Reasons for Hope in Humanity

01

Building is harder than destroying, and we’ve built so much

In a split second, a single bullet, blade, impact or poison could end a life, while staying alive and healthy takes constant care from a whole community. In a split second I could smash a fine violin that took years of careful craftsmanship to create. If we gave our destructive impulses even a fraction of the energy we give to our constructive ones, everything around us would be broken. In spite of all its problems, the fact that we have a society that works at all means that the good in us is stronger than the bad.

02

Root causes

Trying to solve the countless surface level problems we see can feel overwhelming. But many of them dissolve as we dig deeper and address the core issues that cause them: lack of self-understanding, distrust, miscommunication, belief in scarcity, misidentifying ourselves with our thoughts. It seems to me, and to many others, that humanity’s deepest root cause issue is identifying with the stories in our minds. Every little bit that we come out of that confusion can change how we live.

This is the root the series Demystify the Ego & Harmonize the Mind goes after.

03

Non-violence can scale

Lots of people live without violent conflict. Some go their whole lives without being directly affected by violence. If that’s possible for some people on some scale, it’s possible for more people on a larger scale. The fact that anyone can go any period of time without violence means that it’s possible to continue reducing violence in the world.

04

A minority can lay a harmonious framework

We don’t need everyone on the same page to generate harmony. It has always been a small minority that actively lays the framework of a society that the rest pass through. A well organized, peaceful minority can establish structures that make it easier for everyone to live more harmoniously. A small minority may always crave violence, which is where systems of vigilance and self-defense come in. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.”

05

We are one human family

We are all connected, and closely related biologically. That’s a fact, in a literal sense: we are truly one human family, and we are all better off when we cooperate constructively.

06

Every generation is a new start

I was born into a society that made the horrors of slavery seem obvious to me, even though slavery was accepted by most societies throughout history. That shift of perspective solidified in just a few generations. If we do our work, future generations could be born into a society that makes settling disagreements with war and violence seem as horrific and absurd as it really is.

07

Humanity is young

We show many signs of immaturity, but we can still grow up. Human history is undeniably horrendous, and it’s tempting to assume that’s just the way we are. Maybe we haven’t seen global harmony not because it’s impossible, but because we haven’t gotten there yet in our individual and collective maturing. On a cosmic time scale, we’re just getting started.

08

We don’t start from scratch

We have thousands of years of wisdom from all around the world to draw from. People throughout history who closely observed our behavior and the mind point to the same causes of human suffering. We also have a large body of fiction, mythology and religious texts from which to draw common ethics.

09

Good ideas can spread fast

We can spread good ideas faster than ever. Bad ones too, of course, but what’s real, healthy and true resonates differently from the rest of the noise. A small handful of people can spread information that almost everyone hears. What if enough of us used our communication systems to spread the insights that help us understand ourselves and live more harmoniously?

10

So few have already achieved so much, for everyone

I can capture the image and sound of myself with a pocket sized device, turn it into ones and zeros, and send it through a global network, where you can reconstruct it anywhere in the world. Not long ago that was inconceivable. We’ve built suspension bridges and spaceships, symphony orchestras and dance crews, and harnessed the wind, the sun and the atom. Relatively small numbers of collaborators did all of it, under less than ideal conditions, while divided within ourselves and fighting with each other. Imagine what we could do united.

11

Radical transformation is natural

Does a caterpillar have any idea that it will one day be a butterfly? It wanders slowly through the world, detecting light but not really seeing. Then it goes into a chrysalis, and comes out able to fly, seeing more colors and a wider field than we do. Nature shows us not only that transformation is possible, but that radical transformation is natural. We may not go through that kind of change in our bodies, but we might in our state of consciousness, and as a collective.

12

Personal progress means collective progress is possible

Growth is not a straight line, but you and I have improved, and can improve in any dimension we choose. I’m more skilled in many things than I was, which tells me I can become more skillful in others. If I can, you can. If you and I can, we can.

13

Necessity calls us to act

We need to do better; our survival depends on it. Since nuclear technology the stakes have kept rising, with bioweapons, climate change and now the acceleration of AI. We are too powerful to keep being careless and short-sighted. That can be a reason for despair, or a call to mobilize, and the need is calling more of us to act than ever before.

