Listen to a reading of this article: I don't desire a future for humanity like the ones imagined by our culturally designated future-imaginers. I don't want humans living in Elon Musk Mars colonies or Jeff Bezos space cylinders. I don't want us to fly out into the stars, to disappear into virtual reality universes, or to move away from our humanness by becoming cybernetic organisms.
A more of us "in the moment" and a less of the desired inanimate garbage that ends up in the landfill.
I am in Panama. Stores here sells Christmas trees imported from Quebec Canada. And tons of tinsel, Garland and multicolored christmas balls. We are 6 hours away from Panama City the main container port. There are butterball turkeys. Yuch. A force fed animal that has never seen the light of day, butchered for special occasions, stuffed with some concoction that is not butter, wrapped in thick plastic, frozen and shipped by truck, boat, truck, boat, truck, truck, so some spoiled asshole can gorge themself into a diabetic shock with piles of food. The next day add a mass of garbage to the landfill. WTF are we doing?
What an absolute waste of human energy and time. It is the tragedy of humanity.
The reason most are here is to get away from the rat race and enjoy the weather. We get here and bring there, here.
We poison the planet. We poison ourselves. We have lost our minds. This is not what "the Christ" is about. This is not peace and goodwill towards men.
Caitlin, you make a lot of thought-provoking points, for which I am grateful. But perhaps you know:
* You are landing on Plato's side of the literature argument between Plato and Aristotle. Plato wanted only lofty literature that elevated people. Aristotle wanted it all: realism, fantasy, etc. I am in Aristotle's camp because Plato ultimately wanted to ban 99% of the authors, like Homer, because they weren't down for his program of reprogramming the human race to be ruled by philosopher-kings.
Damn artists want to pursue their own independent visions!
If humans want to achieve peace and integration, they probably should study Carl Jung, specifically his concept of the shadow. The person who claims to be all light probably doesn't realize that he or she has equal parts shadow. If you are unaware of your shadow, it becomes dense and black, and the evil pops out in the worst way. Example: George W. Bush and Obama always talked about peace and love and freedom, and they bombed the hell out of everyone. With Obama, we were at war with someone for literally eight years straight, making him worse than Bush.
The ultimate goal, for Jung, was consciousness, which happens when we integrate our entire personality. This is difficult because our shadows contain everything we hate about others, and ourselves.
You don't have to act out the shadow, but you have to be aware that you can't get rid of it. You have to learn to express it in non-lethal ways.
Literature, movies, etc., can help us do that. We aren't getting ideas about murder and conquest from art. Those ideas are already present within us. By blaming those people over there, and saying how evil they are, we are just creating a dense, black shadow that will explode. Hence: Bush, Obama, Antifa, Biden's Injustice Department, etc.
Carl Jung is a great place to start. He's deep and endless, so be prepared to go on a journey of decades.
I am old enough to remember the cartoon "The Jetsons" which I believe came out in 1960. The hype surrounding it was palpable, even for this 9 year old. What wasn't lost on any of us was the fact that the family lived pretty much in space, drove from space pod to space pod without any of us seeing any type of "Earth."
But the biggest irony was that 1960 life was living in the future: commuting to work LA-style, waiting at stop lights floating in space as if they were on the ground, typical "Hi Jane, I'm home" 1960 wife making dinner for the whole clan. Kids talking like 1960's kids, and so on.
Our collective imaginations tend to think that we've done this, did that so much that we deserve a future resplendent in things we don't have now with people who aren't like us (at least the bad stuff anyway) doing things we can't do now. But in so ruminating about this, 2022 "Us" always seems to be creeping into the vision: we live in bubbles on Mars or some other distant galaxy pretty much the way we're living now, only with cuter clothes and nobody's fat. I think they call it "the nuclear family"...oh wait...that's what they called us in 1960. My bad
Caitlan, you have articulated the past 15 years of my thinking on our technological obsession and the obsession of the few for space exploration. (Though I'm not opposed to giving the billionaires one way tickets to the sun.)
