ATHENS — As Nobel Peace Prize nominee Greta Thunberg has so accurately identified our crises, climate-induced social collapse is not something that might happen in our children's or grandchildren's time. It is occurring right now.
People typically don't respond well to attempts to frighten them into being actors in their lives. It only further exacerbates their sense of powerlessness and hopelessness.
That being said, there is also nothing to be gained by either ignoring or denying the current dire state of our situation.
Counterintuitive as it may appear, the ultimate doom and gloom of civilized people - the very real possibility of the demise of our cherished way of life - must be fully accepted. Only then can we grow up, as we must do to survive, perhaps even thrive, in this brave new world that we have entered.
To live lives that are sufficiently empowered so that we act skillfully and wholesomely in our unprecedented situation, we must be able to accept our circumstances for what they are.
Acceptance of the unacceptable is the essential first step to growth and transformation - and becoming empowered (and hopeful) so we can act in our best interests.
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We must grieve the world we have already lost and will never see again.
No question, it will be painful to open ourselves to seeing that we continue to murder, rape, and exploit the rest of life in the name of “progress” and “civilization.” Change will involve suffering - and it should, if we are to move on with our moral development.
While grieving is essential to helping us come out of our heads and into our hearts, it is also important that we forgive ourselves for having been part of the unfolding catastrophe.
Forgiveness is necessary, not only because there is no gain in beating ourselves up for being an imperfect, ignorant human being, but also because forgiving ourselves then makes it possible for us to forgive others. It introduces humility and modesty, and possibly grace, into our behavioral repertoire.
Grieving properly is best done when we come home to Mother. Reconnecting with nature awakens us to how we're all dependent on - and, hence, responsible for - one another's well-being. We're part of the cosmic whole.
Awareness of our interbeing reveals how we share with all of Mother's progeny a thrust toward being our essential life energy. We see that each sentient being is blessed with the universal state of being alive.
This emerging consciousness awakens our potential for compassion and to a commitment to not harm life.
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Grieving and reuniting with Mother is best done in the company of kindred souls of family, friends, neighbors, and others in the community who are also committed to engaging in a deep adaptation to this rapidly evolving new normal.
People like our Middlebury neighbor, Bill McKibben, who has made clear we're going to have to learn to live with this reality. (“[I]t's too late to stop global warming, that's no longer on the menu....even if we do everything right at this point, the temperature will go up,” McKibben recently said in a radio interview.)
We need the company of people who can let us be authentic and honest, who can share our sorrow and anger, fear and shame, who can offer mutual support in our efforts to be the responsible adults we can and need to be.
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Most importantly, if we are to live a proactive, transformative existence, we must do so by living the values that are congruent with this way of life.
In addition to those already cited above, these values include loving kindness and generosity, empathy and equanimity, beauty and joy, courage and common decency, peace and social justice.
At bottom, such values reflect the exquisite brief moment of life that we share with all beings.
This does not mean that we have to become someone we're not. Most of us have risen to the occasion to meet the needs of one another in terrible situations.
Rather, the problem is that our moment to moment, everyday practice of these values is inconsistent.
Our unconscious lapses and mindless acts, laziness and indifference, create a yawning gap between our ideals and actual behavior. As our collapsing world so painfully demonstrates, we don't walk our talk with any constancy. We don't live lives of everyday integrity.
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As important as solar panels and Green New Deals are, they don't speak to the moral and spiritual heart of our crisis. They don't reflect the need for a practice of the life-affirming values we need in order to make a real difference.
It's our relationships with one another, and all other living beings, that ultimately require fixing.
We have to forswear our allegiance to the capitalist consumer paradigm and our blind faith in the god of technology. Both have brought us to the precipice of social collapse; we must embrace our love for life, disavowing the anti-life values of greed, violence, and hatred.
Living a way of life that honors the sacredness of life will not necessarily prevent our world from collapsing. It may be too late for that.
Nevertheless, we must live a life in which we do the right thing as best as we can. Doing so is the antidote to despair, the tonic for joy.
And if we have any chance of realizing a liberating transformation, it will be because we are behaving with the values that privileges and celebrates life.