If we imagine that Man, having evolved a higher consciousness, may have some purpose and destiny; then, that the Procession of Time through the ages, was more or less inevitable, possibly to some extent ordained within a parameter of free-will, is almost unavoidable; it follows that Humans had to go through what we may see presently and retrospectively as historical trials and traumas in order to be fashioned, to fashion ourselves and our consciousness towards a sought-for mould, individually and collectively; or self-destruct. Almost.
Boom ! A lot to ‘take on board’.
Need a drink ?
Mebbe a joint ? [ Have just re-read Gilbert Shelton’s ‘Fabulous Furry Freak Bros’, after 60 years. Passing classics, and very funny ]. NB. Steer clear of all man-made chemical drugs. [1] [2]
We’re talking about a ‘Procession’ not of some 200,000 years, (Homo Sapiens), but of some two and a half million years or so, (Homo Erectus). OK, if you want to be picky, of some 30 million or so years, (Hominoids). [3] Sounds far-fetched ? Take a look around. Yes, we are some sort of mini-microbes in some vast universal experiment, or destiny, apparently egotistically selfish and destructive, valuable only when we have our minds and beings in a universally positive paradigm. Almost.
And this notion puts our contemporary terrestrial understanding of Time under a different lens. It’s as though modern adults exist as toddlers reaching for universal understandings that their parents and teachers deny [4]. ‘Time’ for a child is a wholly different medium to adult Time, (let alone ‘Time’ for an old man). So much depends on our state of being mentally and physically, much of the latter dependent on the former; much of our mental states consequent on levels of family and community care, love in childhood, and in adulthood.
The suggestion is that humans have purpose, and possibly a universal destiny that we have yet to discover for ourselves. It likely being of a universal nature, we may imagine it to be of positive benefit to Life and all life-forms, not what we as a species have been pursuing; not the greed, chaos, destruction, warfare [5] and despair, that has continually and presently threatens life on earth, that creative thinkers and writers have bemoaned for centuries. I wonder, Were one able to take a step back from the planet, to view the state of humans and life on earth from afar, what one would make of it ?
What we appear to have progressed positively over the centuries are our use of fresh water – for cleanliness and hygiene, the faucet, washing-machines, plumbing and drainage, and the creation of canals for agriculture and transport – electricity, (questionable), the creative arts and music, the evolution of writing and the printing press, and sophisticated fashioning of clay and wood. The rest appear as passing industrial technologies, abandoned as time moves on. Then there’s the mega question of ‘Civilization’, which has more to do with obscene high-rise cities than the evolution of civilised humankind; not entirely my idea of evolution, and possibly not ‘the gods’’ either ?
Arguably, our psycho-emotional negativities have squandered time and practically everything else. Time has become constrained, so much is happening so fast, much of it challenging, that mere mortals struggle to keep up. [6] It seems that the speed of what we have created artificially – ‘the busy-busy’ – cauterises real feeling and human exchange, runs us off our feet, and damages our mental health, whomever we may be. Optimists imagine we humans can continue in the same mould for years and centuries to come. Amidst the breakdown and chaos that surround, Time does not appear to be on our side.
Have we complicated ourselves, become more complicated, more confused ? Do we need to simplify ? Have we been misled ? Undoubtedly. It would appear that our greed and its fellows of a challenging nature have run amok for five or six thousand years – a blink in time – and continue to, to the advantage of a few un-good people, to the detriment of the great majority, up to some contemporary point threatening widespread collapse.
Can we come to our senses in time ? Can we hope for some divine intervention, in time ? The suggestion is that the two are connected; that Ibrahamic religions may have misled their followers [7]; that the People of Earth need to work it all out for themselves, individually, to ‘go deep’ and for-real; and to come together to express themselves and to listen to each other profoundly, setting aside their personal stuff. How currently alive humans respond to the imminent collapse of life as we know it will determine the future for our surviving children and grandchildren. Almost.
You may like to read our Charter [8].
Copyright © Gaunts Publishing 2023.
[1] Including mass-produced pharmaceutical drugs, (natural aspirin, OK)
[2] NB2 for HM Fuzz. No, neither I nor anyone here indulge in anything illegal.
[3] See ‘The Wise of Time – What Ever Went Wrong ?’, Gaunts Publishing, 2021-22.
[4] See ‘the Busy-Busy’ in ‘White Elephants and Rainbows’, Gaunts Publishing, 2007 – “On the way home, Mthunsi tells me they are losing their sense of extended family. There’s a shedding of local communities. People are becoming more insular. Increasingly, they spend less and less time with uncles and aunts. I ask him why this is so. He is sad and uncertainly ashamed about it. It’s because they are becoming ‘busy-busy’, that and the need to earn a crust. Money seems to have an opposite effect to what is claimed. It seems to limit their lives rather than add to them. I ask about ‘busy-busy’. It’s when they get a car, he says. It takes up so much time. I think he means more than cars, telephones and televisions too. Later on, he braves himself to tell me a secret. It’s something quite dreadful and deeply worrying. They are losing their sense of sharing. The world of total sharing they have known, that is of a value beyond expression, is getting lost. Their world is shrinking to the single self and immediate family. In the struggle for better living standards, they are becoming more selfish, which is limiting their existence. It is very worrying, a deep fear, a deep wrong, he does not know how to cope with. He watches it happening, and lives in exemplary ways at home and at work. Nevertheless, it’s like a creeping plague they can do nothing about.” – Xhosa perceptions.
[5] Active wars at time of writing : Afghanistan, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Colombia*, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Israel, Ivory Coast, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico*, Mozambique, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, Palestine, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, and Yemen. (*Drug Wars). Minor conflicts not included.
[6] NB. Time is not money.
[7] Jeshua was a fine teacher and healer. Saul-Paul, known to be a ne’er-do-well, never heard or set eyes on Jeshua, his contemporary. See ‘Come Sunrise’, Gaunts Publishing, 2019-2020.
[8] Pls NB. A list of Gaunts Publishing works is available on request. The publications can be read at Gaunts, but most are not available for sale or dissemination.
