Dealing with dread
Gulp! Today, we stand on the brink of creating such radical climate change that civilization, as we know it, may not survive. It may just collapse. Or we can start tossing nuclear weapons at each other and end up with a completely barren planet, incapable of sustaining life. As Bette Davis put in in the 1950’s movie All About Eve, “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”
Stay with me for just a little longer. Take a breath. Right now, check in. Do you feel any dread and anxiety? Are you asking yourself, “Why don’t people do more to fix this? Don’t they see what’s coming?” Maybe you feel a little like the tragic Greek figure, Cassandra felt. Cassandra was a woman in Troy who offended the Gods. Her curse was to know the future but never to be believed. During the Trojan War she desperately tried to warn her city and was ignored. (“Come on, lady. Greeks inside that beautiful statue of a horse? You’ve got to be kidding me!”). Tragedy followed. If you are looking around and seeing all the climate change denial that is going on, then you know how she felt. Internationally, and locally, we are surrounded by people and institutions who are motivated primarily by greed and short-sighted self-interest. They have no intention of changing their bottom-line profits or their comfortable lifestyle for the sake of saving the earth for their grandchildren. No one is listening.
More accurately, not enough people in power are listening. For the next twenty years, all the efforts we will make to ameliorate the destructive impact of climate change will not be sufficient. Many will die. So, what can we do? If we survive as a species (and we may not) our grandchildren’s children are going to have to rebuild this world, a world that greed, hatred, unregulated Capitalism, selfishness, denial and arrogance has almost destroyed. What can we do today to help those future survivors in their work of rebuilding a more sustainable civilization? And what can we do for ourselves, to help us manage the stressors those events are having on us, and will have on us and on our loved ones?
Unless there is a profound cultural shift in how we see ourselves, we are in big trouble. As a civilization, we need to understand that we are not the Lords and Masters of nature and Owner of our ecosystem. Our cherished tool, technology, will not get us out of this mess. All the AI in the world will not help, if there is not a fundamental change in the way we relate to the natural world. Unless technological innovations are grounded in a moral and spiritual perspective that honors the Earth, one that holds us as trusted stewards of nature, and one that grows our compassion and our integrity, then our species may not make it to the year 3000. But where can we find a paradigm for a new role for humanity, and for a new form of leadership, than can effectively address what this climate catastrophe is demanding? I believe the Tao Te Ching holds the keys for our survival.
Many spiritual works outline a path of devotion, self-understanding, and service that leads to deeper spiritual development and self-realization. But too often, they can become popularized and twisted into excuses to move away and isolate from our world, or become a cult of fanatic believers, or they can be homogenized into excuses to only look inward, and to ignore the suffering all around you. Lao Tsu wanted his believers to be in this world, but not so much that they lost touch with that which permeates all of creation. Rather, he wanted people to lead and impact the world, all the while embodying a connection with the divine truth that unites us with each other and with all of creation.