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Over
the years that I have
maintained this web site, it has served
as my "explorer's notebook". It documents,
in a
very personal voice, my journey of discovery through the worlds of
energy, ecology, economics and human culture. It describes what I
have come to understand as the largely unrecognized, widely
misunderstood and potentially tragic predicament facing
humanity as a result of our refusal to accept limits on our activities
or aspirations.
These selected articles trace my journey of discovery and
outline the core of my views:
Email me: paul.chefurka@gmail.com  The Visionary
Art of Kathleen Farago MaySmall acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.” Howard Zinn. The New Year: 2012
Over the years that I have
maintained this web site, it has served
as my "explorer's notebook". It documents,
in a
very personal voice, my journey of discovery through the worlds of
energy, ecology, economics and human culture. It describes what I
have come to understand as the largely
unrecognized, widely misunderstood and potentially tragic predicament
facing
humanity as a result of our refusal to accept limits on our activities
or aspirations.
Especially in my earlier writing, my tone was pessimistic to the point of despair. Over the last couple of years I have been consciously leavening my "voice of doom" by introducing ideas that I found offered me reasons to look up rather than down. I am still not an optimist about the future of our current cycle of civilization, but on a personal level I have found many insights that make life worth living - insights I would not have found without going through the period of intense despair precipitated by my research. The facts as I have described them in my various articles - the environmental and ecological devastation, looming energy limits, and irresponsibly unconscious sociopolitical behaviour - still stand. The implications of those facts for the near term are incontrovertible. Of course, the future is always unknowable to some degree, and the farther one looks out into it, the cloudier our crystal ball becomes. However, the implications of the facts as I lay them out remain pretty dire. Over the years I have seen two characteristic reactions to these facts. One is a stout denial, the other is a horrified empathy. The deniers tend to have a strong faith in human ingenuity, to see humans beings as exceptional creatures who create their own reality by virtue of our cleverness, and to regard human control over their destiny as a given. In contrast, the empaths tend to see humanity enfolded within the tapestry of life, influenced like all other living creatures by forces larger than ourselves. Empaths also feel the effects that our actions have had on other people and species, and feel the potential for continuing and worsening harm the longer our course of action goes unaltered. If an empath is at a certain point in their journey through life, such an awakening can easily throw them into a spiritual crisis. This is precisely what happened to me. For almost five years I was in the grip of an ever-worsening despair, something that could easily have been interpreted as a descent into clinical depression. I call it my "Dark Night of the Soul". Of course, in order to continue on in life there must be some resolution of such feelings, otherwise they lead to paralysis or worse. As with all spiritual matters, the eventual resolution is deeply personal and depends on the influences each of us encounters during our progression through the crisis. I can speak to the factors that influenced my breakout, but I have no way of knowing how universal they might be. The first issue for me was to recognize that this experience was indeed a spiritual crisis. After I had been in it for a while, I realized that the sense of emptiness, foreboding and alienation I felt sprang from a quite unexpected source. I gradually concluded that I was missing a sense of the sacred in my life. This led to the understanding that my situation would improve only if I could somehow find my way to that deeper core. I had been brought up in a scientific home, and had no exposure to these matters, so I had to discover my own path to a place where I could see my intrinsic connection to everything in the world. That journey began with the concepts of Deep Ecology, and also with the writing of Daniel Quinn - in particular his novels Ishmael and The Story of B. When I finally understood that human beings are an intrinsic part of the web of life and that we are not a broken species - that we are just telling ourselves some broken cultural stories - the light began to dawn. Some chance for change began to appear possible.. Once that was in place, I had to decide how I would personally respond to my awareness of the situation. The next step appeared in the form of Buddhist teachings: the suffering that I was experiencing came from clinging to a desired state of the world that I now knew would not last. Of course, nothing is ever permanent, change is inevitable. If we need to see a particular outcome in order to be happy we will inevitably suffer, because the future is always different from our expectations. Once I accepted that logic I was finally able to see the true value of actions that spring from the present moment - that my own influence on the world flows out of such grounded actions, and that this is the same for everyone. Finally, I understood that it wasn't my job to save the world, but rather to act as authentically as I could, and let destiny take care of itself. There are echoes of this awareness in Gandhi's quote, "Be the change you wish to see in the world." As we change ourselves into the sort of person we wish the world was made of, our ability to help others shift in that same direction increases. This is all we can ask of ourselves as individuals. Many people besides myself have found a personal answer to the planetary predicament by framing it as a spiritual crisis. We need a different way of living on the planet, different ways of interacting with each other and with other living beings. We need to tell ourselves a different story about who we are and why we are here. And this shift is within our grasp as individuals - we can each begin telling ourselves different stories, can change how we relate to the world, can shift our relationship with all life in a more positive, respectful, authentic direction. Every step I have taken in this direction has raised the curtain of despair a little more. I feel that humanity entered some very deep waters indeed, and the only way to cope effectively with such a profoundly threatening situation is to consciously remake ourselves as individuals. The key is to recognize that we are members of communities on many levels - from our families, neighborhoods and nations to the community of life as a whole - and perhaps even communities beyond what we normally recognize as life. If you are feeling a similar mix of outrage, grief and despair, it may help to recognize it as the early stages of a profound personal transformation - a metamorphosis into the sort of person the world needs as we continue our journey into the unknowable future. The keys to healing our relationship with the planet we share are the "Three C's": Consciousness, Compassion and Community. With best wishes for awakening in 2012, Paul Chefurka January
2, 2012  |
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