The following morning…
I’ve woke up to the sound of a gentle rain on my thatched roof, as well as some
rumbling of distant thunder. Guess there’ll be no work in the fields today. Just as well… I didn’t get a full night’s sleep last night. It took me a while to fall asleep because I couldn’t stop thinking about Maeya, and the walk we took to the lake. I finally told her how I felt! I wanted to tell her long before then, but was just too nervous. Afterward, I felt like I was just floating on air as we were walking back. You can’t imagine how relieved I feel knowing that Maeya feels the same towards me! I love her so much.
I’m going to just stay inside today. Most likely, Maeya and her family will do the same. Hmm… I’m not sure if Maeya will mention anything about her and I to her family. She may feel that it would be best if we were both together when we did. The next time we’re with each other, I’ll have to ask her if she told them, or if she’s waiting on me to be with her at a later time so we can both tell them.
As I’ve mentioned before, this new life I have has given me plenty of time to think. The daily manual labor is fairly repetitive, so I can think about other things and still get the job done. While I’ve been working in the fields, I’ve thought a lot about my encounter with the Life Force, and her dissertation on the Principles of Life. I must confess that, at first, they seemed quite “foreign” because my only reference was observing how things were done on Earth. I had never questioned the “why’s” of the way things were the way they were on Earth. I guess I didn’t because no one else I knew did either, and as the saying goes about how things are done, most people just shrug their shoulders and say; “That’s just the way it is”.
While I was in the fields working, I took the Principles and analyzed each one in my mind. I set aside all preconceived ideas from Earth and tried to look at each one from a logical point of view.
The Principle about not clearing the land…
Well, the first thing that came to mind about that was something that made perfect sense. Obviously, when the land is cleared, every living thing on that surface and above perishes under the axe and the plow. Every living creature that doesn’t or can’t flee during the razing… dies. It’s that simple. That’s one parcel of land that is no longer available for the other species to live. Then that same process happens over and over for decades, centuries, millennia. No wonder things on Earth are so out of biological balance… why so many species have gone extinct… plants as well as the higher forms of life.
The Principle concerning making use of easily renewable materials…
The Sarn have their old-growth ancient forests intact, because they wisely use other materials for their existence that grow easily, plentifully, and quickly. I don’t think even modern science knows all the negative effects that have happened to our home planet since the removal of the vast forests we had millennia ago. Things like extreme weather temperatures and climate changes, oxygen depletion, loss of good top soils running off into the oceans, good land turning into deserts, untold numbers of species driven to extinction that dwelled exclusively in forests… I’m sure people more knowledgeable than I on this subject could add much to this list.
The Principle about animal captivity…
Things start to get controversial with this and the next couple Principles. People on Earth would think this was crazy, but I see why this works. It really ties in with the Principle concerning clearing land. If you take one specie, subjugate it, and breed them till they multiply well out of proportion to what existed in nature, not only do you create a biological imbalance, but you create another large problem. You have to end up razing land to feed them all, growing what you believe they need to eat and to feed yourself. You’re right back into a downward spiral of loss of habitat and biological imbalance.
The Principle of freely giving as we’ve freely received…
Oh, that’s another one that’s sounds really naive until you consider the bigger picture of what the illusion of money creation has done to human society. I’m sure you’ve heard of the modern “Golden Rule”? Goes something like this… “He who has the Gold makes the Rules” and that’s exactly what’s happened on planet Earth. Human society has been around for millennia consisting of “Haves and Have nots”… a lot of have-nots. I don’t think anyone disputes that. The few at the top owning the money system rule… the rest serve them. That monster called “Commerce” came to life the moment we as a people decided that we needed to get “gain” over our neighbor rather than share with him what was available. I know, you’ll say that’s a “human nature” thing, and that’s just how things work. Then I’ll say, yes, that’s how it is now but regardless, that’s what created that beast that has all in its grip. Commerce is also responsible for stripping Earth’s lands and oceans of its resources in the insatiable quest for turning a profit. It’ll be around forever, generating human misery… until that Principle is followed.