The oft maligned late Episcopal bishop, John Shelby Spong, postulated that Christianity completely missed the notion that Jesus's teaching actually represented a shift in human conscientiousness. That is something else I have pondered for 15 years, and there is plenty to suggest he was right. Two thousand+ years later and we still cling to might makes right.
It is interesting that such things as weapons and space follies aren't actually "profitable." Oh sure, the corporations on the dole make out like the bandits they are. But it is all corporate welfare extracted from hard working ordinary people, and when their taxes can't cover the absurd expenditures, it is just piled onto the debt of future generations.
Here is an excerpt of a letter to humans from "the Creators" that wrote a few years back.
Space colonization and travel is a boy escapist fantasy thing, obviously. Different versions of this theme are as old as the pyramids. How do we convince them to come down to Earth and meet the challenges for scaled appropriate technologies for every day humans that can lead them to great self-reliance and resilient healthy communities. In different ways, I have tried to pose this question to Elon. Of course, in a crowd of millions, there is no chance this will ever get an answer. He did once, I notice, say he could not think of anything more horrible than living forever. Though he flirted with the transhumanists once, he eventually found them unappetizing. Does not stop me from sending little love twitters like this. https://twitter.com/BrockSandiway/status/1592437945625378817
Good post. You have highlighted yet another facet of this massive cycle of abuse we live within. Master puppeteers tell us stories which justify and reinforce our slave status. These stories and the intent paralyze us into inaction. We are perpetually restless and like rats in a cage run endlessly on our wheels. We are under the impression there is somewhere we are going to or can escape to. We spin these restless wheels until we die. Living fully, well and consciously isn’t even imaginable under these circumstances. But it remains the only escape.
"We’d just be moving our restless, violent, insatiable, discontented minds offworld.. A head rattling with mental chatter would be incapable of experiencing any wonder in space exploration, and would be incapable of experiencing joy in the creation of virtual worlds."
Serenity is a good aspiration. But equanimity isn't the only way to experience wonder; and if your inner life finds joy regardless of physical location, there's a risk we've simply exchanged violent chaos for decadent introspection. I guess the latter is better, both for the natural planet and ultimately for individual contentment too - but...
Most stories in the current culture you describe are conflict based. Since humans are storytellers we can shift this model to one that is feeling based. As a screenwriter and playwright, I’ve committed to crafting stories that eschew the one structure that Hollywood holds dear - the hero’s journey (mostly misinterpreted). It’s a mindset in Hollywood that feeling based stories don’t sell because there conflict is king. I think your writing is proof that a shift is possible. Your readership is growing. People CRAVE different stories!
I have written three novels set in the future, trying to depict a positive future. Likely the publishers who rejected them were right about flaws in my writing skills, but I keep wondering if a key flaw was there WASN'T ENOUGH VIOLENCE in my stories.
Also want to comment: have you read any 1940s sci-fi? Man encounters aliens, and by the end of the story you can see that the aliens don't realize there are two human sexes because no woman has ever been mentioned. Unless the hero has to rescue a woman whose tits are bigger than her brain.
Third comment: I do feel that while the situation you depict is essentially accurate, you underplay the role of sociopaths in manipulating culture. This includes a sociopathic, violent, expansionary CULTURE which has taken over the world because willingness to use violence is an advantage. If our problem is that we're adolescent, what about the cultures of thousands of years ago, many of them wiser than our own? This is clearly true of the indigenous cultures of my own continent, North America. THEY were grownups--some of them refer to us as "younger brother." In other words, I don't think you can say much about "human nature" which is very plastic.
I very much doubt we'll be out in space, except in the metaphorical sense - which we've pretty well mastered. It's all talk. Put two humans in a space ship for any length of time and you have two crazy people with murder on their minds. And all astronauts so far have taken months to recover, suffered sever bone loss and psychological disorientation. It ain't happening. Just a big waste of money and talent. And the idea of abandoning Earth and colonizing Mars is for gullible fools, among whom we can include the physicist, Stephen Hawking: Mars has no life, whereas, to this point, we have some signs of it.
