Why New York Doesn't Have Enough Ventilators

Today, we're fighting a global pandemic as a bunch of selfish individual humans, selfish individual groups of humans, and selfish individual nations, each with our own agendas as individuals. 

In the US, we’re taught that the best way of life is the way of competition. Rampant individualism is the order of the day. This extreme individualism is a spiritual pathology. It pushes us to act in selfish ways, in the misguided belief that selfishness is a) moral, b) natural and inevitable, and c) will best enable our genes to reproduce. At the conscious level, we believe that it’s every man for himself, nation against nation, and that somehow out of this sinkhole of interpersonal horrors will come the benefits of civilization; will come luxury and wealth, possessions, high culture, beauty and health and all the sparkling lures of a dominator culture. Instead, individualism is the straightest road to extinction.

Individualism is the disease that will kill us, not Covid-19.

Individualism disables our greatest strength as a species: our ability to work together for the common good. It crushes our ability to empathize, innovate and create. It wastes resources. It allows the most selfish individuals to become the greatest of the earth’s lords and masters, who then oppress us ruthlessly for their own glory and gain.

If we fought this virus as a united world, all working together for the welfare of the species, and if money was no more and the wealthy were cast out and we only accepted leaders of great wisdom, creativity and compassion, then Covid-19 would be a very small threat to us, indeed. 

In short: We are oppressed and kept from working together, and that’s why New York can’t get enough ventilators.

The Revolution is Spiritual

Dateline: Thursday, March 19.

As the coronavirus spreads through the community, Jack goes out to work today with all the other doctors and nurses.


Lil speaks:
I baked potatoes last night, and as usual, after the foil dried out I smoothed out the wrinkles and folded it carefully for the next use. Just a little something my parents taught me about conserving resources.

My parents’ generation came of age during the Depression and fought in the Second World War. They knew how to come together in tough times, how to make do.

                     Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.*

How very strange that sounds to us today, after decades of social training by the Dominator Elite. Most Americans alive today grew up in an environment of extreme individualism and consumerism and adhere to values like me-first selfishness, novelty, speed, ease and comfort. We feel put upon if asked to sacrifice. We see no reason for it.

COVID-19 has changed everything, and now these Dominator values are only making things worse. We need to unite as a nation, care for our community in spite of the inconvenience and share what we have instead of hoarding.

Can we do it? Will we rise to the occasion like my parents’ generation? Or will we surrender to our worst instincts? I encourage you . . . I urge you . . . to become a spiritual revolutionary. To do this, simply practice generosity and conservation in a time of scarcity. It will empower your soul even as it serves your community.

* Boyd Packer, a religious leader in the LDS church in the 1940s, said this.


Charlie Speaks:
In the Long Ago, Sapiens lived together as kin. You identified with the group rather than thinking of yourselves as mere individuals, and together you were more powerful than any individual Sapiens could ever be. In that unity lay your species’ great strength. You scavenged and gathered and hunted together, worked together, cared for children together, shared food and pooled resources.

In those days, the Sapiens were also prey to larger, fiercer animals. There were times that the only way you could survive as a group was through the sacrifice of one of your kinfolk to the predator. Therein lies the source of all human mythologies of sacrifice. Even the story of Jesus is a faint echo of those most ancient times.

This willingness to sacrifice for the greater good is still in your genes. Dormant, but available.

Now, it’s time for all humans to rise up and live out the full potential of your genetic inheritance;* your potential for critical thinking, cooperation, creativity, generosity and love. Many of you are forced to stay home and away from the distractions of ordinary life. Use this time subversively!

You have the time to think things through carefully, to learn and grow intellectually. (Oh, how the Dominators want to keep you from doing just that!) Use this time at home for conversation with your shelter-at-home folks or with friends and family virtually online. Use this time to make love, make art, make magic.

I have hope for you Sapiens. You can do it!

Forced to stay home, you’ll take care of your community.

Forced to see the suffering of others, you’ll become generous.

Forced to confront social disaster, you’ll do everything possible to stop the spread of the virus.

Forced to make do, you’ll innovate.

Forced to think critically, you’ll unmask the Dominator Elite for the psychopaths they really are.

Forced to face your common humanity, you’ll join the spiritual revolution, practicing love and kindness and transforming all the world’s people into kin.

Return, Sapiens, to your true nature! There’s hope for your species yet.


*apologies to Dr. King.

Love is our Only Hope

Dateline: March 17, for some people Saint Patrick’s day. What I see is yet another Catholic holiday taken over by the capitalist marketplace and turned into a pretty distraction.

🌎 Lil
🌟 Charlie

🌎 What a fucking cynic I’ve become! I was idealistic in my youth, like Jack and Sophie, and like them I awakened as I aged to the reality of humankind and their ridiculous, stupid, ugly and sinful behavior. I stopped hoping that anyone or anything could change them. Now, I'm certain that an imminent climate fluctuation makes it too late for us to evolve spiritually and save ourselves from extinction.

