Sticks and Stones

STICKS AND STONES, my traditional end-of-the-year message to you, friends.

Evolution of a species is made of imperceptible tiny changes. Please decide to invert the predatory traits of our species inward, and commit to a wondrous and game-changing act of violence against yourself: every time you feel fear and anger, every time you feel irritated, resentful, vengeful, depressed, anxious, dissatisfied, indignant, etc, even if your feelings are apparently justified, don't act on them. Instead, get skilled in practicing reaction delay times. Step back in silence, breathe, metabolize the adrenaline, sleep over it.?

Don't move forward or take action while you are in the red zone. Talk or act only when you have found a constructive word to say or action to take. Transform personal frustration into an act of patience, kindness, consideration and self-control.?

Harness the power of the natural impulsiveness and aggressiveness of our species to get constructive results. The natural aggressiveness of our species is like rocket fuel. It can cause a devastating explosion if uncontrolled but, if harnessed in the right direction, it can hurl our species into space.?

The idea is not to deny or repress anger, indignation or aggressiveness - which is impossible - but to acknowledge them, and work with them. Harness these impulses for constructive purposes.

If you are frustrated or unhappy with things around you, do not waste your time trying to combat destruction with more destruction. Instead, use the power of your fear, anger and moral indignation against injustice and pain to study hard, work hard, pray hard and do good things for yourself and everybody around.?

The angrier you are at the state of things in the world, the better things you do. And don't forget to smile always. Humbleness, hard work, deep studies, intense prayer, good deeds and smiles, considerate behaviour towards all. This, my friend, is what can change the game.?

Here's something I wrote, when I was ruminating about Einstein's one-liner 'I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.'

Dear Albert,

I have been posting mainly about peace and Christian love to my public lately.?

When old educators like me feel we have limited time to share the absolute indispensable with the youth, of course we focus on the essentials.?

Old educators are used to assess the average intelligence we are dealing with in a group, what the majority can learn or not, the environment and challenges that future generations will be facing soon, and what we can give them as leverage, in the hope they can build a better future.

?Educators from the heart strive to find the most efficient way to teach their students lessons that will "stick." Core lessons that learners are capable of:

1. understanding
2. memorizing
3. internalizing
4. using in practice

The "essentials" should become a living part of the pupil and stay with him/her for the rest of their lives, as a living part of who they are.?

If youth cannot understand it, or forgets what is taught, then educating becomes an exercise of futility. Teaching lessons that will fly right over the heads of learners is self-defeating.?

Let me put forward another sobering perception lingering around our current historical time: "mass extinction event." And that is pretty decisive for me.?

Unfortunately, many among the brightest minds in the world have been in resistant denial of this possibility for the last half century.

Many enlightened minds, when they admit the reality of a probable mass extinction event,?dissociate from reality and use the denial mechanism of psychological defense.?

They have a disconcerting reaction based on magical thinking: they imagine mass extinction happening exclusively in the "natural world" and to "other species."?

Even worse, they fantasize about mass extinction happening only to "other humans" and never hitting home.

However, we should know by now that, in this world, there are such facts as food chain, climate change, exhaustion of natural resources, domino effect, 8 billion of us on the planet, weapons of mass destruction, and so on.?

This is not a good mix, and enhances the chances of another mass extinction episode in our planet.?

Our species has survived a couple of these events so far. The difference is that past events were caused by Nature (Ice Age, natural climate change) and the current concerning trend of climate change is man-made.?

Another huge difference is that, in past events of climate change, we were far less numerous in the planet, with less technology and global interdependence. We were also far more adapted to a simpler subsistence lifestyle than the current urban masses.

By definition, any mass extinction event hits hardly the species at the top of the food chain (i.e., us). Here's the sobering news to my talented friends in denial. A mass extinction event includes "humans." All kinds of humans, including the rich, strong and powerful, saints and geniuses, and average individuals such as you and me. What I'm trying to say here is - the clock is ticking.

Back to you, my dear Albert Einstein, with my two cents.

Would the next mass extinction event occur, I'd rather spare humanity, the survivors of our current historical cycle, from some millions of years of re-evolution in the wrong direction, still built on fear, anger, violence, aggressiveness and destruction, and the vicious cycle of rivers of blood, tears, and wars, if we go on as a split-personality species, half collaborative, half predatory.?

I'd rather share my two cents now, in the hope of contributing to prevent that your fears, dear Einstein, become the self-fulfilled prophecy of the current and future eras.?

