Save Our Species – S.O.S.

Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler.

- Albert Einstein -

After writing the Zen of Lego, I realised the importance of understanding what exactly we are talking about when we use every day terms that we are so familiar with using that we don’t stop to think about them any more. I like to do mind experiments where I take things back to the simplest concept possible to really understand what it is we are dealing with and gain understanding about why it exists at all. I believe that at root, everything is simple because it started off simple and can be expressed simply in a short sentence that sums up the thing’s true essence.

There is a problem though, simple doesn’t mean easy and in the West complexity is revered.  Often when the solution to an issue is simple but very difficult to face (either emotionally or physically), we have a tendency to complicate the issue as much as possible to make ourselves feel better about not doing something simple to fix it. If a situation is too complex for us to cope with, it takes away our sense of responsibility about not acting to resolve the situation.

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex… It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

- Albert Einstein -

I spent many years trying to understand what initially seemed an impossibly complex question – “why isn’t society moving in the direction the majority of ordinary, common sense Earth citizens want it to or at least claim that they want it to go?”. Whenever I discussed major issues like religion or politics or world hunger with my father or teachers and I suggested a solution to an issue I was always told “It’s just not that simple son”, with a patronizing “you’ll understand when you get older” added for good measure.

The World seemed just perfect the way it was. If we weren’t here, I was sure Earth would do just fine without us. I had to conclude that if the problems facing mankind arrived with us then they must have logically been of our own making. Now if we are making our own problems, the answer is simple – stop making them. I did say simple but not easy.

Frustratingly, every question I asked others or myself seemed not to lead not to answers but only to more questions. Clarity evaded me no matter how hard I searched for answers. After years of going round and round in circles, I stopped to wonder why questions only seemed to lead to more questions. It dawned on me that if it is us that make our own problems and we can’t seem to find the answers in what we know, the answers must be in what we don’t know not in what we think we do know.

Was it possible that our assumption that we know certain things, on which all our questions are then based, could be the source of the problem? Maybe I was asking the wrong questions because the assumptions passed down to us from previous generations through culture, language, customs and laws were flawed. Maybe we aren’t where we think we are socially speaking?

To get an idea bout how confusing this might be, imagine being given a map and compass, told that you are in the UK and asked to navigate your way to London. If you assume you are located in the UK because that’s what you were told but in reality, you are in the US, making any progress to the destination will be impossible. The map will never fit what you see around you. Until you finally question the information you were given and ask yourself, am I really in the UK? You will never make any progress.

From that point on I started to question as many of the basic assumptions about my perception of reality and what society accepts as real, true or valid as I could. I spent 25 years questioning the basic assumptions of daily life, not just by asking but also by living them. Some of the assumptions have proved to be valid and I now have an understanding based on hard experience why society chooses to adopt these conventions. Others have proved to be invalid simply because they are outdated and they just haven’t been revisited recently and others because our ancestors just got it wrong.

It has been like working on a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. To start with turning over all the pieces was just plain confusing and lead to what looked like a chaotic mess. Overtime I was slowly rewarded as some of the pieces began to fit together. Small parts of the picture started to take shape and form islands of sense disjointed and separate from the whole. Eventually, more and more of the small islands started to grow until some connected up to one another. Over the last 5 years as the picture has become more distinct and clear the process has accelerated.

At last, I can see the bigger picture and this Blog is where I want to share with you what I have discovered. I see what is threatening us as a species as I am sure most people do. To start with I found this overwhelmingly depressing and sad but as I have studied the picture more, I have found many reasons to hope. Best of all, I see a way we can change it if we want to and guess what – it’s not easy but it is simple