In The Seeds of New Cultural Mitochondria, (@thegreatsimplification), Nate Hagens explores how to transform the widespread malaise into a source of energy for making change; "metabolizing anxiety into something new."
Individuals lie along a trajectory from a Pre-Tragic, to a Tragic, to a Post-Tragic mindset. With a Pre-Tragic mindset, people are, perhaps blissfully, ignorant of the rot festering beneath the surface. They do however, probably, feel the melancholy of scarcity, purposelessness, and isolation. How in the world are people in the wealthiest nation in the history of the globe choosing not to have children because they don't have enough hope for the future? Because kids are too expensive?!? There is clearly something wrong.
Once someone starts asking these questions and do enough research, it is near inevitable to fall into an aimless gloom. How has it become this way? The corruption, greed, and selfishness that undergirds our economy is sapping the energy of our souls as if we are batteries in the Matrix. That so much power is in the hands of so few, and that so many are without the power to choose is a disgrace. And what can any one person do? Next to nothing, it seems. And the gloom grows darker; until they start to share, and find that many other people feel the exact same way. And a light shines in the darkness.
A Post-tragic mindset has rediscovered hope in the future. Maybe they have found enough people to form a network and community of allies. Maybe they have discovered the power of ecology to support and sustain our life, as long as we support and sustain in return. Or maybe they have discovered that they are much happier accepting less than they ever were chasing more. The once smothering anxiety has become the fuel for meaningful action.
Nate describes 11 Qualities that Could Change the Future
0. Self-Care
You cannot fill someone else cup if your pitcher is drained. First become well enough to be an effective actor. Eat, sleep, and stay hydrated and connected with others.
1. Grounding
A grounded person is centered, with a sense of self and place. They are foundationally stable enough to remain still amidst chaos and insanity, offering a haven in the storm for those around them.
2. A Post-Tragic Mindset
Operating out of hope and abundance rather than fear and scarcity, as described above. Post-Tragic thinkers find ways to spend their life energy on paving a broad ecological economy to act as a parallel suspension system for the techno-industrial norm.
3. Networked
Nature is decentralized, and so are the most resilient human systems. Food, shelter, energy, purpose, and surplus generated widely on a small scale will resist collapse better than centralized homogeneous monopolies.
4. Coregulation
Relationships create purpose. We are social animals through and through, and operating alongside each other we turn 2 + 2 into 5. An altruistic society will always outperform a selfish one. We feel safe when we are seen, heard, and accompanied; and our mirror neurons fire in response to form deep bonds of respect, loyalty and trust.
5. Systems Thinking
A holistic approach manages complexity to influence the emergent properties of interdependent systems. Much like natural processes, even in AI models inputs are fiddled with and outputs change, with much of the alchemy hidden from even expert understanding.
6. Restraint
Temperance is a virtue for good reason. The fact that it is so easy to fall into the opposite makes it even more important to practice. "Restraint is power that refuses to waste itself. An ecological economy is grounded in stewarding natural resources and living within their limits.
7. Status Free
People are equal at their core. While all of the outcomes one might see in their life are a result of their own decisions, much of the choice differential boils down to circumstance. Someone who knows where their next meal is coming from has no need to steal food, and someone who has the means to earn a living should be ashamed to take from someone else doing the same. When food and shelter are generated locally and reliably, individuals can express and operate within their own genius.
8. Feeling Beyond Knowing
Science is discovering ever more how little we actually understand. "Shifting "Ego' to 'Eco' " will let us move forward with a mind open to the real possibilities for a brighter, greener world.
We hope to foster the ecological economy that lets people embody these qualities through ecological stewardship, holistic management and grazing, and distributed food and shelter models. All to leave the world more beautiful, bountiful, and resilient than we left it.
