the greatest good
Everything I've ever believed, felt, experienced, known, read, seen, or pondered, has all led back to the same realization: Respecting all life on Earth- and anywhere else it may exist- is the greatest good there is. Nothing surpasses this. No god worth consideration would order a person to commit evil acts; no "means to an end" philosophy can outweigh each living thing's right to self-determination.
Modern society is extremely complex and thus it can sometimes be difficult to figure out what's good and what's bad, but if you look beneath all the cultural, political, and economic implications, the straightforward question always remains: What is the motivation for this action, idea, or belief? Is it rooted in selfish desires at the expense of others, or is it rooted in the desire for equality and a better world for all? If a desire intentionally excludes even one out of a million people, then it is rooted in selfishness.
We have to be careful. The technological world we've built is surpassing our own humanity. It is more difficult to trace a direct path between cause and effect when there are dozens, or even hundreds of steps in between, than when you can see both the cause and the effect with your own eyes. What we call reality is being both replicated and replaced. The further we get from the comparatively uncomplicated reality of nature, the easier it is for us to feel hopeless, powerless, unsure of what to believe. It isn't just the machines themselves that contribute to this, but the machinery of a globally integrated society as well.
Take the invention of the simple mirror. First invented thousands of years ago, they have no moving parts and require no energy. Yet the mirror replicates reality, perhaps better than any modern invention. Despite its apparent usefulness, already it causes problems. A mirror can bring on depression, jealousy, shame, regret. The mirror reflects, showing us things we didn't know before, but our awakened minds do as well, and the thoughts we have will bounce back to us indefinitely, like two mirrors placed in front of each other.
The human being evolved through natural processes, in a sense being designed by nature. Even if you believe a God created us, you still believe that creation took place before any modern technology. We were built with certain needs, capabilities, limitations. We were made to live harmoniously with the natural world, not with modern technology and lifestyles. The more our technologies develop, the more they replicate and replace nature and reality; the more they replace reality, the easier it becomes for us to lose sight of ourselves. But the nature of our existence in this universe, in which we experience life as a spectrum between joy and contentment on one end and suffering and discontentment on the other, will always form the substrate from which we grow, even if it's buried under layers of concrete and wires (though in some circles it's all but forgotten about, particularly among the ultra-rich, for whom inconvenience has little meaning.) To desire to transcend this substrate through technological means is to desire to no longer be human.
Therefore, it is imperative, for anyone who cares, that we grow with our technologies, and not become their slaves, a process which arguably began centuries ago and is now nearing completion. This process can be slowed down and even reversed though. If we are the "gods" of this Earth, able to transform it to our liking and do all kinds of techno-magic that earlier peoples would have thought impossible, then we also have the power to choose how we want to live and what is important to us. If even a small number of people can do it, it is proof that it can be done.
So start doing it, if you aren't already. Reject what doesn't work, what you know to be destructive and selfish, or that makes you feel like a slave. Start coming back to reality, little by little. Start coming back to yourself. The rulers of nations and corporations are often the people who are most lost in the maze, and who are most out of touch with reality. They are not our bosses. They may have guns and prisons, but they cannot dictate how we think or what we value. They are trapped in the machine, leading us astray because they themselves were long ago led astray.
Actual reality does not lead us astray. It cannot. You can lie about something your entire life, and people might even believe you, but it still doesn't make it true. Reality is the point from which all paths originate. Anything that attempts to subvert it is a game, a temporary and arbitrary set of rules that someone made up which are no more real than a child pretending at something. Are all experiences "real" in a sense? Yes. Even when you experience a lie or a fiction, you're still having an experience. But not all experiences are good, helpful, or true.
We need to ask ourselves over and over what we are doing, what the purpose of all this is. If the purpose of something is not, even in some very small way, to make life better for every living thing (rarely directly, but instead through a ripple effect), and not just for a few while intentionally excluding others, then that is not the best path to be on. It may not be the worst either, but it certainly isn't the best. Are we going to forever be satisfied being people who are just good enough that we're considered acceptable where we happen to live, or do we want something more? We've seen what happens when too many people give up and become complacent. What happens is that we get the world we live in right now. One where our realities, and even people themselves, are being replaced by machines and fictional worlds, and where the selfish desires of a very select few outweigh the needs of the masses.
The time to start making things better is now, because that is the only time reality will ever let us do it.
~
October 2026