The Principle of no land ownership…
Another “hot button”. Critics would immediately scream “Socialism”! However, try to imagine yourself living your life in world intact and whole, like the Sarn’s. Ask yourself… honestly… why would you feel you had to own anything? It’s really that simple.
Besides, the moment that land ownership is established, you then need a system to oversee it, with the legal machinery that keeps track of it all. Of course, eventually the “powerful” end up with the “lions share” of the ownership, and the rest of humanity become renters, owing taxes… having to pay and work for someone to merely exist.
So I guess all the thinking I’ve done while I’ve been on this planet with the Sarn has led me to agree wholeheartedly with the Life Force. Those Principles are the only way to have and keep this wonderful way of life that I’m living with the Sarn… from this present generation to forever.
Someone from Earth would argue with me saying that how things are presently done is reality, and things just have to be the way they are… and there’s no going back. The Principles are just the stuff of “dreamers” with no basis in reality, so why even waste time talking or even thinking about it.
To me, here’s the point. Living here on this planet has shown me that the path we humans took on our planet was a big mistake. I guess we were just too blind to see that “fouling our own nest” was just dumb, and we should’ve known that eventually we’d have to pay the price. Well, it didn’t take long for the bill to become due. On the present Earth, there are more than one “doomsday scenarios” within striking distance that could lead to tragic consequences for millions of beings, and you don’t have to do much research to learn about any of them.
From what I can see there’s only one way out…
Harness the latent creativity of all mankind into one goal…
Turning the Earth back into a Garden… (talk about a dreamer!)
Yea, I know, you can think of a million reasons why it can’t happen or won’t happen. You’re too late. I already know the all the reasons. Too bad, because we really could do it. The first problem is that… how many people you know even thought of it? How many people would really want it? How many “powerful” people would not want it, and would see to it that it never happens.
But we could do it. If we just had the collective will to do it… and therein lies the “rub” (as that old saying goes).
Besides what the Life Force spoke about in my conversation with her…
While having lots of leisure time on my hands, I’ve also had time to consider another very different distinction between life on Earth and life here. From the time I first arrived in this Sarn village and started my new life… learning how things “operated”, and how I should fit in to it, I noticed that something felt “different”. It wasn’t anything having to do with their society being so primitive compared to ours. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, and it took a few weeks to finally dawn on me what it was. I literally “couldn’t see the forest from the trees”, because my life on Earth programmed me not to see what I now see as obvious. I know this sounds cryptic, so I’ll get to the point:
Here, the Sarn society has no Authority… no one is “in charge”. No Chief, Mayor, Politician, President… whatever. I couldn’t believe how long it took me to see that. On Earth we take it as something that is just so basic that it doesn’t even enter the mind to question. There MUST be someone in charge, some “authority” we can go to… someone that directs the show and sets the Rules. We have to have rules, and someone we can appeal to of higher Authority when the rules are broken. Someone must pay and be punished! Every society on Earth is based on HEIRARCHY, that is unquestioned, and the principle itself is unquestioned.
Someone from Earth would say, you must have a Hierarchical system to maintain “order”. Nothing will get done if there is no direction, lawbreakers will run amuck… on a terror streak. Human nature is basically “bad” and if we have no authority, rules and punishment by the authorities, then we’ll all just go berserk and civilization will end… there will be total anarchy in the streets!
So, the question is… why does not having “authority” work for the Sarn, and not work for Earth? That took some thinking, but I may have come up with a few answers. It’s a complicated question, so there isn’t just one answer. When people live an impersonal “big city” life, relationships between our family and “others” become sort of “us against them”, every man for himself, situation. We tolerate those around us, but never really get too involved with them. They’re just “others”. We have no attachments to them or their problems. Things between others are generally civil until there’s a misunderstanding. If things don’t work out between the “parties”, tempers can flare and if things escalate, the authorities are called to settle the dispute… police, courts, law, prisons or monetary fines. Everything is made easy for us by the authorities, so as not to have to deal directly with the “other” to come to a real solution between ourselves. We really don’t want to have to deal with the other anyway.
