Authored by Chris Martenson via PeakProsperity.com,
Either it ends... or we do.
More and more, I hear that folks are feeling frustrated and betrayed, combined with a sense of loss and despair. I feel this way, too.
As I've written recently, I observe this is due more than anything else to a widespread demoralization society is suffering from.
Certainly the statistics reflect this. Suicides in the US are up 30% since the turn of the millennium, obesity is at epidemic proportions, mortality rates are rising especially among white working-class Americans, and our national opioid addiction is now the “epidemic of epidemics.”
To these we can also add falling birthrates and the truly startling shift towards a younger age for the onset of depression; declining from age 30 now to age…14(!)
When an organism gives up on self-care, breeding, or its will to live, it's suffering from a tremendous amount of strain that is cutting it off from its own life force. A dispirited lion wasting away in a cage has a lot in common with the average American today.
At a deep level, what ails us is not a host of unrelated, intractable problems, but the fact that our model of pursuing eternal economic growth simply isn't working anymore. It doesn’t work for the planet’s increasingly strained ecosystems, nor does it work for the bottom 99% of folks in society (i.e., the non-elites).
The various health epidemics noted above are merely symptoms of a larger acute spiritual crisis.
But viewed at a certain angle, this may be a good sign.
Why? Because in order to shift from one model to another, the old one first has to become unbearable.
And, as the data cited earlier is making increasingly clear, our addiction to growth is killing us and the ecosystems we depend on.
Look, if you're a well-nourished human being -- physically, emotionally and spiritually -- then you have a heartfelt appreciation for the Earth. You can clearly see that it's achingly beautiful, perfect, and abundant. It is your home, your mother, the source of all your sustenance, and the one and only vessel for your children and grandchildren (born or as yet unborn) -- stretching as far into the future as you can imagine.
I'm completely in love with this world and with being alive in it. I love the beauty of Nature and all of its life forms, each beautiful and complete in its own way, just like this dragonfly:
Nature and our connection to it is about creation, flux, and regeneration -- it's deeply spiritual. To live in a world solely of materialism, devoid of deeper meaning and connection, is be the caged lion wasting away.
The loss of life on this planet, the diminishment of once complex ecosystems into barren, simplistic shadows of their former selves, is a source of very real and profound sadness. It...