A Living Magazine - Day 271 - Homecoming - Wake Forest: Nomad at the End of History

Another peaceful rest. My mood bordered on euphoria. I was so blessed to be there with this family--my family. The day would be very similar to the day before in all of its beauty, peace, relaxation, and love. The stark difference between the dirty carelessness of the street and the pure support of this Conrad household was a psychic vinegar and oil dressing being swished around and then settling again in my mind. In response, everything inside my selfish heart was saying, "Stay as long as you can!" My plan had been to leave the next day. But it turned out that Jeff didn't have to fly out on Sunday after all (something that had limited my original scheme for the visit).

I knew I had to set off by or before the 21st of March--the first day of spring. That's the pattern. I left Livermore, California on the 21st of June--the first day of Summer. The Spark likes auspicious dates. And, for once, time was getting ahead of my travels. I was to be back in Portland, Maine on June 21st of this year. It sure did seem appealing to me to stay with the Conrads through the weekend. I would still be able to leave on the 21st--Monday.

Talking with Natalie later that afternoon would seal the deal. She had an idea that kept coming into her mind. She knew of my interest in self sustaining property--what I was planning to focus on when I returned to Maine. And, she knew of a couple who had built their own off grid home. They lived about an hour and a half away. She asked me if I wanted to take a road trip to visit them and check out their place the next day. Natalie can be very persuasive. Her enthusiasm for the idea was infectious. From her description of what these people had accomplished I couldn't help but say yes. So, she called them and arranged it.

She had some things to do on this afternoon and Jeff was hard at work in his office, so I got to work. Before I began writing, I needed to see if I might be able to get a new pedometer/watch at Wal-Mart before leaving on Monday. My old faithful gave its last reading early that morning...

Once liberated from the duct tape that had held the band together, the lifeless object (given to me by my sister, Deb, before I left Maine) made - what was for me - a powerful image. It gave all it had and almost made it back to Maine. But, it's martyrdom as seen from the future (I write this post on the first day out from Wake Forest--four days after the day described herein), is a poignant symbol of what happens when time ends; a metaphor for the last moment.

And, due to the events that would occur at the beginning of the next leg of the journey, I am self-forced by circumstances to draw this metaphor out. While I will wait until the blog description of the Tuesday just ahead, the impressions fresh in my mind are worthy of expansion in the following essay...

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NOMAD AT THE END OF HISTORY

I have studied the trends of history very closely throughout my life. It was my field of study in college and ever since has been a passion of mine. Readers of this blog from years in the future - if their are readers then--or, more appropriately, if there even is a future from which they might examine this crazy project of mine - will already know how all of the events of 2016 turned out.

What I want to do on this day is relate what things are like in our world from the perspective of this Nomad and with the hindsight of his many adventures around this great nation. It is pure in only the way that a man who has been fighting for reason and change - trying to LIVE for these two ideals - can expound upon them, while not knowing for sure whether they will prevail at this time in history or be swept away.

We stand at the bifurcation of all future time. Yes, perhaps every day is a bifurcation a split in the timeline of Universe history. But our days - each one - in this particular year are casting off alternative realities at an increasing rate. While not exactly the eschaton predicted by Terence McKenna (what started the 2012 mania), there is a very real possibility that 2017 may become the social template for humanity for some time to come. This template IS one of the branches of the bifurcation now developing. In my humble opinion, this branch will be either benign or malignant. And, once it has begun to propagate--grow outward, the very nature of what it means to be human will change permanently.

I am not suggesting that the world will change very significantly. I am TELLING you that it will. This is not a prediction, nor a prophecy. It is rather, the conclusion of a string of historical moments that have interlocked to bring about the end of historical time.

What do I mean by "historical time"? I mean that the history we have and study is written by the winners. Nothing in the past is certain. Nothing. We only know what those who survived have told us. Similarly, there is nothing at all that is objective in the study of the past, when it comes to what we have accepted as historical "fact." Pause for a moment to swallow the pill of that jagged little concept.

While we know dates and we know names, every single account of the events that integrate the when with the who are mere interpretations by those people who were chosen by human authorities to be heard, seen, and read by us. Numerous times vast amounts of written information have been utterly lost to us as we stand here in the so-called "present." The library in Alexandria Egypt was destroyed on several occasions, for example. Secrets lost about our species from those tragic events will never ever be known to us, nor our descendants.

Many leaders in the last few millennia have doomed us to a certain amount of ignorance about our very selves, and then used that ignorance to replace what they had taken, literally rewriting history.

So, pause to consider that our society is NOT the accumulation of our recorded knowledge. We are very, very much more than. The events that have shaped humanity are magnitudes more complex, rich and varied than all of the now-stored information on all media substrates around the world. Taken further, it is not unreasonable to assume that we know less about ourselves and our heritage on this planet than we CAN know, ever (while in the flesh).

Yet, we throw around our present ideologies as if they are the final products of the mastery of an advanced space-faring culture. We are so profoundly deluded about who we are--where and when we came from, that, by comparison, we would actually be better off trashing these ideologies and starting over again, each with our own personal ideology--formed by careful study and judicious observation of the broken pieces of those mass ideologies we should abandon. By that, I mean there are good points for each of us to build a reality-mosaic (a world view) in each "ism" that has been proposed (or rather, remembered by historians). As things stand at this point, the negative and divisive points that must be adopted as philosophic accessories to the positively-useful points are creating permanent tears in our planetary society--across all cultures, local and global.

The problem is that the majority of people assume that other smarter human beings have already constructed the very best ways to think. It is just a matter of studying, discovering, and choosing one or two of these. And, that same assumption has enfolded within it the requirement that once-chosen, a person's mass-ideological identification must then be jammed down the throats of all the people who have (according to the jammer) chosen lesser answers.

