"These natural comforts nourished us for 99.99 percent of our ancestral development. Then, only a few thousand years ago, some humans began living in urban environments, relying on remote agriculture, specialist skills, and the wiles of moneychangers.
"Within the last few hundred years, industrial culture has widened this separation from nature, divided families, and destroyed communities, creating alienated individuals clinging to scarce jobs and rewarded with packaged food and entertainment, the 'bread and circuses' that Roman emperors bestowed to the peasants.
**
"Modern neuroses, so prevalent in industrial nations, can be traced to our separation from nature. The marvels and conveniences of technological society provide only a thin veneer over our natural being. We remain biophysical animals akin to ants and raccoons.
"Millennia ago, certain clever primates overwhelmed all other species by controlling fire and developing tools, winning hegemony over planet Earth, but in our fundamental instincts, desires, and reactions, we reflect a long evolution in the lap of nature.
"Regardless of prevailing conceits, we retain learned patterns from 50 million years of primate evolution, 5 million years of hominid development, and 500,000 years of fire-bearing, tool-making hunter-gatherer culture. During this long genesis, humanity grew within the comfort and constraints of an intact ecosystem that supplied sustenance, vital lessons, wonder, and a home.
"Watching that home fall under the blade of industrialism - shocks our system - whether we know it or not.
**
In spite of our "civilized ways," human psychology remains linked to our primal origins. As a result, we suffer the trauma of witnessing ecological abuse, watching wilderness obliterated, other creatures eradicated, and the earth diminished.
As gloomy as the above list is, there are many people who are looking beyond these current symptoms into a positive transformation which may yet still occur, and for which we can work.
**
A Vision for the Future
It has been said: "My job as a visionary is to envision the best possible outcome for humanity."
What we need is a "web of good work" - millions of people upshifting into a pattern of a higher state of evolution and wiser living on Earth. Paradoxically, this may occur though a transformation catalyzed by the collapse of our environment.
This will be the greatest challenge humanity has faced - a progressive shift in the evolution of our paradigms and especially our behavior. Very serious stuff. The pain of a massive eco-crisis may spark this shift.
As Jane Goodall has said: the future of our species and all life on Earth is at stake.
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