Jump #8 – Death and Religion – How Humanity is evolving

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Our greatest gift as humans is our consciousness. Our greatest burden is to know that we will all die.

In this episode, I will explore the nature of “consolation” religions and show how they emerged from the then new world of agriculture. We will see that the “Patriarchy” is real and was based on solving the problems of this shift in human culture.

We will see how different was the world-view of the networks of wandering tribal people who hunted and gathered for millions of years before agriculture. They inhabited an animated universe where everything was connected to everything. Where the cycles of life affected everyone as well as the rest of nature. The irony is this idea of an energetic and networked universe is now how science sees the universe as well.

I will explain how we might be going back to such a world-view and what that means in practice. For I believe that, just as each of us has an individual track for development, so we also have one as a species. And that, just as an old person re-develops early values such as wonder and play, so as we mature as a species, we seek many of the old values from humanity’s childhood as a species.

I lay out some of these old values in the hope that we can console ourselves by using them to guide us in having a good life and so a good death.

I close by illustrating how our lack of confidence in the old consolation is driving a new religion. That is the hope that medicine can conquer death.

In the next episode we talk about the institution of medicine.

Jump #7 – Stories & the Meaning of Life

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Here we begin an exploration of death and so the meaning of life.

Even if you have not made the Jump, you may question if the accumulation of stuff is the measure and meaning of life. But as I look about me I see many people act as if having the best things is the justification.

In this episode, I will end with a definition for the meaning of life, but to get there, I will explain how the story of who we are drives much of our behaviour. I will outline how it is in our families that we first develop a personal story, a story that is uniquely our own and so different from our siblings. I will show you why it is critical to explore this story and then accept it or reject it. For only then can we be an independent self-initiating adult.

It is our family story combined with the story from school that keeps us from taking charge of our lives and so making the all important shift from child to full adult. Being an adult or not has nothing to do with our body and everything to do with whether stand on our own feet or depend on a story.

Cutting to the chase, my view of the meaning of life is that we can die knowing that we have reached our full potential as a human being. This means by default not getting stuck at one of the development points along the way. The most critical being the Jump between teenager and adult – between being driven by them versus being governed by us.

In the next episode, I will talk about religion itself – how most of us cope with the terrible curse of being human, the knowledge of our own inevitable death.

Jump #6 – School versus Education

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In this episode, I talk about school and education.

Many couples who have made the Jump, hesitate to make the required changes in their lives because they fear that their children may not go to a good school. I ask the question is school good?

I make the case that School as an institution has taken over our primary responsibility as parents as educators. In so doing, it has become the foundation of the culture of obedience and loss of self.

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I go deeply into the impact that school inadvertently has on all of us.

I then make the case for how we, as parents and family, have to take back our place as being the primary educators of our children.

I end with the question of what is the meaning of life? For the answers to that question affect all the post Jump decisions and so our choices.

Jump #5 – The Personal Issues

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In this episode, I talk about the most difficult part of all of this. Making the Jump is uniquely personal and is also involuntary. So what happens when you make the Jump and you now need to make large changes to where and how you live but your partner has not?

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Partners, family and close friends can be the largest barrier to anyone who has made the Jump then making the changes that will enable them to have a better life.

Here I offer some suggestions for how to cope with this. The topic naturally becomes also a discussion about marriage. For marriage itself is an institution based on the principles of the old world. It is about control and property. I venture into talking about marriage as a union where two people help the other become the best person that they can become. Where the core shifts from control to support.

Next we talk about children and education.

Jump #4 – Expenses and Value

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In this episode, I talk in more detail about the principles of both lowering expenses and also of making a living by offering value directly and in person. Just as our wonderful local bookstore has done.

I talk about the spread now in expenses between big city life and life in a smaller community. I also talk about the issue of anonymity in big city life and how we experience genuine community in small town life. The internet has also changed the opportunity in small towns as well.

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Heart Beet Organics on PEI

I talk also about how the new micro food system fits into this model and how as a model of offering value directly sets the model for the new economy.

I end, as usual, with a look ahead. This time to the hardest part of all. If you have made the Jump and wish to make radical changes in your life, what about your partner or children?