AGAIN OUR TAXES,,,WHAT WE PAY OUT OF HARD EARNDED MONEY DOES NOT HELP US OR OUR COUNTRY !!!,,, THEY (Taxes our monies) ARE HIJACKED TO SUPPORT DOMESTIC TERRORISM / Pedophile satanist murderous communist atheist entities to KILL US AND OUR CHILDREN AND OUR HOMELAND And if that dont get to you You Should SUPPORT YOUR 2A AND All YOUR RIGHTS OR DIE WITHOUT THEM OR A CHANCE TO SURVIVE 🎯 🇺🇸 🛡 🙏
A more of us "in the moment" and a less of the desired inanimate garbage that ends up in the landfill.
I am in Panama. Stores here sells Christmas trees imported from Quebec Canada. And tons of tinsel, Garland and multicolored christmas balls. We are 6 hours away from Panama City the main container port. There are butterball turkeys. Yuch. A force fed animal that has never seen the light of day, butchered for special occasions, stuffed with some concoction that is not butter, wrapped in thick plastic, frozen and shipped by truck, boat, truck, boat, truck, truck, so some spoiled asshole can gorge themself into a diabetic shock with piles of food. The next day add a mass of garbage to the landfill. WTF are we doing?
What an absolute waste of human energy and time. It is the tragedy of humanity.
The reason most are here is to get away from the rat race and enjoy the weather. We get here and bring there, here.
We poison the planet. We poison ourselves. We have lost our minds. This is not what "the Christ" is about. This is not peace and goodwill towards men.
Caitlin, you make a lot of thought-provoking points, for which I am grateful. But perhaps you know:
* You are landing on Plato's side of the literature argument between Plato and Aristotle. Plato wanted only lofty literature that elevated people. Aristotle wanted it all: realism, fantasy, etc. I am in Aristotle's camp because Plato ultimately wanted to ban 99% of the authors, like Homer, because they weren't down for his program of reprogramming the human race to be ruled by philosopher-kings.
Damn artists want to pursue their own independent visions!
If humans want to achieve peace and integration, they probably should study Carl Jung, specifically his concept of the shadow. The person who claims to be all light probably doesn't realize that he or she has equal parts shadow. If you are unaware of your shadow, it becomes dense and black, and the evil pops out in the worst way. Example: George W. Bush and Obama always talked about peace and love and freedom, and they bombed the hell out of everyone. With Obama, we were at war with someone for literally eight years straight, making him worse than Bush.
The ultimate goal, for Jung, was consciousness, which happens when we integrate our entire personality. This is difficult because our shadows contain everything we hate about others, and ourselves.
You don't have to act out the shadow, but you have to be aware that you can't get rid of it. You have to learn to express it in non-lethal ways.
Literature, movies, etc., can help us do that. We aren't getting ideas about murder and conquest from art. Those ideas are already present within us. By blaming those people over there, and saying how evil they are, we are just creating a dense, black shadow that will explode. Hence: Bush, Obama, Antifa, Biden's Injustice Department, etc.
Carl Jung is a great place to start. He's deep and endless, so be prepared to go on a journey of decades.
Sadly, you may not be interested in science fiction... but science fiction is interested in you
I am old enough to remember the cartoon "The Jetsons" which I believe came out in 1960. The hype surrounding it was palpable, even for this 9 year old. What wasn't lost on any of us was the fact that the family lived pretty much in space, drove from space pod to space pod without any of us seeing any type of "Earth."
But the biggest irony was that 1960 life was living in the future: commuting to work LA-style, waiting at stop lights floating in space as if they were on the ground, typical "Hi Jane, I'm home" 1960 wife making dinner for the whole clan. Kids talking like 1960's kids, and so on.
