Can We Have a Do-Over?
How often have you looked at the state of our world and wished for something better? How many times a day have you reflected on your experiences and longed for the peace. Have you yearned for innocence, and the tranquility of your childhood? I want to walk you through an imaginary journey of your rebirth. In this journey, I will challenge you to assume two states simultaneously. But before I explain the rules, let me share the scenario of your first state.
The date is today. The time is now. At this moment in time, the global tribes have launched all their nuclear weapons at their predetermined targets. Immediately after launching their atomic arsenals, the tribes unleash their chemical and biological weapons, followed by all short and long-range ballistic weapons. Every known tribe released its fire and fury from land, sea, and air on opposing tribes.
The world tribes continue to destroy each other with heavy artillery until the fuel and food are exhausted. Finally, hand-to-hand combat is all that is left to continue the fight. In the aftermath of the wars, secondary and tertiary detonations destroy the power grids around the world. The nations with peaceful nuclear power facilities watch as their facilities overheat and meltdown, annihilating everything around the power plants.
Food supplies become contaminated around the world. At the same time, the intense heat from the explosions significantly raises the temperatures of the earth, and the ice at the polar regions melt and flood large portions of the planet. Some remote and isolated tribes not affected by urban sprawl, become concerned for their survival, and quickly destroy each other in the search for food and clean water.
In this destruction of the tribes of the earth, your first state is one of nonexistence. Imagine you no longer have the power to create, destroy, love, hate, produce, or consume. However, you still maintain all your qualities, values, and behaviors before the catastrophe. You are now an abstract entity precisely the way you were when you were alive, but without the power to use any of the characteristics that made you uniquely you.
Planet earth is now wet, cold, mostly dark, and barren, except for one glimmer. In a small country in Africa, one isolated Masai tribe survived the chaos. This Masai tribe is a homogeneous tribe of 50 persons of varying ages and genders. They have no modern communications, never had any contact with any other tribe outside of themselves. They survived by raising cattle and goats for food. But more importantly, their only currencies are love, compassion, empathy, and tolerance for each other. They are in complete harmony with each other and their surroundings. Here is good news for you.
Here is your second state. Imagine you are one of these fifty members of this isolated tribe. You join this tribe with all your knowledge and experiences of the world you left behind. Your mission is to grow and expand this tribe to repopulate the earth. However, you must never introduce anything that would influence this tribe to devolve into sub-tribes. You must decide which elements, behaviors, characteristics, knowledge, skills, and wisdom you will employ to improve and grow this tribe.
Given this opportunity of rebirth, how will you seek to influence this tribe? Will you surrender your will to this tribe? Or will you try to remake them in your image? What might be the single most important thing you would consider in your rebirth?
Stan Brooks, PhD
Post note: The scenario presented above is only one button push away. All that is required is a single unrestrained narcissist.