What can Individuals do?
In my first blog, I discussed the lack of creative vision from our leaders in these crucial challenges for humanity and increasing hardship for individuals. Yin-Yang philosophy teaches us about complementary or seemingly opposite forces. In this case, Leaders cannot exist without Followers, the vast majority of ordinary people who work hard to make ends meet and whose main conscious contribution to society’s governance is voting. Repeated opinion polls (certainly within North America) show that there is a significant gap between people’s acknowledged concerns - e.g global warming and energy conservation - and their willingness to make practical changes to remedy those concerns. They talk the talk but are unwilling to walk the walk. Why do ordinary individuals not care, not feel able to affect society or are simple unwilling to change? Here are a few (far from exhaustive) reasons:

Within the last 50 years, technology has dramatically changed our lives in ways still not generally acknowledged. The speed and power of computers, combined with a competitive job (free) market, make us work longer hours in more stressful conditions. Many are too exhausted after a working day to think of their own future, much less our national or planetary future. This inaction, although understandable, gives our rulers carte blanche to do what they will, which in turn takes our problems worse. On the individual level, living with continual stress can and does eventually result in a wide variety of serious illness, which impacts both our quality of life and our bank accounts. Stress and pollution are invisible and indirect, but do cost huge $ in time!

Secondly, although technology has provided us with more information and seeming choice, this does not necessarily or even mostly translate into better decisions and improved quality of life. Indeed technology consistently makes our lives more complex and confusing. We have become so accustomed to judging in terms of Quantity (size, volume, $), we find it hard to recognize innate Quality in things and people. The sheer volume of information and choice is often so overwhelming and confusing, we become numb and incapable of action. Those who want the Free Market to determine all social decisions in terms of bottom-line profit are turning their (and our) lives over completely to Quantity and away from Quality. Just look around to see the results!

A third reason why individuals feel and act powerless is that real power has become extremely concentrated in the hands of a relative few, who purposely foment confusion and distraction in order to keep and further their power. Corporations, which have somehow (I wonder how!!) come to be seen as the indispensable engines of our economy, exercise enormous power through their sheer wealth and size of their work forces, since they can manipulate their performance and can easily transfer (or threaten to) their operations to other, less regulated countries. Big corporations also powerfully influence major media organizations (purveyors of “facts” to the populace) because they own them or perhaps have an enormous advertising budget, which media corporations cannot afford to lose. In addition, in many countries (certainly in America), a relatively small number of individuals regularly move between corporations and government, which is supposed to control those corporations. Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and George W. Bush himself are brazen and unapologetic examples. Many very credible books have been written on the use and abuse of corporate power, but it’s complex and lacking titillating celebrity gossip.. so most people don’t read them!

For the sake of blogging brevity, I will just mention one more, but very important reason. By and large, individuals lack the necessary level of awareness and consciousness (and presently the will and means to achieve it) in order to cope with the complex, interconnected society our technology has enabled. We are exhausted, over-worked and confused. We are even confused by the volume of supermarket-like choices that promise to take us out of our confusion!

What can we do? Perhaps the most promising and radical change we can make is within ourselves, since that is something which is direct and immediate; what is within us, determines all our external actions. This subject is worth many blogs and even multiple volumes of books. The good news is that profound change is possible (although not easy) and that consciousness of this possibility and actual practice is increasing. It is a major part of this blog to encourage and enable such change over disparate social, ethnic and religious backgrounds. I will close from a quote by Albert Einstein on my website’s landing page.

“Perhaps, someday, solitude will come to be properly recognized and appreciated as the teacher of personality. The Orientals have long known this. The individual who has experienced solitude will not easily become a victim of mass suggestion”.

Andy James