Overview Part 2

What would happen if people valued themselves, and others, for what they could give instead of what they could get?  What if people valued each other for who they are instead of what they possessed (be that fame, fortune, possessions etc.).  Unfortunately, this must be a conscious choice for each of us and cannot be imposed on any individual by any outside force.   

The world as we know it is falling apart.  Governments fail to serve the people they are purported to represent, and charge more than the market can bear for their inefficient and greedy non-service.  However, in the current paradigm, humanity would not survive without the pretense of government.  Anarchy, communism, socialism, theocracy, monarchy, democracy – none of these or any other form of government (or lack thereof) can truly work and yet we must, at present, rely on these structures to control, or at least keep order in, our lives.  How can we achieve control of anything external when we cannot even control ourselves as individuals?  How can we govern humanity when we cannot govern our own individuality?

Humanity cannot survive as a species if we continue with our current behavior patterns.  In this climate of unchecked consumption, where we use and discard not only our world, our culture and our environment, but each other as well, there is no chance for long term sustainability.  We see daily, through news and media, how easy it is for people (and they’re getting younger and younger) to kill or abuse others just to gain what we have been told we should want (or just for seeming power over others, or for fun?) – and told so often, from so many different sources, that we think that it’s truly our own desire, not externally imposed.  We have created amazing and wondrous methods of communicating with each other and have made it possible for any individual to communicate with any other individual – globally – without having to leave home, and yet we do not achieve true communication and are becoming more and more isolated and insulated from the world.