Dumbo Feather – February 2019

Yes, I think about that a lot. There is a thesis out
there that it’s never been this good. The world
is the safest it’s ever been, there’s less violence,
the poor have been lifted out of poverty. I think
we can really argue what that means, ’cause I’m
not sure this sentiment has been thoroughly
analysed. But I don’t think I agree with it. I don’t
think that middle class longings led to a better
world given where we are right now evolutionarily.

us. It draws us into a less trivial, dilettante existence. Which is what contemporary middle

class culture tends toward.

Let’s become genuinely happy people. Like, my temporary

pleasure and good feeling, is that what I really value?

My friend Frank is a school teacher who developed a

curriculum for fifth graders in which he talked about the

story of King Midas and two kinds of happiness. He would

ask the kids when King Midas discovered that he really

could turn things to gold by touching them, was he happy?

And the kid says, “Yeah, he was happy.” Now when his

daughter had been turned to gold and he gave up those

powers and all his wealth in order to bring her back to life

and she did turn back into a real girl and he embraced her, was he happy then? “Oh yeah, he

was happy then.” Are those the same kind of happiness? “No, those are different.” Is there a

kind of happiness that we feel when we get a piece of candy or we go on an amusement park

ride or we see a really exciting movie? Yeah. That’s “high happiness.” But when we’re feeling

the love of our family and we’re together with each other and doing something kind and

generous for one another, that’s “deep happiness.” And deep happiness really lasts. It’s more

important than high happiness. And this discrimination is coming upon us collectively now.

There’s a value even in the disorientation.

There’s an interesting paper that was recently written on the topic of climate trauma.

The idea that we are all together experiencing a collective trauma because the

implications of the climate science are so hair-raising. It’s shocking everyone. And we’re

together tending to be immobilised. So there’s a resourceful conversation in which

we really lean in as friends. We don’t cover over any of the facts. We face the facts.

I think that’s the big political issue of our time. Creating gentler transitions so that there is

as little cultural or evolutionary regression as possible. So that we don’t go to dystopian Mad

Max ugly futures but we find a way to preserve as much of what’s best and to advance it.

And when I do get discouraged, when I do feel contracted by all of these realities, I have to

practice and restore unreasonable happiness. I have to come back alive in the miracle of life.

And really look at you with those beginner’s mind innocent eyes that can see the wonder of

this expression of divinity that’s before me. And receive you. We’re less alone when we do

that. There’s a true “we.”

We have profound strength. You know, they talk about “the strength of ten thousand men” in

the traditions. I think we’ve got a crack at working miracles and I want to keep reinvesting in

being a source of what’s healthiest. And that also means being self-skeptical. Egoic motives

arise for every one of us.

Even if the human race were to be wiped out,

we would want mammals to survive. We would

want as much higher life to be able to thrive

in the future as possible. We’d want to soften

the transitions.

105

FACES THE FACTS

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