Resilience Revolution

"What will we do when the shit hits the fan?" was the question that percolated in the pockets of discussion tucked into sofas, on top of big pillows, and sitting cross-legged on the floor across the studio where we meet once a month for our Evolver Spore meetings. Perhaps the language of the question is what makes it such a difficult question to grasp, like the steamy discourse rising from each tiny think-tank. What exactly is the shit, and where is this fan?

And as we grappled with these questions, the old standards trickled out: permaculture, DIY, home gardening, water purification, sacrifice, community. And with each hopeful suggestion, arose with equal and opposite force, pessimism and gloom. I watched quietly as these discussions went on. Moved through and between each person, manifesting itself as anecdotes of what could be, and the heavy hand of reason stifling out those ideals. And I realized that this discussion was as much about ourselves, our egos, as it was about surviving catastrophe. When we talk about the shit hitting the fan, we're talking about the dissolution of culture, and, just like the dissolution of ego, while the inroads are all there for transcendence, it is an uncomfortable and wholly unfamiliar proposition.

Our culture is merely a macrocosm of individual ego. Like ego, culture is based on history, well-practiced boundaries, habits, reflexes, and a complete devotion to the idea that it is in fact the most real thing that exists -- "I think, therefore I am". Yet, as those of us who are evolving are finding out, there is more to each of us than the ego structures that we form throughout the course of our lives. Beneath the tenets of our Facebook or MySpace declarations of independence (Relationship Status, Hometown, Music, Books, Movies), lies an instinctual set of immutable values and desires present in every human on this planet: happiness, healthiness, and love. And so too buried beneath our cultural values -- wealth, recognition, celebrity, power -- lie deep-seated instincts: to grow gardens in homes, to be self-reliant, to join in community, to tear down the walls that separate our homes and property, to give and share with each other. And, yet, like our egos, culture covers up those instincts. Made them seem completely untenable, unrealistic, impossible. Our ego and our culture reasons with us, explains why we cannot love our neighbors like our family, why children are possessions that should not be raised by a community, why we can't purify our own water, or grow our own food.

So when we talk about a resilience revolution, we must also concentrate on nourishing our instincts. Reminding ourselves that what we understand as social reality in these United States is only the accumulation of centuries of ego-driven will to power and domination that serves itself by telling you that you cannot survive without it -- that you cannot be FREE without it. Yet even on the land that comprises these 50 states, people existed for thousands of years without that culture. And as such, the power to be resilient is in the land, and it is each of us. So as we prepare ourselves for what we can only hope will be the weakening of the harmful values of our culture, let us remember that the true human values, the true human skills, and the true human power of community are in us all.