The Real Situation: Total Destruction is the Only Solution
Reggae (r)Evolution and the choices we make
In his 1980 song The Real Situation, Bob Marley sang: “Total destruction is the only solution”
Coming to terms with the shifting paradigm towards a life-affirming model of civilization requires each one of us to make a choice.
If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably already made that choice, and, if you haven’t, are probably thinking about doing so.
Change seems scary at first, especially the kind of radical (r)evolutionary change needed. Conceiving of this system’s (r)evolutionary change might seem like it ought to undergo total destruction.
With some poetic liberty we may very well say it must.
All too often we are encouraged to spread optimistic messages about how we’re going to pull of this system’s transformation.
This piece isn’t exactly about solutions, and to be explicit this text is not a doomer piece either.
It’s a piece about coming to terms with change. Deep, radical, transformative, scary, exciting, daunting, invigorating, (r)evolutionary change.
Things aren’t going to get better soon. The fight for a liveable future is a long-term one.
One that you’re probably never going to personally enjoy the benefits for. One that we fight for our children today and their children tomorrow.
Difficult times make for strong people.
And the sooner we step into living the acceptance of that, the sooner we can restore the internal peace we need to carry out our (r)evolutionary work for our lifetime.
I’m using a tarot card to illustrate this piece: Key 13: Death.
Death is much less about death than its graphic illustration signals.
Death is a part of a much larger story of change, in which death is but one of the main characters.
The others? Life, Struggle, and Decomposition.
Alchemy is often related to the transformation of iron, copper, lead or some other “petty” mineral into gold.
But I think there is a finer alchemy than trying to transform useful elements into shiny gold.
That finer alchemy belongs to another brand of alchemist, a rather minuscule one, that is essential for all of us: decomposers.
Fungi, worms, bacteria, etc… are the artists of weaving the ebbs and flows of death and life together. They are the transformative barriers between life and death.
And if we can think and act like decomposers, then we can truly alchemize/compost/exapt the rotting parts of this world in crisis into fertile new grounds for growth.
This is the only soulful way we can abide by the words of Bob Marley in their true harbinger of change essence.
What parts and relations in our current socioeconomic system are holding it stable in its dysfunction? Do we have to do away with them or can they be composted with others to serve a new life-affirming system’s purpose?
Perhaps in the past it has made sense to go to War.
Without high enough levels of technology to enable material and agricultural abundance, campaigns of conquest for scarce resources seemed reasonable for nations striving for survival and growth.
But today’s context is different. We have laid many of the fundamental components of a globalized society. And not just in the economic sense, but rather in the sense that the wellbeing of the entire globe is at the center of how decision-makers act. At least in principle, that’s why institutions like the UN and the ICJ exist.
There are a lot of systemic issues that are driving us away from that unified understanding of the world. We can name those issues. We can name the primary individuals and institutions sustaining them today. We can name the people that thought about them in the first place. We can name the people that implement them and uphold them. We can name the people that went to War on their behalf.
It’s all in the history books.
Now, what I’m about to say is just a conjecture.
I have no evidence for this (yet), it’s just a feeling.
My sense is this. Do you know those stories of queer people that grow up in places where being queer is just about the worst thing you can be? And how those environments lead them to repress that authentic part of themselves for decades, eventually jettisoning violence, oppression, and misery against other queer folks?
Similarly, I see there are the naysayers of change deeply ingrained in how the system functions and in keeping it alive: Oil industrialists, police, tech execs, asset managers, agricultural conglomerates, oligarchs, etc…
The people with the most wealth and power in the world (the major beneficiaries of wealth inequality), have seen enough evidence throughout their lives to confirm that total destruction is the only solution (realpolitik?).
For the biggest issues to be resolved, radical (r)evolutionary change is the only solution.
When you grow up in a culture where not prioritizing economic growth is the worst thing you can do, and yet deeply in your heart truly believe and know that that is not possible to grow infinitely in a finite planet with finite resources, then you repress that authenticity and become the biggest barrier and aggressor against change and changemakers.
I believe that deep down, naysayers and changemakers converge in the need for change. Why naysayers hold change back is something probably only therapy and mushrooms can reveal.
If you know, I’d love to know. Tell me, please.
Now we come to death.
That colder and longer part of the cycle of life. Anything and everything that is alive will die: from the smallest bacteria to the largest empire. When you look from the past, their days are counted.
Statistically, the lifetime of a civilization is 336 years. Our current civilizational model, what we call collectively the West (western democracy, western capitalism) is cannibalistically extracting resources to keep the economy growing.
Specifically, growing primarily to feed the insatiable needs of the hungry few.
It’s easy to see why this civilization may be nearing its expiry date.
What choice am I inviting you to make?
To step into the lifelong path of civil resistance, of rebellion against the life-destroying status quo, of (r)evolutionary departure from toxic anthropocentrism.
To step into the deeper commitment of rebuilding our society from the ashes of what has already burned and will continue to do so.
To stand not at the margins, but in the fires of change. To use what privilege and platform you may have to spread the good word of (r)evolution and loving justice.
No single one of us can change the world. No one expects that.
But gather enough drops of water and you’ll eventually have a tsunami. Critical mass needs just 3.5% of us to sustain our non-violent (r)evolutionary efforts for long enough. This has been proven time and again.
There are some important caveats to this “3.5% rule”.
Many are called, few are chosen.
Will you heed the call?
To look for all the shadows of the current system and wonder, what might I do to find the light that casts them?
To tweak that light to cast lesser shadows?
To tweak the environment, whereupon those shadows are cast, that may diminish the pain these shadows bring?
To come to terms with the root of the shadow such that we feel ourselves involved in its own existence, able to change and be changed by it.
Doing so is precisely what we need to do if we truly intend to remove the veils that prevent us from collectively seeing and acting speedily upon:
The Real Situation.
love it!