Introduction: First Cause

There's no doubt that our world is going through a lot right now. I don't need to catalog for you the daily barrage of crises and tragedies that demand our tears, our good works. Whether you're a news junkie or a metaphorical ostrich, you'd have to be cryonically frozen not to have some inkling of the state of our earth and its people. It's easy to get overwhelmed, especially in the face of the bureaucracy, partisanship, inertia and amnesia that characterize our governments - the so-called "civil servants".

So what hope is there? Is the power of one truly powerless to enact profound, lasting change? I don't believe so, but I do believe that a radical re-thinking is required - a paradigm shift, if you will, in perspective as much as in performance. This guide is an attempt, however small, to flesh out this new view and show how equity, peace, and wellbeing can be practically achieved.

The first step is to learn the difference between cause and effect, between sickness and symptom. It is sometimes easy to mix the two up, especially when a single issue contains multiple layers of cause-and-effect. Take war. War, of course, is the cause of many social problems, among them death, stress, economic instability, famine, factionism, etc. But you could also argue that these effects of war are also its cause - that war is the effect of numerous social causes. In the 1930s, Germany's sky-high inflation and the rape of its national pride arguably led to Hitler's rise and the racist nationalism that fomented World war II. So which is it? Is war cause or effect? In an immediate sense, of course, it's both. But in the big-picture sense - when you pull back from the present and regard the full march of history - war is simply an effect.

But of what?

Before I get into that question, let's revisit the chart from the top of the page which illustrates what I mean by cause-and-effect in a big-picture sense.

As you can see, not only does everything stem from a single "first cause", but all causes and effects - as disparate and unrelated as they seem - are, to a large extent, connected. If you think about it, this makes sense. Using our example of war from above, if you try to define the causes/effects of war simply in social, political, or economic terms, you quickly realize that this misses the psychological, emotional, and even religious reasons for bloodshed. Likewise, defining global warming simply in terms of carbon dioxide emissions discounts the hugely important factors of capitalism, consumerism, laissez-faire economics, and even the Judeo-Christian tradition of man's dominance over nature. And the connections go on.

Ok, while it's all very well to see connections in human behavior, where do these connections lead? Ultimately, they lead to that circle in the middle of the flowchart mysteriously named "first cause". What single thing could possibly be at the heart of all the trouble in the world? Wouldn't it be great to define that thing, take the mystery out of the madness and so move toward a cure? Usually humans fear the unknown - and what greater unknown is there than this equally ubiquitous and nameless cause?

I've spend a lot (a lot!) of time thinking about this question, and while I usually shrink from reducing anything to a single word or thing, I think in this case, it is helpful to think of our pain stemming from a single very innocuous source: what I call the "Breakdown".

Now breakdown has many connotations, most of which are bad: nervous breakdowns, car breakdowns, relationship breakdowns, etc. But breakdown also has a good side: mothers break-down food for their babies; teachers break-down concepts for their students; businesspeople provide a breakdown of data for management and stockholders.

You might be thinking, "As the cause of all the world's problems, Breakdown must certainly be bad." In fact, Breakdown is a vital and dynamic aspect of the universe and cannot (should not) be erased. Positive aspects of this first Breakdown can be outlined thus:

1. Specialization (i.e. biology into medicine into oncology; or artist into painter into Impressionist; or carbon into humans, diamonds, car exhaust)
2. Diversity (i.e. gold atoms, pickup trucks, quasars, nailpolish; or Polish, Dutch, Fijian, Eskimo; or apples, watermelon, papaya, grapes, etc.)
3. Individuality (i.e. self, ego, mind, emotion, separation, differentiation, realization, consciousness)
4. Free Will (i.e. choice, growth, learning, becoming, journey, explore, consequences)
5. Attributes (i.e. red, hairy, shy, oblong, truthful, happy, hot, etc.)
6. Evolution (i.e. change, mutation, recombination, intermarriage)

As you can see, without a Breakdown, the world as we know it wouldn't exist. The universe would be a singularity, yes, but without the dynamism that means life. Then again, not all parts of the Breakdown are positive or even necessary as we continue to mature. Here are a few of the negative aspects of Breakdown:

1. Atomization (i.e. viewing everything as distinct, unrelated; leads to prejudice, objectification, partisanship, materialism)
2. Alienation (i.e. fear, longing, emptiness, loneliness, separation, anger, mistrust, ennui, anomie, disconnection, fatigue, withdrawal)
3. Discord (i.e. conflict, divorce, feuds, unhealthy competition, crime, etc.)
4. Imbalance (i.e. resource exploitation, pollution, global warming, addiction, poverty, famine, obesity, depression, etc.)
5. Selfishness (i.e. corruption, pride, arrogance, certainty, greed, gluttony, etc.)
6. Polarization (i.e. science versus religion; moderates versus extremists; liberals versus conservatives; East versus West; black versus white; men versus women; scholars versus workers; humans versus nature, etc.

In itself, Breakdown is not a bad thing - it is a necessary thing in sustaining and furthering life. However, taken to extremes - when everything is viewed as separate, apart - breakdown can cause war, poverty, addictions, global warming, and all the other social, spiritual, and scientific ills we now face.

Is it possible to preserve the positive aspects of Breakdown without sacrificing the unity that underlies our diversity? Yes! And that's the purpose of this Guide - to point a way toward the "nexus" or center by showing you the infinity of paths that lead to it. Your path doesn't have to be my path, and our outlook and worldview may be vastly and irreconcilably different. That's fine. The only thing that NO ONE should lose sight of is that both the goal and the ground of our beings remains the same: We all come from One, and strive, somehow, to return to it.

Whether you come at it from a scientific, spiritual, or social perspective, AliasEliot hopes to show you how a better world can be achieved now, by embracing opposites and consciously weaving your individuality with others.

Hey, if you think about it, individuality is not so different from Singularity after all....