A Human Era - the Next Step in the Evolution of our Human Civilization

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SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

For most of us, life is a far cry from our childhood dreams. Our lives often amount to a struggle to survive – a mixture of the costly stresses associated with the “modern” life. We rush through life in a nerve-racking frenzy and an endless race to get our chores done and our bills paid. We worry about what tomorrow holds – will we have a job, will we be healthy, will we have a pension when we retire?

We worry about whether it is still safe to walk our streets at night, and wonder if our boss will finally recognize our talents and devotion or if he’ll continue treating us like something he barely tolerates. And if this is all we worry about, we’re lucky! Millions of others face dreadful and inhuman conditions imposed on them by ruthless dictators and oppressors: lack of freedom, humiliation, poverty, famine, diseases, misery and filth.

Our countries in turn, strive to maintain our “standard of living” by waging war on one another in a desperate quest to take possession of resources, markets and influence. They justify these actions by claiming that they must defend the values and interests of their citizens.

Competition is the chief motivation and relationship component between individuals, corporations and countries. War is still the panacea for disagreements between nations, and fear-based propaganda is still the most efficient way for governments to keep their citizens in check. At all levels of human society, the fittest oppress the weakest and turn them into the poorest. In addition to all of this, we continue to pillage the environment without concern for what will be left a few short decades from now. As a result, our wonderful planet looks like a battlefield instead of the paradise it was meant to be.

Is this picture familiar to you? Does it sound like an apocalyptic vision? Or maybe a pessimistic perspective? Take an objective look at facts around you, and you will see that it actually is just a brief summary of the unaccomplished part of our reality.

The intention of this analysis is not to ignore the impressive progress that we made in our evolution, everything that we learned, discovered, invented in the span of a few thousand years. But our accomplishments should not cover our shortcomings, especially if we want to continue to evolve. On the contrary, our accomplishments should motivate us in our strive for an ever better world, and support us with the entire... wisdom accumulated so far, thus helping us to evolve... wiser than ever before.

So, coming back to the previous question: Is the above picture familiar to you?
Which one of these, and a string of many other problems, should we try to solve first? And how many decades or centuries should we allow these conditions to exist before we try to find solutions that accommodate everyone? The bad news is that even if we would succeed in solving each and every one of these problems, we would still not succeed completely in the process. Why? - Because these problems are merely symptoms. At the root of them all, lies the real problem – the real reason we haven’t managed to achieve real progress in our lives so far. And even worse, this problem of problems is located in the hardest place to reach – deep in ourselves - for it derives from our very vision and attitude in life.

From the moment we come into this world we are educated, schooled, trained and compelled by our society and culture to see, accept and perpetuate life as a continuous struggle, as a battle, and as something that we have to “deal” with. This vision and attitude in life is wrong and damaging. It was inherited from hundreds and thousands of years ago when no alternative was possible, when competition and fight were the key components of interaction between people for they assured the survival of the fittest.

But this vision is now obsolete. The data of our reality has evolved dramatically from those ancient times, and so we should change our goals and the means to reach them. The time has come to see life as it truly should be - an amazing process that allows every human being to grow into the most wonderful, imaginative creature that s/he can be, praising and further embellishing the paradise that surrounds us, and finding abundance, fulfillment and enjoyment from everything that each one of us, everywhere in the world, is dreaming of and striving for. It is this kind of change of attitude that will allow us to find viable and long lasting solutions to each and every one of our visible problems.

Does it sound too good to be true? Impossible to achieve? Here is the good news: When after millenniums of farming and pasturing we decided to focus on productivity, we instated an entire Industrial Era, which over the period of a couple of centuries completely changed the face of our entire planet, for better and worse. Later, when we felt that it was time for automation, computers, information and communications to take over, we generated a new Technological Era within only a few decades. All our previous achievements prove that we are capable of reaching any goal that we set forth. So...

What age will we usher in next? Some worry about a Terror Era, while others agonize about a possible Winter Silence Age - or in plain words, our complete nuclear extinction. But are terror and extinction the goals worth considering as the next step in our evolution? Or has the time come to take up the most challenging goal of all - to focus on our very human life?

A HUMAN ERA

After centuries of sinuous evolution, time has come to understand a very simple fact - that honoring and enjoying our lives to the fullest is their very basic meaning. Therefore, we need to open our minds and souls to an ERA where abundance in everyone’s life, fulfillment of everyone’s dreams and enjoyment of every moment of being and feeling alive are the major objectives, and where sharing, generosity, honesty and profound mutual respect between individuals, corporations and countries are the defining elements.

