The Source Of All Conflicts
From this chapter onwards, we will use the sum of all the building blocks we established and start practicing the knowledge in real-life case studies.
We are born into this world, to the parents who gave birth to us. They represent all that we know for the early development of our psyche. The notion of nature versus nurture is coming to play, and more so when we are young.
If there was a pamphlet called “Welcome to Planet Earth – The Rules”, we would at least have a common set of rules to teach our children, and debate as a society. However, Planet Earth (capitalized on purpose) is not an entity we recognize, yet.
We say Mother Earth, and Planet Earth and The World, however, those words really describe an idea and not an object that is unified in any way. On the same planet, we have many people, who have arranged themselves into groups. In many cases, the groups are bound in a physical boundary that makes sense only to humans…
For example, what really separates Germany’s east border from the Czech Republic’s west border? Look at the map of Europe, and think about it. It is a continuous piece of the planet, that has a “line”, which probably moved in history many times, and defines what exactly?
The same can be said about many physical borders, that have been drawn only since man could write, draw maps and set a line in the sand…
Do you agree that 10,000 years ago, Neanderthals have not used a map for demarcation lines, yet they did fight over resources with neighboring clans? The resources could be water, plants and animals to feed on, and maybe a cave that provides better shelter.
Do you agree that if an asteroid will be in a collision course with Planet Earth, the silly lines we draw on a map of who lives where – will make no difference if we can survive or not?
While the asteroid may hit Germany, Czech Republic or Zambia, it will create a catastrophe that will wipe all life from the Planet, except for cockroaches we are taught to believe.
The source of all conflicts, begins with us being born into a single Planet, that has resources. While many are renewable resources (like planting corn, wheat or fish farming) – our ancestors evolved from millennia of thinking the resources are finite. When there is only one person on the Planet, they can have all the finite resources to themselves – and there is no conflict.
From the moment there are two or more people, the immediate notion of who gets what begins.
This is the source of all conflicts, and in the 21st century should be studied carefully. We can continue to progress in the current path, and kepp putting out the fires of our past… yet, new thinking must expose the fallacy in our ways.
The UN is an organization that sprung out of many reasons, and represents the closest body to be the guardian of Planet Earth. However, the reality is that the UN over time, turned to a mirror of what we are, and not an agent of change of what we could and should become.
Only in the movies, such as Armageddon, you see a portrayal of what would the big superpowers on Planet Earth will do in time of Planet-Crisis. However, must we reach the point of annihilation as a civilization before we band together to save our Planet and each other? Including our most hated enemies…
Imagine you bought five live lobsters in the market, and you take them home for dinner. You already know what is the fate of these five live lobsters…
In fact, you are going to throw them into a pot of boiling water and eat them. Yet, they do not know what is about to happen, and on the way from the market to your home they find themselves in a bag with little room to spare. What do the lobsters do? Fight. They see their new surroundings as their new “Planet” with whatever resources it has, and each lobster is defending its own existence to the best it can. Something about the survival of the fittest…
You see them fight and think to yourself, what a waste of their energy… They should be discussing that when the moment arrives, they all try to pinch me and teach me a lesson about not trying to cook them. Yet, the lobsters are so consumed by their own survival that they will all suffer the same fate.
These lobsters remind me of our own civilization, our own silly way of fighting over what we think we should fight over – not realizing that if we fought together we might stand a chance to live another day.
I do not want to sound like a naive person who promotes “world peace”. My point is that the lack of common rules of behavior for our Planet, begins since childhood to drive us into clans that create fights over stuff. Those fights are the conflicts we will see going on forever as no one is brave enough to say “let’s rise above our national ambitions, and see if we should operate as a human race, or Planet Earth’s Civilization”.
You can still keep your flags, and borders on the map, and whatever customs and habits taught by the parents who raised you. However, there is also a Planet Rules Book, that help you understand that there is more than what your parents, and then your national leaders told you… there is something above that which requires your attention.
The Planet Rule Book will say among other things that as a civilization we no longer need to think about our resources as finite. Instead, we can focus our energy on creating abundance. It is a fallacy to keep our old way of thinking and focus on scarcity… Which in turn leads to more conflicts.
We will always have conflicts, so long as there is more than one person living on the Planet. The conflicts ought to be about which food to choose from and not whether to eat or not. As if we will all face extinction, we will band together and forget our “borders”. We all share the animal instincts to survive and thrive.
We can keep living like lobsters, we can keep living as if we think our resources are finite, or we can realize that if a catastrophe will threaten all of us – we will cooperate as a Planet. It will matter less if the solution to our survival will come from Germany, Czech Republic or Zambia, it will only matter that we band together to resolve the existential threat.
If you believe that we will band in such time of Planet Crisis – why should we only band then?
Why would we not band to find ways to feed all the people on this Planet and help create abundance?
Would that not change our constant conflicts with constant cooperation and economic prosper?
References and Quotes:
If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately.
–Benjamin Franklin
Abundance by Peter H. Diamandis http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/145161683X