When a society takes the technological path, life gets really complex fast. There’s very little time left from satisfying the systems demands on our lives. What little is left, is usually spent trying to recover from the days demands and the last thing thought about is what the neighbor has to face in life. Today, most people don’t want to interact with their neighbor at all, and if they did, it would probably be thought by them as intrusive and suspicious. No wonder things are the way they are in most urban societies… crime, substance abuse, poverty… the list goes on. Television and other media “amplify” the crime that exists, both through the “news” and also through the flood of police/crime/government scripted dramas that give viewers the impression that there’s always some deviant hiding around every corner and under every rock, just waiting to get them. Of course, the moral of the story is that the authorities are always there to protect you, catch the “bad guy”, and bring him to justice. As a result of this daily barrage of “programming”, people become afraid of dealing with the other. We mistrust everyone and their motives. All this works out well for the authorities, who use every excuse to enlarge their kingdom, as we furnish them with all the tools they desire, to keep us “safe”… from the other.
In a small tribal society, people need to depend on each other and work closely together. They develop bonds of friendship and get to know each other very well. In this way of life, those around you don’t become just “another”, they have a real personal relationship with you.
Well again, the critic will say “so what”… that tribal society is dead and gone, so why bother bringing up another pointless argument. I would then say; yes, the clock most likely won’t be turned back, and now it is what it is. I would also say again that we really don’t have to keep travelling this path if we collectively don’t want to. It’s up to us, it’s always been up to us. The situation concerning our society is pretty much the same as the decision to keep walking the technological path that leads to an uninhabitable planet. The decision to keep looking to “authorities” to lead the way and solve our problems, instead of working things out with each other, will end up in a predictable manner, and it won’t end well for you. They “solve” problems by passing ever more restrictive laws, raising taxes, building more prisons, enlarging police forces, installing more surveillance cameras, etc. Technology is their “Holy Grail”, as they are ever on the lookout to use any newly developed technology to maintain their “law and order” over the populace. As time marches on, the “space” in which you’re allowed to live your life becomes smaller and smaller, and they’ll consume an ever increasing amount of everyone’s life force… money and labor, to maintain their dominance. George Orwell really did get it right.
So, to sum it all up, collectively, when humanity walked away from the Principles and took the path of agriculture and technology, life got a whole lot tougher. The Earth’s produce was now only obtained by the “sweat of the brow”, and technology, among its many other negatives, created the means to set up and maintain a complex system of illusion… money, power and hierarchy. That artificial system constructed long ago by the clever malevolent among us has, for all intents and purposes made us, the vast majority, their servants. That system is now so well entrenched and secure, that it would literally take a natural or made-made disaster of “biblical” proportions to bring it down. Unfortunately, for the masses of humanity, at that point it would be a very hollow “victory” indeed, if it should ever happen.
Well… I’m not sure why I’m just sitting here, thinking to myself, having a conversation in my mind, pretending I’m speaking to someone from my former home. I guess it’s just what I would say about the Life Forces’ Principles, as well as the differences between the Sarnian and Earth societies, if somehow I was back on Earth (not that I’d ever want to return). Well, that was an interesting mental diversion to pass the time on this rainy day!
Time to pick myself up from this chair and tidy up this place. Standing up, I look around to check for water drips that have gotten past the roof thatching. Nope… everything looks good so far. I made a few repairs the last time that it rained and everything seems to be holding well. I had an “apprenticeship” on house repair while working with Giff… not too long after I arrived in this village. That guy is really good at home maintenance… or should I say hut maintenance.
I’ve made a rake out of a bamboo-type plant… bound the tines with some fibers from the sibbanac stalks. Works pretty good to clean up the small dry thatch particles that fall from the ceiling. In just a little time, I’ll have this hard dirt floor looking pretty good.
Later…
Well, it’s getting to be twilight. I’ve straightened the place up. Got to admit, it looks nice. The gentle rain quit a few hours ago, so I opened up the main hut entrance and placed my chair so I could look out and watch the birds and squirrels doing their thing. There wasn’t much going on in the village today. People pretty much just stayed indoors because of the rain. Now it’s time to get ready for bed. I should get to sleep faster tonight. I still have Maeya on my mind, but I’m not as “keyed up” emotionally as I was yesterday. I’ll get with her tomorrow and I’ll see how to proceed as far as her parents are concerned. Enough thinking… time for bed.