Our collective imaginations tend to think that we've done this, did that so much that we deserve a future resplendent in things we don't have now with people who aren't like us (at least the bad stuff anyway) doing things we can't do now. But in so ruminating about this, 2022 "Us" always seems to be creeping into the vision: we live in bubbles on Mars or some other distant galaxy pretty much the way we're living now, only with cuter clothes and nobody's fat. I think they call it "the nuclear family"...oh wait...that's what they called us in 1960. My bad
Caitlan, you have articulated the past 15 years of my thinking on our technological obsession and the obsession of the few for space exploration. (Though I'm not opposed to giving the billionaires one way tickets to the sun.)
The oft maligned late Episcopal bishop, John Shelby Spong, postulated that Christianity completely missed the notion that Jesus's teaching actually represented a shift in human conscientiousness. That is something else I have pondered for 15 years, and there is plenty to suggest he was right. Two thousand+ years later and we still cling to might makes right.
It is interesting that such things as weapons and space follies aren't actually "profitable." Oh sure, the corporations on the dole make out like the bandits they are. But it is all corporate welfare extracted from hard working ordinary people, and when their taxes can't cover the absurd expenditures, it is just piled onto the debt of future generations.
Here is an excerpt of a letter to humans from "the Creators" that wrote a few years back.
You earthlings have the most
remarkable gift. Try to imagine
anything better. As far as your eye can see
and your telescope can reach, there is no better.
The awesome beauty
and gift of love you are endowed with
in this home, your blue celestial orb,
ought to be enough to inspire great lives of
unceasing gratitude.
It ought to instill great care and
continuous marvel.
If you can’t see it now,
will you ever? Stop trying to
get to heaven. Recognize heaven now.
You are in the nightmare of
greed and destruction.
Awaken!
Creation has dawned, and
you are missing it!
Space colonization and travel is a boy escapist fantasy thing, obviously. Different versions of this theme are as old as the pyramids. How do we convince them to come down to Earth and meet the challenges for scaled appropriate technologies for every day humans that can lead them to great self-reliance and resilient healthy communities. In different ways, I have tried to pose this question to Elon. Of course, in a crowd of millions, there is no chance this will ever get an answer. He did once, I notice, say he could not think of anything more horrible than living forever. Though he flirted with the transhumanists once, he eventually found them unappetizing. Does not stop me from sending little love twitters like this. https://twitter.com/BrockSandiway/status/1592437945625378817
Good post. You have highlighted yet another facet of this massive cycle of abuse we live within. Master puppeteers tell us stories which justify and reinforce our slave status. These stories and the intent paralyze us into inaction. We are perpetually restless and like rats in a cage run endlessly on our wheels. We are under the impression there is somewhere we are going to or can escape to. We spin these restless wheels until we die. Living fully, well and consciously isn’t even imaginable under these circumstances. But it remains the only escape.
"The grass is always greener..." as they say. Humans are damaged. If this is accepted then everything falls into place.
"We’d just be moving our restless, violent, insatiable, discontented minds offworld.. A head rattling with mental chatter would be incapable of experiencing any wonder in space exploration, and would be incapable of experiencing joy in the creation of virtual worlds."
Serenity is a good aspiration. But equanimity isn't the only way to experience wonder; and if your inner life finds joy regardless of physical location, there's a risk we've simply exchanged violent chaos for decadent introspection. I guess the latter is better, both for the natural planet and ultimately for individual contentment too - but...
Shakespeare. Woolf. Kafka. Marlowe. Tsveraeva. Chaucer. Rodine. Michelangelo. Tolstoy. Bataille. Goethe. Conrad. Baldwin. Celine. Kerouac. Darwin. Cervantes. Leone. Strindberg. Dickens. George Eliot. Tolkien. Debord. Keynes. Lem. Da Vinci. Balzac. Becket. Carr. Rosetti. Wodehouse. West. Eco.