Capitalism or socialism? That is not the question!

Some people may ask: 'Is this a renewed socialism that we're talking about?' or: 'Are we talking about discarding capitalism?'

None of the above! As most people realize, capitalism and socialism are two economic systems, as well as democracy, monarchy or dictatorship are political systems. A Human Era cannot replace any of them for the simple reason that Human Era is not an economic or a political system. Human Era is a new mentality and a new attitude intended to replace the millennium-old mentality and attitude resumed by the logo of our society: 'Survival of the Fittest'.

Capitalism is without any doubt the most productive economic system in our history and its enormous contribution to progress is incontestable. Its major drawback comes from the simple fact that its motivation comes mainly from the strive for... profit, which is absolutely 'natural' considering that it evolved from other economic systems based on the same mentality of... survival of the fittest.

Socialism came up as a reaction to capitalism and had the merit of opening our horizons to a refreshing balancing perspective. However, let aside its unfortunate trip into the communist dictatorship which ruined the lives of a few generations, some of the socialist solutions are simply... artificial. 'Taking from some and giving to others' is actually not a real solution; it is rather an abuse, and proved to be so when it had to be enforced in order to be applied. Moreover, leveling down people, imposing them to accept a place in a state-dominated hierarchy, thus intruding into their very lifestyles and implicitly limiting their aspirations are not really answers for a better future.

But, again, a Human Era does not aim to replace or promote a particular economic or political system. A Human Era aims much deeper, into the way we contemplate life, into our mentality and our attitude, which are the very base of any economic, social, political, cultural, relational system.

When people will fully understand the profound meaning of a life-centered vision, and its immense benefits for all of us, when more and more people will strive to change their mentality and attitude accordingly, joining those who are already in the process of doing so, then it will be entirely up to them to decide what is the most appropriate economic and political system for the concrete conditions in their part of the world, and work together to continuously refine it.

Working to build a Human Era is a very profound, complex, challenging, and at the same time, rewarding process. It involves exploring underneath the existing concepts and solutions, understanding the deep meaning of life and its basic values. It involves learning every lesson of the past and present, and trying to implement those lessons wisely. It involves an incessant widening of our horizons, a better understanding of our strengths and weaknesses, listening to everyone's opinion in trying to find natural and viable solutions.

The main foreseeable goal of a Human Era is to create the conditions for every human being to develop into the best s/he can be, or as the distinguished humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow named it, to reach the highest human need: "self-actualization".

Are we capable of such a change?

Some people may actually worry that eliminating competition between ourselves, our companies and our countries - as a Human Era promotes - would 'kill' the very motor of evolution that brought us so far. The answer to this concern has at least two aspects:

First, we have to realize that while eliminating the competition between ourselves is an essential element for building a Human Era, increasing our... competitive spirit will always remain a priority, except that our competitive spirit will not be directed against other people, companies or countries but against our most dangerous enemies: our limitations and ignorance. In other words, if we want to prove how capable we are, we have to prove it by solving real problems and not by trying to defeat each other.

Second, we have to realize that, surprisingly, competition is not the only, nor the most powerful motor for progress. There is another element much more powerful, which does not have any of the dreadful side-effects that competition has. It is our synergy.

Actually there are two precious, powerful and practically infinite resources that only wait to be used in fueling our change for a better world:

our creativity, which is still waiting to be completely unleashed, stimulated and promoted, and
our synergic interaction capable of amplifying our individual creative efforts and making any goal much more readily attainable.

For a more in depth analysis of the premises leading to a Human Era we invite you to read a few excerpts from Terra City book presented in this site:

A PROBLEM , A MODEL , THE DATA , THE GOAL , THE WAY

So, why creating the premises for a Human Era on earth is such an imperative undertaking of our time? Simply because only a profound enhancement of this nature and scale in our understanding, our consciousness, our mentality and attitude, and nothing else, can offer true solutions for the most stringent problems that we face at an individual level, a country level and the entire planet. And because only creating and living in a true human society can allow each one of us to discover the real beauty and infinite opportunities that life has to offer. Otherwise, we will only remain a species mainly concerned with its own survival, and nothing else...

Welcome to a Human Era!