I know that for you, it was just that: a mental exercise, a theoretical construct, a fear that after a nuclear WWIII, humanity would wage WWIV with sticks and stones.?

However, as you know, the average mind doesn't understand thought experiments, and takes your words for real, dear Einstein, literally, as prophecy.?

Like children, most people trust in your words just because "Einstein said so." This is what I'd like to humbly counterpoint.?

Doomsday is now part of the imaginary of our species but does not have necessarily to happen in practice. We could avoid it with peace building and environmental protection.

We can avoid it by understanding that our species, in this first cycle of civilization, just inverted predatory behaviours of the food chain into our own species.?

When we separated ourselves from the original state of nature by building the first fences around our villages, we did not realize that we brought the state of nature with us, in our own nature, into civilization. We pursued and made our own kin captive, domesticated, and exploited human labour.?

We are still imprisoned in the vicious cycle of empires and slavery, expansionist colonialist wars to secure more slaves and resources, independent of the name and model of the political regime we are using to do so.

What we need is disruption, to change our own evolutionary direction. If we are aware of our own ferocity, the logical solution is not to conquer and domesticate "slaves" but to conquer and domesticate our own selves.

?I still would like to think that we can enhance the chances of avoiding cultural self-fulfilled prophecies with faithful, constant, training and education open to the great public for free.?

If WWIII does happen, and in the distant hypothesis that luckily humanity survives it, peace building and respect for Nature are the decisive factors to rebuild the world after it, and to give a collaborative, peaceful evolutionary direction to our species.?

So why getting fixated to the idea of war? Of WWIV being unavoidably waged with sticks and stones? Why one more war? Can't we simply learn from our mistakes, and change...?

I am sure that you, my dear Einstein, would find great solace in this thought: there IS a better alternative. The apex of our present era in terms of Life, and not Death. The best we could produce as a species. Instead of sticks and stones, may humanity start again on basic tenets such as Christ's words.

"Love your enemies. Pray for them. Forgive as you want to be forgiven. Do to others what you would have them do to you. Love one another as I have loved you."?

Five sentences, one basic idea: peace building. This is the essential. We have not learned it yet.?

We humans are slow learners. We will not learn to preserve life in the planet with complex lessons. Let us stay with the basic lesson that can be learnt, even if it still takes a few thousand years for us not only to learn it, but to introject it and use it in practice, as an acquired trait and second nature. The day most humans will be collaborative, nurturing and peaceful, not ferocious predators, always angry, always ready for hasty reaction, harsh words, retribution and conflict.

It is abundantly clear by now that we humans do not learn easily, not even when it comes to the basic human needs of being loved and protected to survive in a group.?

Most of us have difficulty to put mutual love and collaboration into practice, even if we are all vulnerable creatures in need of a lot of love, nurturing, protection and support to survive and thrive.?

As a social species, why don't we try to grasp Lesson 1 of Life 101 first, before going into further sophisticated teachings...? It is only logical. First things first.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another" (John, 13:34-35).

?Essentials first.

One last remark. Obviously, we try to educate and inspire those we love, change self-destructive behaviours, protect them from themselves, share remedies and strategies that will be helpful to their well being, give them new chances and perspectives while there is still time.?

During the 1980's, I realized with horror that the current historical cycle of self-destructive behaviours would not be stopped.?

It is currently difficult to shake our species from the lure of consumerism and lack of respect to the environment and to life.?

Also, these practices are now ingrained in our geopolitical-economic system. Consequently, it is a civilizational direction and momentum. It is likely that humanity will have to cope with its consequences.?

In the next centuries, our descendants will face the challenge of surviving what we have done to the environment and to ourselves in the past centuries. That's a given.

The point is - when someone is terminal, we instinctively stop our efforts to change their habits, and we stop trying to educate them in order to protect their lives. We silence, and we become mercy. We silence, and start praying, right? We keep them comfortable, keep them away from despairing.?

I'd daresay that our current civilizational cycle is well advanced into a terminal stage.

I educated, nurtured, inspired and loved youth all my life.?

This is the last thing I still have to share as my small legacy to future generations.?

It will be tough - but there is still hope. Learn how to love, learn the ways of humility, kindness, peace, and respect for the environment.

I know it may sound dreamy to the average mind of our current era. However, let us be practical here: there is no better option out there, is there?

This is the best bet we have: while our species is top of food chain on the planet, we must evolve to be good stewards of nature and of one another.

?This is the glaring obviousness. We all heard that before. Those who survive to live one more day, will hear that again.?

With Much Love,

Monica Do Coutto Monni

December 13, 2013