When we think about human connection, ecological balance, existential purpose, spiritual meaning: what could be different?
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I think we are missing balance between an individualistic mindset and a collectivist mindset. Here in The States, individualism has gotten out of control, we all think weāre so special and we seem to have lost our ability to distinguish between wants and needs in our lives. I think this has been excentuated by isolation, fueled first by social media/ticktock/ etc. for kids who arenāt emotionally mature enough to process those inputs responsably, and then made worse by covid restrictions interfering with social development of young people and making us all more isolated physically from each other (yes I think the level of covid restrictions we received, at least here in OR, was wrong and too much.)
Iām not saying we need to throw personal autonomy out the window entirely, because societies who are heavily collectivistic have their own issues. We need to find a middle ground in which the individual and the community are both prioritized, where people can pursue what they need in order to be fulfilled, but they donāt think the world should revolve around their desires. Where the betterment of the community and the earth are seen as valuable and important, but where people do have the personal liberty to express themselves.
That is my opinion upon the matter.
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Iāve lived in an intentional community. We need sticker accountability for anything to scale.
The traditional system self supports itself: economics, exchange based business, objective science, education and training, mass media entertainment, algorithm directed social media.
Belonging, gift economic, open business practices, reflexive and relational social science, self organised education, distributed local narrative, may combine to generate scalable social cohesion.
You are invited to read and participate in Fulcrum: Inviting First Readers ā Sqale Me Feedback welcome. Be well! David
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Thanks @RionaAndLogan. I agree! I believe the cutting edge of human evolution is to simultaneously become the vest versions of ourselves while also experiencing ourselves like cells in larger organisms. We either figure this out or we go down tryingā¦
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Thanks @happyseaurchin. Iām not sure what you mean by āsticker accountabilityā. Can you share more?
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āā¦what could be different?..ā
more deeply connecting.
āā¦What is lacking in the modern societyā¦"
Missing is cooperation. Just way too competitive. No longer direct democracy - we elect some 1 else to represent us in the governing work (of ourselves). Capitalism IS competition after all. So economic system and governingā¦ Two of our major institutions - Fisszzitā¦ dysfunction (The rep.s compete for the $ for reelection as well). Another institution, schools (cept ādemocratic schools) same. U can name moreā¦
Itās destroyed the individual (couple, family, neighborhood and āstateā). The under pining (culture) is failing from this ācorporate stateā (culture = food ways, clothing, music, religion, dance, etc). Example: a 3rd world country that inhabitants once said "gimmie the sun glasses & car top down, the boom box and burger. " Goin to temple at sun rise, walk/bike and jasmine rice is too old school, its for the old menā¦ are now struggling to get back the religion, cry to have some one who knows how to play the bansuri
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=flute+played+in+india&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:8ecdfba9,vid:sfQVxvkg9es,st:0
show them, teach how Dadi cooked a dish they have not had in ages, mentor their child as they were by family; but to acquire those material things (we say 'keep up w/the Jonesā) both parents now work, they live in the city (an apartment) as necular family, and a corporation takes their days energy. After a taste of what the corporate has brought they want to turn backā¦ too late.
So more things are brought in to fill that void (our kids w/screen time) and they wrk harder for those things. This leaves less time for family, neighbors, true leisure, spiritual development, etc and despoils the earth with more cast off stuff (like our babe we hid toys to rotate out & slid the old away for a few wks). george carlin stuff - Google Search
Too tired (yes, the Protestant work ethic in Zen or Hindu lands) too tired to āliveā they up the screen time.
So what is lacking? Nuttinā¦ yes may B more of no thing (ie not working) can B a cure.
- -Chad
Amherst
MA
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I think Sociocracy is whatās lacking. Hereās a pretty good video I saw yesterday: Your Job Feels Pointless? Workplace Democracy Could Fix That
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Sociocracy favors inner circles and outer circles for all groups, I think. I think some inner circles can support outer circles, where the outer circles strive to make connections with all other groups/orgs, using sociocratic decision making. Delegates from orgs in outer circles can learn sociocracy and then help their orgs develop sociocratic inner circles. Aināt that a plan?
I think that humans are going to go through a phase. A time of great shifting. Much difficulty, but that what is on the other side is going to be spectaculous. Itās going to be different what is going to emerge. And itās going to be a lot of loss before that time is reached. But I personally believe that humanity will get closer to nature, to each other, and to God. The difficulties will bring us closer.
Thatās interesting what you mentioned about sociocracy. Al Bielek also mentions sociocracy in the context of a future earth where AI governance is a manifest reality. Where humans live in perpetual harmony with nature and each other. But itās a future where humans have become complacent to a degree. They mostly depend on artificial intelligence to take care of all their needs for them. Nobody really needs to work anymore like they used to. Not many people excel like they did when they had to overcome difficulties and challenges to work through. But thatās a very very very long time away. Floating citiesā¦ However I have reason to believe that by 2031 life will be very different indeed. We are probably going to lose power between now and then and there is a window of opportunity for things being done with electricity.
My apologies somewhat tangential babble.
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Hello everyone, I really enjoyed reading everyoneās perspective. I think everyone has made some very good points. One thing we all agree on is todayās time is CRAZY!
I am almost 50 years old and one thing I have seen and witnessed myself is the decline in family/friends support.