Chopin. Forster. Rimbaud. Picasso. Suyin. McCullers. Roy. Hardy. Tzu. Walker. Christie. Pilger. Greer. Proust. Dirac. Solzhenitsyn. Kusturica. Du Bois. Wollstonecraft. Didion. Kahlo. Turner. Rubens. Puskin. Gibson. Carroll. Voltaire. Lowey. Freud. Márquez. Angelou. Rousseau. Socrates. Hegel. Mill. Morrison. Calvino. Arendt. Levi. Virgil. Bacon. Fanon. Feynmann. Dahl. Carter. Spark. De Beauvoir. Hugo. Kant. Twain. Locke. Marx. Austen. Ai Weiwei. Flaubert. Nietzsche. Boccaccio. Hobsbawm. Achebe. Douglass. Newton. Berger. Genet. De Saint-Exupery, Joyce. Sebald. Zola. Lawrence. Barthes. Plath. Xinjian. Gogol. Heller. Wilde. Einstein. Dostoevsky. Kandinsky. Auden. Brontë. Rilke. To name a few dozen creatives off the top of the dome.
Not serene. Little equanimity. Lifelong discontent, sometimes violent, often chaotic. And, also, the best of human beings doing human being.
Most stories in the current culture you describe are conflict based. Since humans are storytellers we can shift this model to one that is feeling based. As a screenwriter and playwright, I’ve committed to crafting stories that eschew the one structure that Hollywood holds dear - the hero’s journey (mostly misinterpreted). It’s a mindset in Hollywood that feeling based stories don’t sell because there conflict is king. I think your writing is proof that a shift is possible. Your readership is growing. People CRAVE different stories!
I have written three novels set in the future, trying to depict a positive future. Likely the publishers who rejected them were right about flaws in my writing skills, but I keep wondering if a key flaw was there WASN'T ENOUGH VIOLENCE in my stories.
Also want to comment: have you read any 1940s sci-fi? Man encounters aliens, and by the end of the story you can see that the aliens don't realize there are two human sexes because no woman has ever been mentioned. Unless the hero has to rescue a woman whose tits are bigger than her brain.
Third comment: I do feel that while the situation you depict is essentially accurate, you underplay the role of sociopaths in manipulating culture. This includes a sociopathic, violent, expansionary CULTURE which has taken over the world because willingness to use violence is an advantage. If our problem is that we're adolescent, what about the cultures of thousands of years ago, many of them wiser than our own? This is clearly true of the indigenous cultures of my own continent, North America. THEY were grownups--some of them refer to us as "younger brother." In other words, I don't think you can say much about "human nature" which is very plastic.
Amazing.
Amongst your many great articles this one surely ranks amongst the very best. I hope you don’t mind me sharing it widely…
I very much doubt we'll be out in space, except in the metaphorical sense - which we've pretty well mastered. It's all talk. Put two humans in a space ship for any length of time and you have two crazy people with murder on their minds. And all astronauts so far have taken months to recover, suffered sever bone loss and psychological disorientation. It ain't happening. Just a big waste of money and talent. And the idea of abandoning Earth and colonizing Mars is for gullible fools, among whom we can include the physicist, Stephen Hawking: Mars has no life, whereas, to this point, we have some signs of it.
AGAIN OUR TAXES,,,WHAT WE PAY OUT OF HARD EARNDED MONEY DOES NOT HELP US OR OUR COUNTRY !!!,,, THEY (Taxes our monies) ARE HIJACKED TO SUPPORT DOMESTIC TERRORISM / Pedophile satanist murderous communist atheist entities to KILL US AND OUR CHILDREN AND OUR HOMELAND And if that dont get to you You Should SUPPORT YOUR 2A AND All YOUR RIGHTS OR DIE WITHOUT THEM OR A CHANCE TO SURVIVE 🎯 🇺🇸 🛡 🙏
one thing at a time. first lets get the explosives installed on the hearts of the guys with the launch codes, then think about next steps