A Brief History of the Future

It may be noted in the far distant future that the arc of existence for the human species was a rather short one.  On the grand scale of earth’s time frame, our kind will be considered a blip.  The question will be, if there’s any creature capable of asking, was it inevitably so?

In the brief period of our development, the human brain has grown into a capacity for enjoying the luxury of mental activity we call “the mind”.  An imaginative brain was certainly a survival advantage in its early stages because it led to innovation beyond innate capabilities.  To beat the odds in the struggle for survival means to flourish.  Within any biosphere, a flourishing species is a threat to balance, and balance will always, ultimately, prevail. 

Unlike many other constructs we grasp with our minds, balance is not a mythological one; it is fundamental physics.  The mythologies that persist among our species, according to Joseph Campbell, are all defunct and dangerous.  These dominant narratives are driven by two primal, emotional themes: fear and desire.  Despite our advanced cognitive abilities and marvelous technological achievements, we persist with motivations keyed to our pre-historic struggle for survival.  Ironically, by not moving past these base motivations designed to ensure survival, we are ensuring our demise.

Clinically speaking, we collectively exhibit the self-destructive, self-delusional behaviors of addiction.  The object of our collective addiction is our story-based life.

Throughout our short tenure on the planet we have crafted stories that reinforce these base emotional responses of fear and desire and these stories are pushed hard, beyond mere proselytizing.  We use the full weight of our economic and military means to force these imaginings on each other and on a disinterested planet.  Our struggle for survival could and would be over entirely if our stories had evolved along with our imaginations.  We certainly have many examples of sustainable narratives, but they do not prevail over those promoted by the greedy that are modeled on scarcity.  

Story-based life is a definitive aspect of a tribe or cult, and the larger human experience can’t seem to move past its tribal machinations.  Although the dominant culture in our lifetime is essentially that of a warring tribe or death cult, we popularly use labels such as “pro-life” with intentional deception, and recast morality exemplars into schemers for convenience.  The examples of labeling chicanery in use today are too many to list.  It is not merely convenient to re-name things or re-write history, instead of consulting the record, it is the basis for our tribal existence. In all likelihood, we will cling ever-tighter to the myths that have all-but-certainly determined and hastened our fate.  

Because we now prevail in a biosphere that was formerly balanced in all its diversity, we are faced with an inevitable reality: a major "correction" is headed our way.  This much is indeed certain.  But the question remains for consideration, although it will be purely academic, inspired by the fossil record in a million years: was it inevitable that the short-lived human species had to be so urgently self-limiting?  It would perhaps be romantic to think otherwise, but with a strong will to survive and a clever, developing imagination, it's possible we could have gone down a different and longer road.  And, there still could be an alternate course correction we design ourselves.

So, if we catch a few breaks from a biosphere seeking balance, and if we can creatively use new technological tools to craft new, sustainable narratives before they are also co-opted by the greedy, we might have a slim chance at a breakthrough to escape the downhill portion of a short arc of existence.