This year, with the election of a new American president immanent in November, this terrible flaw in general human thinking has reached its apex for potential destruction. The flaw was created by history--as written by the winners, perpetuated by those public figures who have benefitted from the most political-power-giving ideologies, and is now being beamed into every device on earth by a profit-driven mass media, via the most effective communication technology the world has ever known. This is a perfect information storm. No one on earth realizes the extent to which its momentum will affect us all.

It is all pedal-to-the-metal, while the brake line is steadily being cut by those who don't even know just how fast the vehicle is moving. Several probability curves have begun to turn sharply upward.

The first is a nuclear-armed North Korea, painting itself into a corner with bravado, bluster and the insane personal hubris of a revenge-blinded young idiot-leader: Kim Jong-un. No one, and I mean NO ONE, ever threatens indefinitely. Were he more intelligent and farseeing, he would keep his nuclear cards closer to the bottom of the deck. Instead, his inexperience and desire for historic relevance has meant that not only does he presume to threaten his enemies, he intends to follow through on his threats. He will make a diplomatic mistake and be forced by his own pride to follow through, if he doesn't make a physical mistake first and accidentally follow through. It is going to happen. Period. Mark my words well.

Secondly, we have an Islamic group that is not just radicalized and demonically twisted beyond all recognition of civility, but fueled with a the butane gas valve of religious zealotry and the match-wielding vigor of martyring insanity. There will never be another religious terrorist group as demented, well-organized and focused as the so-called Islamic State (IS). It is even more effective at turning non-Islamists against the 95% of peaceful followers of that religion than any non-Islamic group has been at doing the same thing. They will continue to grow. Military action will not stop them. Being fought against is the most fortuitous possible outcome for them. And the west is about to hand them that very victory. If the nations of the world go to war against IS, only those nations will suffer.

Thirdly, climate change - whether it is being fueled by human activity or not - is well on its way to changing the world's environment irrevocably. In two or three years it will be completely uncontrollable--if it isn't already. I'm afraid this curve has probably become asymptotic. We are too unorganized and divided to work together at this time to contain that genie. It is a tragedy of immense importance and we will be talking about its results (assuming the species survives) long after all of these cultural and social problems have been settled--if they are settled.

Forth and finally, the election process of the most powerful human political position in the world is at hand. The divisive choices of Donald Trump's platform would never have flown even four years ago. The fermenting polarization of left/right, liberal/conservative, blue/red or whatever they are, have bubbled to the top of the carboy. There is no cork strong enough to keep the pressure from blowing the top off. Now that physical violence has finally worked its way out of the rotting leash that once kept it tied in the backyard, Donald Trump will lose control of it--as is beginning to happen now. Even if he is not nominated, or is nominated but loses the general election, the excuse provided to physically fight (made okay by the mind numbing repetition of its presence in the mass media) has provided all the little brat-bullies on all sides the venue for the social cage match of the century. This is by far the most dangerous part of what is happening now.

Groups of angry people have a chaotic and random set of behaviors that develop. Europe knows this well. America hasn't truly seen it since the American Revolution. Even the Civil War was not dominated by angry groups at its start. It was primarily the conflicts between political leaders that led to that terrible few years. But those two major continental wars shared one thing--their inevitability.

In the next few months we will see if the violence continues. If it does and grows in intensity, no peace movement, non-violent protests nor artistic political statement will prevent all out chaos and possibly a second American Civil War; no matter who wins the presidency, they will not be able to rule either side. Other groups will splinter off and begin to fight each other within sides, and essentially we will have the American version of what is happening in Iraq and Syria.

NOW, let's sum all of this up.

If America becomes distracted by its own internal conflicts, things will get desperately dangerous for all other nations. The international economy will go into erratic spasms, as it descends into a worldwide depression. Without control of budgets, militaries will degrade, become unusable by the first world and terrorism with get a leg up--perhaps both legs. Transportation will be seriously restricted. Within the borders of the US travel restrictions will be instituted.

This would be a perfect time for the little Korean idiot to follow through on his threats, taking out Seoul in South Korea. The several nuclear-armed nations in the world (depending on who is running them) would be obligated to make some response. It would likely lead to the utter destruction of the nation of North Korea. But, since everything would be so disorganized among these former superpowers--now, without the US as a superpower, Russia might feel emboldened to grab its old Soviet Bloc nations and anything else it felt like taking. China would swallow up East Asia, including Japan (who would no longer have US protection).

I could go on and on. And of course there is a different calculus for each step, if we rewind the terrible scenarios above right back to this very day. Can you catch the gravity of what is going on in front of your very own eyes? Can you see why I have stressed ACTION over thoughts and words? We still have a chance to put our backs up against the little snowball at the top of the mountain. It has not yet been pushed far enough to roll.

The end of history as we know it is coming in 2017. And, I don't even have to risk climbing out on a limb to predict it. It won't be the end of the world. But it will be the end of reality as written by the minority of winners. From January 1, 2017 forward we will all be winners or we will all be losers. But the determination of that fate is coming within these next three months or so, not on election day.

The best way of avoiding what I described above is to somehow stop the politically charged physical violence. Only then can we work out the other aspects of these rising curves. Let's start with that.

Change must happen in our hearts--all our hearts. I know this sounds wildly unrealistic to expect. We simply MUST do what is morally correct with each other and not even think about whether it is politically correct or not. The latter term must be ignored for the former term function.

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After some TV and more interesting discussion we all turned in for the night. The next day would be a special treat, beyond what any of us expected.