Seeds of Change
It is obvious that we need a new cultural model that better reflects reality—who we are, where we are in time, and what is happening – World 5.0.
It is no diversion to mention this here, because we can’t just fix our political system without addressing a far wider core of issues. The whole military/industrial/media/government complex is on trial. This Juggernaut has contrived to define “reality” and to tell us what we want. It sold us the stories of fear, the stories that said we should not trust. It sold us the stories that said we should not love our brethren if they look or act differently. They said they knew best. Just give them the money.
Enough! Politics may or may not be local, but survival is. It’s not just the financial markets, it’s the pattern. Food and energy costs, continued war and violence on our streets, dysfunctionality at every turn. Corruption, lies, malfeasance. Disaster capitalism. We clearly require something different. We require a new operating system.
As we establish the priority of the Totality of Now and the failure of the old systems to support us, we recognize that our three most basic requirements [beyond air and water]: food, energy and shelter, are best met on a local level.
We must literally rebuild this thing from the ground up. And that means a new-found cooperation, dedication and trust in growing our communities. We have little choice.
World 5.0 makes no claim of initiating the emerging movement toward compassion, sustainability and pluralism. As aptly described in Paul Hawken’s Blessed Unrest – How the Largest Movement in The World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming, we are in the midst of an epochal transformation of human culture, and one that has been in incubation since at least the 1960s. Hawken describes the incredible development of hundreds of thousands of non-profit groups and agencies that are creating connections through networks that support their missions and by adding their voices to similarly-minded groups.
What World 5.0 does lay claim to is being the simple term that describes this new interpretation of ourselves, appreciates our reality and understands the direction we must take to enhance our awareness, rebuild our lives and restore our global ecology. Home at last.
Now there are millions of examples of the new world emerging, just as there are of the old world crumbling. It is a transmigration of energy. The long darkness of earlier world views is being expelled, and in its place a new world of peace, love, friendship and sustainability is emerging. It is long in coming, and we do not see it if we’re watching news provided by a conglomerate.
This new pattern can also be considered from the vast scope of how climate change requires a planetary response, a first in our history. It can be considered in a small American farmer who chooses to go organic, or the school teacher who embeds herself into her community, or the former drug dealer that starts a halfway house to help their neighbors and vitalize their neighborhood. It’s happening at both the macro and micro levels.
It can be seen in the energy revolution taking place, where fossil fuels and nuclear power are now seen as poor options, and renewables are creating a new pecking order. The whole idea of sustainability thinking wasn’t even on our cultural map until recently, though wiser folk throughout time have understood this on some level.
Most importantly, we’re seeing it in ourselves. We interpret the world differently than we used to. Old belief systems are breaking down. And while many of us have yet to appreciate just what this new world is, we know in our hearts we’re in the midst of something completely different from anything we have known before. It’s not difficult to see in this World4 culture, with elitism, fascism and fundamentalism running amuck, that we’re becoming kinder and more understanding of each other. The InterWeb is an external reflection of some internal coming together that we’re experiencing now.
The point is, we as a species have been waiting for this time since we climbed out of the trees, or at least since we gained higher consciousness from earlier hominoids. If that time, some 200,000 years ago, describes our human birth, these times are calling us to human adulthood. This comes on the heels of our very dangerous adolescence.
As astronomer Carl Sagan pointed out, we engendered a very dangerous time in the 20th Century with our wars and bombs and ever-more sophisticated technologies of death. At least 100 million human beings were killed in the 20th century at the hands of other humans—a trait we dare not let continue. The machinations among the ruling elite that typify the last age will clearly doom us to a nasty and brutish existence in the coming years if they are not stopped.
– from the book Home At Last by Jim Prues
