breaking down, including the instabilities, difficulties and hardships that will typify the rest of our lives. This does not mean we are against the industrial consumer societies that dominate humanity today or are even anti-civilization in our sentiment. It simply means that we are not only grieving their loss but we also do not see a useful role in trying to prop them up any longer. The multiple foundations of modern societies that are all breaking together, at the same time, mean we can choose for ourselves to be either breaking together or breaking apart. When I say ‘breaking together’ I mean allowing the breakdowns in our privileges, comforts, worldviews and identities, to allow a new openness for connection with people, nature and even the eternal. We can also allow this breaking to reconnect us with aspects of who we are that have been hidden under the social conditioning we’ve experienced since birth. We have tended to cling to the products of that conditioning, in order to feel safe, respected, capable and able to have fun in ways we already know. But we’ve got to let go and begin breaking together.
Breaking Together
a freedom-loving response to collapse
by Jem Bendell
If recent changes in the world have left you feeling dazed and confused, then you are not unusual. If you sense the current responses are insufficient, and hence we all risk getting hurt or even making matters worse, that is also normal. If you yearn for a newfound steadiness within and amongst your peers, in the face of increasing difficulties, so you have motivating clarity of purpose, then we share that desire. If you now recognise that clinging to our distracting habits or proclaiming our ethics online is, sadly, not at all impactful, then I believe the arguments in this book will be useful. For I have discovered that insight into the cause and future of the troubles can help us to act more clear-headed and good-hearted once again. First, is the insight this mess isn’t because of human nature, but because of the oppression and manipulation of us all by systems that favour the worst aspects of people. Indeed, it’s not a crowd of ‘Agent Smiths’ from the Matrix throwing blows at us, but one underlying code for monetary expansion which is generating the multiple blows. Second, is the insight we don’t need to be certain of achieving material outcomes in order to have a passion for doing what’s right. Third, is the insight past failure to create change matters less today, as the breaking down of powerful systems frees us up to contribute in new ways. Fourth is the insight we can become better at allowing the waves of difficult emotions of fear and sadness without them defining or directing us. That is also because we recognise the love that precedes such feelings. Consequently, our feelings of being dazed and confused can end through this fourfold realisation. No matter how bad situations become, we know we will have prepared ourselves to be as steady, clear-headed and good-hearted as we could possibly be.