14

Language barriers are shrinking

Language barriers can limit us less and less as AI and technology help us bridge the gap, if we use them intentionally.

15

A node in a network

I’m not just a grain of sand. I’m a node in an interconnected network. As I become more present, clear, compassionate and integrated, I experience more harmony inside myself, and pass more of it on to everyone I interact with. We can’t really measure how big an impact each one of us can have.

16

We can study ourselves as never before

Sages throughout history observed human nature and the mind. Only recently have fields like psychology and neuroscience formalized that study with modern tools, and the general public has taken a growing interest. That lets us see our shadow from new angles, in language that reaches more people.

17

The bullseye is possible

There are far more ways to miss a target than to hit it, but hitting the center is not impossible. Many paths lead to destruction, and there are also paths to redemption. With clear vision and discipline, we can hit the mark.

18

Gains compound

Many things grow exponentially rather than linearly, and human progress can too. Peace and stability make it easier to develop deeper peace and stability. As we trust each other, we collaborate in more meaningful ways, which builds more trust. Build everything from wood with flammable varnish and we’re always putting out fires; invest in fire resistant infrastructure and the saved energy goes into better infrastructure. It’s a lot of work now, but we benefit from the work of those before us, and we could reach a tipping point where harmony takes less and less effort.

19

Every moment is a fresh start

Every moment is an opportunity for deeper self-discovery and understanding. We are only ever right here, right now, and the present moment is always a new start, of undefined potential.

20

We see what we look for

We tend to notice what supports what we already believe, and our attention highlights what aligns with our goals. If we believe there’s no hope, we’re less likely to see opportunities to make things better. If we aim toward a harmonious reality, our minds are primed to recognize the openings.

21

Scarcity is not fixed

Matter and energy can be transformed into countless forms, in countless ways. When we cooperate and innovate, limits that looked fixed keep turning out not to be, and that’s easier to see all the time.

22

We rise to the level of our systems

James Clear said, “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” The flip side is that good systems lift us. A small number of people built the systems for personal computing, worldwide shipping and air travel, and now ordinary people take on goals that would otherwise be out of reach. We can also rise to the level of our systems.

23

Conscious practice rewrites habits

Clear, intentional practice of what we do want can cut through layers of unconscious practice of what we don’t. Otherwise it would be impossible to learn anything complex, like the violin: at first you repeat bad habits without knowing it, yet the deliberate parts stick more than the rest. A habit built unconsciously over years may not change at once, but it can shift remarkably in a concentrated period of conscious practice.

24

Failing systems are an opening

Many of our current systems are breaking down and need to be reformulated. Technology and AI take over more jobs all the time, and the systems we have can’t adapt to that. We’ve needed better systems for a long time. Being pushed to design new ones is an opportunity.

25

One insight can change a life

When a key insight snaps into focus, it can change the way you live. Sometimes the shift is immediate; usually it takes time to integrate. But once we see something clearly, it keeps working on us.

26

Our worst behaviors are miscalibrated, not evil

It’s easy to get discouraged with our worst human behaviors, but then we can see that even those are often outgrowths of parts of ourselves that are not inherently evil, just miscalibrated to the point of pathology. Even our worst behaviors usually have a good intention underneath: they’re trying to serve a purpose, in an unsophisticated and costly way.

27

Same hardware, better software

The exact same hardware, updated with better firmware and software, can go from buggy and unstable to smooth, solid and useful. The human hardware is amazing. Who knows what all we could do with a good debugging of our minds?

A place to start: Demystify the Ego & Harmonize the Mind.

28

Better systems can still be built

Throughout history we’ve developed increasingly advanced systems to manage increasingly complex ways of living together. That we haven’t yet built adequate systems for global harmony doesn’t mean we can’t. No system is perfect for all times, but we can build on what works and change what doesn’t.

29

Step by step

A harmonious reality can seem so far from where we are that it’s easy to think there’s no way. But we don’t need to know exactly how to get there. We need to keep taking steps in that direction. Anyone who has finished a major project knows you can’t see everything from the beginning. The path comes into focus as we walk it.