We do not appreciate life for the enjoyment or blessedness in being alive. A life journey has become a struggle to reach some monetary goal, prioritizing financial attainment and management all the way to death. We have even formalized, legalized, and institutionalized instructions and wills to impose such sets of adherences on future generations. Not many people contemplate in gratitude to their health, family union, lifestyle comfort, happy marriage or any other such blessing. Instead, we start the day competing effortfully to raise our financial standing through communally approved evaluations for higher acceptance and praise.
A major, and leading, purpose of getting up each morning is to work, but why is this our favored culture? No other species on the planet seems to have a rigid habit endorsing labor efficiency as the primary activator of its social system. Much of human infrastructure is designed to facilitate efficient production in order to maximize economic growth. Why can’t the human day be intended to a feeling of blessedness in awakening and plucking a seasonal fruit from a tree to enjoy its taste, enjoying mindful meditation before gathering with our communities to meet our essential needs through cooperative camaraderie?
We lead lives packed with sentiments and guidances of indifference, prejudice, and violence. A human must be wary and vigilant of their surroundings not so much to be alert to attacks from predatory animals, but to attacks by other humans. The purpose of such attacks, orchestrated through fascist ideologies, religion, racism, sexism, discrimination, and tangible consequences of inequality, is to successfully compete for resources. We have succumbed to violent and immoral activity such as killing each other for scarce and expensive food — neither of which should be an issue if not for capitalist design of valuing food financially. Thus, our day is spent fiercely capitalizing on interactions and networks with other humans for profit. In this process, and to this end, we torture, abuse, cheat, and murder humans and animals.
How can we nurture and educate with love and compassion when our life purpose directs toward capitalist profit? We aim to win at hoarding and owning common resources to selfishly inflate costs. We then trade these scarce resources required for life. The essence of the dominant global culture of capitalism, which is clearly in charge of real-life purpose, clashes with archaic and sentimental ideals embedded in historic spiritualities, moral philosophies, and even the innate human nature of love and compassion.
We have, gradually, for the most part, morally and socially evolved from a compassionate species to one prioritizing capitalist ideals. This choice to pursue individualistic competition at the expense of excluded populations has now clearly showcased humanity’s social state, along with the global outlook. Too much of the living world is suffering through wildfires, natural disasters, and global warming directly contributed to by human behavior. We are being ignorant when we blame corporations and governments for the deteriorating conditions. We are the consumers; this makes us the deciding group. What is produced, how much is produced, why it is produced, and how it is produced
