Suicide Civilization
As generations pass from parent to child there is a depletion of one to grow the other. The aging process on Earth forces humans to make commitments on what we will invest our youthful life force into before old age makes us feeble. Generally, that transfer is to our own family and children as the best investment that may give our life meaning and help protect and care for us in old age.
We do this with bigger structures of humans as in tribes, churches, and nations whose transfer agreements are sometimes governed by traditions and sometimes by law. Taxes and social programs are examples of our surrogate family bonds being institutionalized. All of this is very natural to human nature, but as we have experienced with modern governments, they can be extremely inefficient and even corrupt conduits through which to transmit our life force.
Now imagine you have worked hard for your life savings but you have a child that has no respect for your labors. On top of wasting your contributions to the natural flow of life force imagine they are not going to bother to continue the flow of life-giving into the next generation. Not only are they killing the present, but they are also killing the future and stealing the past. One bad apple can kill a whole bunch of generations. A suicide of a whole civilization can happen in a relative instant. The Designer of our life cycle and our desire to matter has made us extremely susceptible to giving…and to being betrayed.
How does the individual human organization, its own personal civilization invested with a past and a future, deal with a temporary mood, disease, or attitude that threatens suicide? Citadelization. Breaking up the centers of power between the mind, heart, and body keeps a single center from choosing suicide and betraying the whole internal civilization. The cells of the body can sense when a negative idea or emotion is a poison being spread to the whole body and will put the body to sleep. If the negative state persists then micro-organisms we think of as pathogenic that can lay dormant for years will attack the body by design. High fevers cook the mind clean and focus the heart on an emotional choosing of life over death.
Our hearts, when properly trained, can reconcile powerful emotions into love that can heal both mental and physical diseases. Our minds, when allowed to be curious, can pull us out of bed and out of a bad mood by discovery and its dopamine hit. When we look at our civilizations we can see that the best ones understood and amplified the needs of the individual human in all three centers. Church, sports, concerts, clubs, libraries, etc. It is normally a great investment to live in a town or a city where we can be in a harmonious give and take of energy just like our own body, heart, mind complex does for each of us.
But civilizations age and die too. They also get sick and sad and stupid on occasion while still young. The Civil War in the young United States became necessary to resolve a fundamental conflict over economic power and slavery that fortunately was resolved towards freedom and returned the country to health and power. Civilizations are remarkably similar to all the smaller organizations of humans all the way down to the single human. They all need doctors and health care, including therapy, when the idea of suicide is lurking around.
Is western civilization committing suicide? When deficit spending, chronic disease, and population decline are in exponential growth then we must have a death wish, conscious or unconscious. Are our children committed to the growth path that we followed? If not, then the Ponzi schemes of debt-based money and social security will collapse. Do our leaders seem capable of fixing the basic agreements we require to commit to these transfers of life force or are they vampires, for sale or hire, feasting on a soon-to-be bloodless carcass?
At some point, whatever hope we have for our wayward child or our corrupt government becomes exhausted. We have punished our children and elected new leaders but nothing changes. We individual cells start to withdraw our life force. The children lash out and the government gets more aggressive. Finally, the people have to pull the plug. We put the system to sleep. That is our responsibility. If periods of loss of vital force and funding do not reform our civilization then it is the civilization that is choosing death. It’s a suicide.
Life is so much easier and more fun and more fulfilling when there is a system of co-empowerment between its people. Civilizations form based on a win-win relationship inside the group. Naturally, we cling to hope that it’s a good and a fair deal to trade our life force within. We hold on tight to our children, our tribe, our church, and our nation because life without something to believe in is hollow. But whenever there’s a transfer of life force by written or unwritten agreement there’s also the ability for a member of the group to steal the wealth. This fundamental contradiction is resolved by citadelization.
We are selfish and take care of our own needs. We raise families and take care of their needs even if they are ungrateful until they have their own children. We live in groups and we look after each other and keep the freeloaders away. We live in nations to have protection and rule of law and identity. Since we know we can be betrayed at any level but still have this need to organize we defend ourselves by creating many citadels within our life. The bigger the citadel the less control. When an entire civilization is committing suicide it is a very messy reorganization. The best defense is creating and defending strong layers of citadelization. In advance.
Don’t stop caring. Don’t become a betrayer. Caring and loyalty are so precious as the glue that holds all lasting organizations together and are the test by which who belongs and who is going to suicide that citadel of life force. Remember doors, locks, gatekeepers, rules, and bouncers have a high purpose. Use them wisely.