🌟 And I say—and I hold the ace on opinions here because I can see further than you can—I say that a remnant will survive and that those few who survive will succeed because they evolved spiritually. They’ll revive their dormant genetic and cultural inheritance of kinship. They’ll embrace values like cooperation, generosity, kindness and love that were embraced by the earliest Sapiens and characterized all the various hominins before Sapiens. It’s bullshit to claim that the interpersonal violence seen in today’s nonhuman primates shows that humans are violent by nature. Just because your cousins are assholes doesn’t mean you have to be an asshole, too. And hey, yes, let’s call it the asshole gene. At least people will know immediately and exactly what behavioral patterns we’re talking about. Nobody needs an official list of psychopathic traits to tell you when somebody’s got the asshole gene.

🌎 I love the phrase. Asshole says it all. Of course, it's unfair to the real ass holes. They’re just our bodies’ innocent waste disposal units. Real ass holes are essential! Asshole Sapiens, on the other hand, are a royal pain in the . . .

🌟 Right-o! So, let’s get serious.

🌎 Let’s Play!

🌟 Let’s seriously play!

🌎 Charlie, how about just letting our conversations speak for us instead of trying to organize it all into a book of narrative text. When we talk in real time, in sacred space, there’s an energy and shameless honesty that comes through. Like when two dear old friends are talking. Which is what we are. We’re not worrying about what anyone else will think, or whether we’re saying things in the most entertaining or instructive way. The passion that we both feel for the salvation of the Sapiens comes through loud and clear

🌟 . . . even though we sometimes get impatient with their stupidity.

🌎 We put on the table all our frustration, sure, but also our compassion for these suffering creatures.  //  But also Charlie, I have seen through your eyes. The world can’t be only-human to me ever again. Do I want to share this deeply personal experience with the world? Tell people about my relationship with you? My most private experience? My truth? It’s terrifying. People might love it or despise it, but if anyone pays attention, my life will never be the same. So? Do I dare?

🌟 How you dare! How you dare! How you dare! . . . If you’re jealous, sue me . . . Look at your reality, too bad. Even if I die now, I’m damn happy. Says BTS.


🌎 Mic Drop. Those guys aren’t just performers. They teach their vast audience about hard work and dreaming, friendship and love. They model how we could all be more vulnerable and open with one another. They’re role models of how men might behave, their strength under control, friendly towards one another and respectful of the women.  //  Argh! Charlie, come on and answer me! Do I dare to share you with the world?

🌟 I say yes. BTS say yes. Dream yourself, love yourself, speak yourself, they say. Dare! // Hey, look out the window. The mailman just dropped something into our box.

🌎 Stay focused Charlie! My question, getting back to business, is how to speak it. A book would be lovely, but is it the best way for actually sharing our ideas with the world . . .

🌟 in another vain attempt to save the humans from themselves . . .

🌎 yes, which is totally audacious, but toujours l’audace!* Ummm was that a question?

🌟 The question on the table is how to speak it.

🌎 Wait. Wait a minute. There’s another question we have to answer first: Who the hell are you? How can I share this vision of ours if I still don’t know who you are?

🌟 Lil, you can’t know who I am. You don’t have the brains or the sensory receptors to know who I am. You don’t have the concepts to understand me or even the language to describe who I am. So, let it go, okay? I y’am what I y’am.

🌎 Says Charlie, Popeye and the Mono-God of Moses! Haha!

🌟 So, why don't we start a blog and post this stuff online? It might be the best match for your skill set and the times.

🌎 A blog scares me because it’s so public. Wait, maybe I can keep it off searches for a start and get feedback from friends first.

🌟 Nope, nope-de-dope. I don’t think we should allow ourselves to be swayed by other people’s opinions. You’re too fragile in your confidence. To make this work, you'll have to learn to be daring and audacious.

🌎 And that’s where we left off last time. Something inside me has to change first. Okay, mon capitan. I’m ready. If not now, when?** I’ll transcribe our conversations and post them, starting now, today.

🌟 With a picture of some kind or a cartoon.

🌎 Right. Definitely some illustration.  //  Wait! I gotta go check the soup.  ////  I’m ba-ack! And I'll restart here: even if I die now, I’ll be damn happy. Happy to spit it out at last. This vision drags me down, Charlie. A vision has to be shared. If you hold it all inside, it starts to push at you and make you jumpy and anxious. That’s why artists feel compelled to share their art. And why I have to share my vision, so I can die happy.

🌟 Okay, Lil. Count me in.

🌎 Remember, no explanations. No disclaimers. No citations. Toujours l’audace! 

🌟 Yes! 👊 And this is our first post.

* as George Patton used to say.

** as Rabbi Hillel once said.