Do we know what we’re doing? We think we do. And Erik is frustrated we don’t understand our predicament.
Erik Michaeil is frustrated that we don’t get that ‘this thing of ours’ is FUBAR. I sympathize.
It seems to me that whether a person is building a 6K square foot deck, putting up solar panels, or preparing their costume for Monday Night Football, people are doing what they do. The overshoot-and-collapse audience is tiny.
It is what it is, was what it was, and shall be what it shall be by virtue of having been.
Thinking one knows what’s what may titillate, but it won’t make a difference regarding the profoundly bleak predicament we founded 8K years ago or so when we domesticated, I mean, civilized ourselves.
Let the games begin!
Do UFC fans give a hoot about overshoot, limits to growth, and the collapse of our global modern techno-industrial civilization? And they all shout, “USA! USA! USA!” How about them midterms? People pay attention to what motivates them, or what they think they desire to pay attention to, or what is salient to them, and yes, the living live NOW. We all have a whole lot of living to do within our given circumstances, and then, we die, and our soul does something or another. Some folks do Yoga, some roll coal; some do Za Zen while others embark on the Caminho talking to ‘Josh’ in their heads. Some call it a sling blade; some call it a Kaiser blade. Ummm Hummm. Farmers in Portugal get on with farming; others in Lisbon go on and on about the NEW, High Tech Portugal, foreign investment, and rainbow Unicorns.
Folks who don’t get it disappoint Erik, and there’s no need to discuss things with civilizational apologists; what good would it do? We are done and dusted; smell the roses, oh, and don’t forget to put food on the table, and it would be mighty nice if our town remains peaceful and the people living in it don’t have to die violent deaths preceded by months of agonizing terror. Heck, it’s always been in God’s hands anyway. And think of the stories we can tell while the Great Game lasts.
As G.I. Gurdjieff put it, most human beings live in a state of ‘waking sleep’. They think they are awake and acting freely, but in reality they are run by habit, emotion, outside influence, and reaction. He saw people as essentially mechanical, reacting to life rather than directing it. According to Gurdjieff, the whole business of human development is to wake up from that state of psychological sleep and become genuinely self-aware.
To describe different levels of human development, Gurdjieff divided humanity into seven categories. The first three categories are the so-called ‘ordinary’ man, the largely unconscious man. Man No. 1 is dominated by the physical and the instinctive. His actions are driven by instinct and physical experience rather than by conscious reflection.
The emotional center dominates man No. 2. He is essentially an emotional being, his life governed by feelings, attractions, aversions, moods, and emotional reactions. He makes decisions largely based on what feels good or bad rather than on any real understanding. An emotional person can be very passionate and demonstrative, but as Gurdjieff points out, they are still working mechanically unless they develop a greater degree of awareness.
The Intellectual is the dominant type in Man No.3. He is a thinker through and through, relying on thought, analysis, theory, and concept. He often believes he is more conscious than anyone else simply because of his capacity for thought. Gurdjieff was very clear on this point: such a person is asleep if he lacks self-awareness and inner unity. He may live in the world of ideas and yet be utterly unaware of the world of feeling and the world of the body.
The first three categories constitute what Gurdjieff termed ‘ordinary humanity’. These people, according to him, have no unified self at all and are, in fact, made up of a number of separate selves, each in conflict with the others. They have no true will and are constantly being pulled in different directions by circumstance, emotion and thought.
Man No. 4 marks the beginning of real inner development. He has become aware of his mechanical nature and is now engaged in self-observation and self-transformation. The aim is to bring the physical, emotional, and intellectual centers into balance rather than have one center dominating the others.
Man No. 5, Man No. 6 and Man No. 7 represent increasing levels of consciousness and integration. We’re talking about increasing degrees of self-awareness, objective perception, and inner unity. Man No. 7 is the fully awakened man: a man with stable consciousness, a genuine will, and a permanent sense of self rather than a series of shifting impulses.
Gurdjieff saw most people as ‘sleepwalkers’ in a mechanical state of being, whether they were Man No. 1 (the physical), Man No. 2 (the emotional), or Man No. 3 (the intellectual). The Fourth Way was his teaching to awaken the sleepwalker and help him progress through the various stages of development through self-observation, self-remembering, and self-working.
And the smartphone choir sang—Booooring!
Meanwhile, living systems find ways to continue amid the stresses of anthropogenic thoughts, ideas, and feelings made manifest by progress in the form of value creation, innovation, GDP, and, most of all, aspirations in the Global South to join the ‘Feel Good Culture’ of the Global North.
Extinction is the rule; FUBAR is FUBAR; people do things, some consciously and conscientiously. Live with it. There will be 6K-square-foot decks, exploitation, extraction, war, famine, pandemics, microplastics, PFAS, polycrisis, metacrisis, UFC events, gardens and gardening, farms and farming, dancing and singing, budding Buddhists, well-loved Christians, and lawful Muslims, self-righteous atheists, Republicans, Democrats, THE Far Left, THE Far Right, THE Fanatic Center, and lots of weapons in the United States of New Miracles until some such prophecy is fulfilled.
YouTubers and bloggers will keep vying for attention, hoping to be captured by the best of all possible audiences.
And then we will be unplugged and thankful Sarah knows how to make bricks from clay or mud and straw.
But doggone it! Too many folks just don’t get it. I think I will go for a walk.
