You don’t even have to observe the information to know that issues will not be going nicely in our world. The indicators of collapse are throughout us. There are two methods most individuals reply: (1) Shut your eyes, put your head within the sand, and fake that every one is nicely, or hope that some magical answer will probably be invented to make things better rapidly and simply (2) Redirect your worry, rage and despair to somebody or one thing you possibly can blame for our issues, or try to escape into one diverting fantasy after one other and briefly calm your nerves.
There may be one other alternative that’s more practical, however not for the faint of coronary heart. It begins once we face the reality about our current scenario. I obtained my very own wakeup name greater than thirty years in the past. Right here’s how I described it in my newest ebook, Lengthy Dwell Males! The Moonshot Mission to Heal Males, Shut the Lifespan Hole, and Supply Hope to Humanity:
“In 1993 I attended a Males’s Leaders’ Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana. One of many actions supplied was a standard Native-American sweat lodge ceremony the place we ask for steering and assist for ourselves and our communities. I had the next life-changing imaginative and prescient.
We’re all on an enormous ocean liner. All the things we all know and have ever recognized is on the ship. Persons are born and die. Items and providers are created, wars are fought, and elections are held and disputed. Species come into being and face extinction. The ship steams on and on, and there’s no doubt that it’s going to proceed on its current course eternally.
There are lots of decks on the ship, beginning approach down within the boiler room the place the poorest and grimiest toil to maintain the ship going. As you ascend the decks, issues get lighter and simpler. The individuals who run the ship have suites on the very prime deck. Their job, as they see it, is to maintain the ship going and maintain these on the decrease decks of their correct locations. Since they’re on the prime, they’re certain they deserve to accumulate an increasing number of of the sources of the earth.
Everybody on the decrease decks aspires to rise up to the subsequent deck and hungers to get to the very prime. That’s the best way it’s. That’s the best way it has all the time been. That’s the best way it is going to all the time be. Nevertheless, there are a couple of individuals who notice that one thing very unusual is occurring. What they arrive to know is that the ship is sinking. At first, like everybody else, they will’t imagine it. The ship has been afloat since time earlier than time. It’s the better of the most effective. That it might sink is unthinkable. Nonetheless, they’re certain the ship is sinking.
They attempt to warn the individuals, however nobody believes them. The ship can’t be sinking, and anybody who thinks so have to be mentally sick. Once they persist in making an attempt to warn the individuals of what they’re going through, these in control of the ship silence them and lock them up. The ship’s media retains grinding out information tales describing how fantastic the longer term will probably be. Any issues which are occurring will certainly be solved with the wonders of our civilized, technological way of life.
The leaders of the ship smile, wave, and promise prosperity for all. However water is starting to seep in from under. The upper the water rises, the extra frightened the individuals grow to be and the extra frantically they scramble to get to the higher decks. Some imagine it’s the finish and truly welcome the prospect of the destruction of life as we all know it. They imagine it’s the achievement of non secular prophesy. Others grow to be more and more irritable, indignant, and depressed. Like caged rats they chunk their very own tails and people of their cage mates who look like a menace.
However because the water rises, those that have been issuing the warnings can not be silenced. Extra individuals escape confinement and lead others towards the lifeboats. Although there are sufficient boats for all, many individuals are reluctant to go away the ship. Many questions are requested. “The previous tales inform us that we’ve been on this ship for greater than six thousand years, isn’t it safer to remain aboard? Might issues actually be so dangerous that we should depart? The place will we go? Who will lead us? What if that is all there’s?”
Nonetheless, the Ship is sinking. Many individuals go over the facet and are lowered all the way down to the boats. As they descend, they’re puzzled to see lettering on the facet of the ship: T-I-T-A-N-I-C. Once they attain the lifeboats, many are frightened and search for somebody who appears to be like like they know what to do. They’d prefer to experience with these individuals.
Nevertheless, they discover that every particular person should get into their very own boat and row away from the ship in their very own path. In the event that they don’t get away from the ship as quickly as potential, they are going to be pulled down with it. When everybody who needs to go away, every in their very own boats, rowing in their very own path, reaches their very own place within the ocean, they start to create a brand new, partnership, internet. Will probably be the idea for a brand new lifestyle that may exchange the life that was lived on the previous ship of civilization.“
Right here’s What I’ve Discovered That Has Helped Me Survive and Thrive
1. “Civilization” is a misnomer. Its correct title is the “Dominator Mannequin.”
