Since we’re spending a week talking about history, I’d like to run through some things that are being proven, scientifically, as simply not true. Things that we believe, have been believing for quite some time.
One is survival of the fittest. Dog eat dog. This is proven as simply not true. If you look deeply at nature, and even Darwin saw this, that it’s cooperation between species, and individuals in a species, that create survival. This is what makes survival possible. It’s the way that things interact with each other and cooperate with each other that makes survival possible.
Human Beings exemplify this. We are the most successful mammal because we cooperate the most. In fact, the majority of our huge brains is for cooperating and interacting with each other.
The idea of survival of the fittest isn’t true at all. It’s a lie.
Think about how much dumb stuff is created in our society around the idea of survival of the fittest. Political parties use it at their platform, ideas are formed around it, wars are based on it.
No. The real story is survival of the most cooperative. Survival of those who can really get along together. That’s what we see out in nature. Cooperation and interaction creates the best survival.
Now, it is true that conquering nations seem to prove survival of the fittest. We’ve been talking about that a lot. Several thousand years ago, one time in history, people started gaining power and some powerful people were able to convince men to go to war. They learned to march together and kill things and become hugely destructive forces.
Once that happened, those societies did survive and did conquer. But look at the broader picture. We now see that we have literally conquered ourselves to death. We’re destroying the world. That’s not survival from a long viewpoint.
You do not survive by destroying your habitat. That is basic common sense and science. Pure survival of the fittest doesn’t exist in nature. Nothing exists by itself. Survival of the interdependent—that is what survives in nature.
Another thing that is not true is the caveman dragging his woman along by the hair. That and all the stories we hear about the paleo diet—the man out there with his sword bringing home the food? No, that’s a lie. That’s a lie.
Women are the ones who have always fed everybody. And women have always been there. You and I wouldn’t be here if women hadn’t always been there. I doubt we were being drug around by our hair. We used to be honored, respected, strong and valued.
We even have this in our more recent history. Even in our conquering stories of “people” settling Australia, and the Americas. Women were there (and not just prostitutes…)
It’s just that none of the history stories have been written about all the women that came and did everything.
Here’s a fun(?) aside: the story of Donner Pass. Remember that one? It’s the wagon train trying to get to California. They are delayed and end up heading over the mountains late in the season. They get up on Donner Pass and they are whacked by a huge early storm. They get totally snowed in and, um, cannibalism ensues.
What only a few of the history books tell us is that in every one of the parties that had a woman in it, nobody died. It was the single men who died. Women kept their people alive.
We know how to do stuff! Women have always been there.
This history we have of only men is a total lie. If you read history, it’s almost like women didn’t exist at all. Yes, we did. Still do.
Here’s another really good one. In old folklore of eastern countries there have hardly been any enlightened women. Baloney. Baloney. It’s just that the enlightened people that we do hear about are a small handful of guys who happened to become famous.
Even if you look at it in today’s world we are still telling the same story. We have a really good example: Eckhart Tolle. It’s a beautiful story, a beautiful human being with fairly good teachings—boring as heck, yeah—but he became enlightened, wrote a really good book, ended up on Oprah. Got really famous, very, very, very rich. So, everybody knows about him, right?
But if you get onto YouTube you’ll find tons and tons and tons of little, little obscure people who are posting things about their awakening. Some are ridiculous, some are the real thing. The people that pop up on YouTube are the people that are actually posting to it. That’s it. That’s the criteria. That’s just a small little sliver of the awakened people that are on the planet.
Just because we don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. But there’s always been tons of awakened women.
Two things: One, they probably don’t speak up because why bother? And besides, they’re busy with kids and grandkids and feeding people.
And two, if they do try to speak up, they’ll just be completely ignored because women are just invisible. Smart, powerful, not-beautiful women are invisible.
So the story that there have not been many enlightened women? Baloney. There have been millions and millions and millions. You can walk down the street and walk right past one and not know it. It could be happening every single day and you don’t know it.
So, there’s another story that is just not true.
We need to break through these lies because they create our idea of who we are. You think that to become enlightened, you have to end up like Eckhart Tolle. No. You can be enlightened and be nothing but a snarky YouTube poster, or a dishwasher. You could be a drunk down at the bar… why not? You could be a construction worker. You could be a waitress down at the local diner. You could be you.
You don’t have to become something else. That’s a big, big, big lie.
Another big lie is thinking that history only started with the written word. Not true. Written history started with the written word. History history started with what? The big bang?
We should look at history the other way around. Pretty much all of written history should be suspect.The only way you can have the written word is if you have a language that can be written. That kind of a language is going to be one that divides things into nouns, that names things. A written language is going to be a divisive language.
Even the timeline of written history story is suspect. For at least a hundred thousand years human beings have been living happily on the planet until the written word happened. Just a just a flittering of time ago.
These stories, these lies, don’t help us find out who we are. Let’s start looking for stories that do help us. Tons is being written about this now. I’m posting as many good books as I can find to my website. Look in the top menu for “My Books.” My recommendation is to get a Kindle because you’re not going to be destroying a tree. You can just download that baby to your phone. Get a Kindle app on your phone. You’ve got your phone with you everywhere you go anyway. Stop watching so many YouTube videos and start reading books. They’re so much better. Spend some time in my reading list. You read a little bit here, you read a little bit there. Next thing you know, you’ve gone through a book.
These new stories are the fuel, the flower, that’s going to bloom into a new world we’re creating. We’ve got to have good stories of who we are if we want to have a good world.