What Can We Do About The World?
I just heard a talk by Investigative Reporter, Jon Rappaport. His talk was called You Selling You. What he means by that, is getting a “bigger” you – in the same stage play of your life, but a bigger more expansive you. In his view, you get the bigger you by developing your imagination. Something, he says, most adults reject as only suitable for children because they believe that it is not useful when we are dealing with the realities of the world. But without it we are dead- living an automatic life. In Jon’s view, we need the ecstatic, unique, boundless you that can make changes in the world.
This is not dissimilar to what Charles Eisenstein points to in his book The Ascent of Humanity in his chapter on Money and Property. According to him, it is not just the world’s physical and cultural capital that has been converted and sold off as property, but our spiritual capital as well- “the wild within ourselves: our imagination, creativity, attention span, playfulness and spontaneity”. He calls these spiritual capital because they are “indeed productive assets, generators of wealth”. Their conversion into financial capital has “eroded our humanity and made us lesser beings”.
According to Charles, child play is a practice for life. But instead of playing, our children are entertained by watching TV or movies or playing video games which teaches them to be passive consumers of life. And the adults that result from a childhood with no opportunity for spontaneous “self-directed world making” will continue to be “vulnerable to the stories of others”.
It was interesting to hear the thank you speech of Matthew McConaughey, the winner of the Golden Globe best actor award for his portrayal in Dallas Buyers Club. Like many he thanked his Mom, but it is what he thanked her for that is interesting here. They weren’t TV kids, he said. If it was daylight ours, they had to play outside. “You had to get out and do it for yourself and be the subject of what you are doing”.
What Jon says, is what we can do about the world, is to become an innovator. A stronger more powerful you that can do something in the world. And that comes from moving responsibility onto our own shoulders and that requires a struggle in order to make a leap to greater power and foresight. And that struggle includes “introspection, not knowing and investigation” that will stretch you as a human being that is no longer “just waving a banner, but rather has depth and breadth and scope”.
I loved running into these people. It is so in tune with what I have been attempting to convey over the years, both in my blog and in my book, Money•Spirituality•Consciousness. When we grow in consciousness, we grow to a greater depth in ourselves and approach the unique individuals that we are. And then that unqueness is available to enter the world. We all have to become the subject of what we are doing- that is not only our birthright, but our quest as human beings.
My aim in talking about the subject of money and consciousness has been to help people shift their perceptions and attitudes about money so that it could become a support for them rather than a stumbling block or a source of confusion or fear. I have hoped that money could eventually become not only a useful tool that they could work with effectively but also a creative extension of who they are, an expression of their uniqueness in the world.
But that would mean embracing our consciousness and becoming the expansive unique beings that is our potential. What Jon has called introspection, not knowing and investigation I have called turning inward from the world, not knowing and inquiry. Not knowing is the doorway to new possibilities, though it is not normally valued in our culture or easily tolerated by the ego. Without this openness to what we do not yet know, we cannot move deeper into our depth or the truth; instead, we cling to the familiar and keep recycling what our minds have already learned, staying stuck in the realm of the past and what we have been told. And never become the imaginative, creative, innovative unique beings that is our potential.
As spiritual beings, we would also be more conscious and aware human beings, who not only do our best to do no harm but also are grateful that we can contribute to creating a just and sustainable world. But we can’t change the world if we don’t change our consciousness. It has become clear to me, as it has now to so many others including Jon Rappaport and Charles Eisenstein, that the evolution of consciousness on our planet has entered a new phase. It is time for all of us to find our own divinity within and to become the unique expression of the Ultimate that every one of us is.
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