I believe that as technology has increased, humans have drifted away of relying on other humans for support. Now you can find a electronic device (TV, smartphone, PC, tabletā¦) and entertain yourself effortlessly. The problem that people donāt realize including myself for years is the easy dopamine escape from these devices numbs your senses. It creates a dependance for easy indulgence. It also is very shallow feel because the experience is not real. When a person fills their life with empty dopamine indulgent experiences, they loose a part of the human experience of life.
These devices that were so called gifts of technology were very deliberately made for us to be used for this exact purpose. These are all forms of programming that has been designed for this exact purpose.
Then you add all the horrible foods that have been interduced since the 1970s, that I am aware of. Food like can foods, TV dinners, box cereals, box easy meals all have artificial chemicals in it. Which I ate this stuff most of my life because my parents would have never guessed that they were bad for you. They could not image a government food inspection company would never allow sells of poisonous food to the US citizens.
I started around 2019 changing my eating to all natural and cooking from scratch. After about a month I noticed a huge difference in my energy level. I felt like a high energy kid again. With to much energy at times. With all the extra energy I had, sitting around watching TV was not going to happen. I started riding my bicycle to burn energy and suddenly I found a new world of exploring and entertaining myself with new adventures and meeting new people. This was enough to awaken me and realize that I have been asleep in cruse control most of my adult life.
This is the entire reason I am on sites like this and FreedomCell.org sites. I want to meet people that can see thru the cloud of 5G technology.
My .02 cents. 
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True community is lacking. We are all far too divided, on so many levels. Letās not continue this arrangement.
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What is truly lacking in our human connections? LOVE. We are all very busy, distracted and disconnected from each other.
How do we get a better ecological balance on this planet? Through LOVE for our planet - who I actually see as a superconscious, living and loving being. I feel LOVE for Gaia, so I care for her.
Can you think of anything higher than LOVE that could give us a meaningful existential purpose?
Last but not least, spiritual meaning: what could be different? I can see a lot of āspiritual Disneylandā around: mainstream events that give a sense of well-being, but real spiritual meaning is rather hard to find. How about finding more LOVE?
In 2020, when even hugging was forbidden, I wrote Hooray, I am Human! Itās about the healing power of hugs, a good start for feeling more LOVE.
Last year, I wrote Human Connection, Unconditional Love, New Relationships, and Sacred Sensuality in the World of Sanuela, which shows some new relationship models that my fictional characters discovered. They found colourful ways to find LOVE outside the traditional black and white settings.
One of my current writing projects is about intentional communities that include new concepts of living and sharing LOVE with one another.
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Empathy and Hard Work. I think both go hand and hand, and theyāre missing in todays society.
A perfect, fair and just world, a āutopiaā or āheaven on earthā is a reality that is absolutely achievable. Though, without empathy and hard work, we will never achieve anything other then a mere capitalistic and competitive society.
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To understand how we can be better and do better, that takes awareness and empathy.
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To then make changes once you are aware, it takes hard work and dedication.
We need those willing to commit themselves towards earth and its inhabitants more then ever.
This is our aim, to, as a community, be aware and empathetic, to see the world as it is and look to improve it where we can. We then intend to pour our heart and soul into our efforts and will stop at nothing short of our best attempts to do just that.
We CAN live and be happy while ALSO making a positive difference to the world, and one way we intend to facilitate this change is to build our community and foundation with this systematically integrated into our daily lives. We intend to ābuild inā consciousness and empathy, not applying them as a secondary moral choice, but rather the intentional plans of which our community is built upon.
So in general that is my response to the question;ā What is lacking in modern society?
Once last thing Iāll add. I donāt actually believe society is ālackingā in the real sense, per se. I think society is filled with great people and an immense amount of potential, it is just that society is spread too thin. We are all far too distracted to āNEEDā community. Until there is a need that is calling from within your core, one will be just happy enough with their distractions.
We at Peaceful Valley Village will be honest - Regardless of our mission and unwavering passion and commitment to this mission, we find it very hard to connect with folksā¦ If anything is lacking it is the ability of some to open their mind and hearts and ask questions. We are not perfect and we know that and weāre very much in our founding phases so are very open to ideas, of which we have had very very few interactions thus farā¦ We have had very little response to anything weāve ever posted or any events really at all, sadly. I myself, just one member of the community, have dedicated 1000ās of hours and personal finances to building this, hoping people would want to join, and so far, all we have come across is either devisive emails and responses or people who sign up and apply for membership to eventually fall back into the throws of society. If anything is āmissingā more then anything else, for us, it is communication. We simply just want feedback, we want ideas, we want to understand how we can be more attractive to you all and to others. I myself am 31, I see myself as young and just beginning my journey and by no means do I have all the answers, if really any. So, with that, I/we - Peaceful Valley Village, are open to communication, please come and join an event, get to know us, ask us questions, letās get to know each other and ideally work together to be our best selvesā¦ Short of all that, if anything else, just tell us how to be more effective in brining positive change! We know our name is less then perfect, we understand folks are busy with life, and that itās hard to commit to change, but if weāre doing something wrong or could be doing it better, PLEASE, I beg of you, please give us some feedback or consider joining us in building this thingā¦
I love you all,
DJ Parson, Co-Founder
Peaceful Valley Village