In her worldwide best-selling ebook, The Chalice & The Blad: Our Historical past. Our Future, initially printed in 1987, historian Riane Eisler mentioned,
“Underlying the nice floor variety of human tradition are two fundamental fashions of society. The primary I name the dominator mannequin, what’s popularly termed both patriarchy or matriarchy — the rating of 1 half of humanity over the opposite. The second, by which social relations are based on the precept of linking might finest be described because the partnership mannequin.”
You may view my podcast with Riane and her staff on the Heart for Partnership Methods right here.
2. There’s a higher world past civilization.
In 1992, I used to be given the ebook Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. I obtained a transparent sense of the 2 worlds which are competing for our consideration: A world the place hierarchy and dominance rule (Quinn calls it the world of the Takers) and a world the place equality and connection rule (Quinn calls it the world of the Leavers. In his ebook, Past Civilization: Humanity’s Subsequent Nice Journey, Quinn says,
“Past civilization isn’t a geographical area up within the mountains or on some distant isle. It’s a cultural area that opens up amongst individuals with new minds.”
This isn’t a time to surrender. It’s time to attain out!
3. Don’t lose coronary heart. We had been made for these occasions.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, creator of Girls Who Run with the Wolves, wrote this inspiring letter to all of us who’re involved in regards to the future. She mentioned partly:
“My buddies, don’t lose coronary heart. We had been made for these occasions. I’ve heard from so many lately who’re deeply and correctly bewildered. They’re involved in regards to the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of just about each day astonishment and sometimes righteous rage over the newest degradations of what issues most to civilized, visionary individuals.
“I grew up on the Nice Lakes and acknowledge a seaworthy vessel once I see one. Concerning woke up souls, there have by no means been extra ready vessels within the waters than there are proper now internationally. And they’re totally provisioned and capable of sign each other as by no means earlier than within the historical past of humankind.
“Ours shouldn’t be the duty of fixing the complete world abruptly, however of stretching out to fix the a part of the world that’s inside our attain.”
4. Rethink our relationship with planet Earth.
In line with world-renowned creator and social scientist, Jeremy Rifkin,
“We have now lengthy believed that we stay on a land planet, when in actuality we stay on a water planet, and now the Earth’s hydrosphere is taking us right into a mass extinction because it searches for a brand new regular.”
In his vital and well timed ebook, Planet Aqua: Rethinking Our House within the Universe, Rifkin says that we should quit our perception that it’s our obligation to dominate and management nature and reconnect as companions in all life on Earth. He says,
“We should rethink the waters as a ‘life supply’ quite than one other ‘useful resource’ to use and be taught to adapt to the hydrosphere quite than making an attempt to get the hydrosphere to adapt to us.”
5. Discover your tribe outdoors the confines of civilization.
The rulers of civilization would have us imagine that even when the Ship is sinking, we’d as nicely go down with it as a result of there actually aren’t any higher selections. That’s the large lie of civilization. As my imaginative and prescient confirmed me, there are tens of millions of alternate options and an increasing number of lifeboats within the water each day, however you gained’t find out about them within the corporate-controlled media. You may be taught extra right here.
6. Declare your path of service.
We should act now, or we will probably be swept away by the currents of change. In her ebook, Who Do We Select to Be? Going through Actuality, Claiming Management, Restoring Sanity, my longtime colleague and buddy, Margaret J. Wheatley says,
“My aspiration is so that you can see clearly so that you could be act properly. If we don’t know the place we’re, if we don’t know what to arrange for, then any path we select will maintain us wandering within the wilderness, more and more determined, more and more misplaced.”
Margaret despatched me a current e-mail:
“I’m grateful to announce a brand new, self-paced course obtainable beginning October 5, 2025, Claiming Your Path of Service: Selecting to Serve This Age of Collapse and Chance, developed with the extraordinary platform Advaya.life.”
If you want to be taught extra about my very own work, I invite you to hitch me at MenAlive.com