My Unsettling Descent into Balance

Revisionist History in Real Time

Hello, my friend! I’m so glad you found me! After all, I wrote this specifically for you…

Have you ever had a truly great teacher? The best teacher I ever had was my first grade teacher. In fact, calling her a “first grade teacher” is practically an insult. She was more like a “first grade guru”.

My first grade guru was the dictionary definition of a free spirit. At the same time she was grounded by the weight of her wisdom. Her gift was her ability to express profound concepts in ways even a first grader could understand. She taught me the three greatest lessons I’ve ever learned.

The first lesson was, “Always keep your mind open… but not so open that your brains fall out.”

She strongly stressed humility with the second lesson… “There is no shame in being wrong, as long as you are learning.” We should take the learning process we were engaged in at school and apply it to greater life.

And finally the third lesson… “Everyone sees the world differently.”

I’m telling you this because this is the heart of omniku. You and I are both victims of our personal perspective. Each and every one of us lives in a “cultural bubble”. And actually, we each straddle multiple cultural bubbles… forming our own personal bubble.

And that goes for you too. Don’t take it personally though. Same rules apply for me. I’m sitting here in my own personal bubble.

Worse yet, many of us are unaware of the effects of our personal perspective and bubbles. And even if we gain enough self-awareness to recognize the perspective-tainting of the cultural bubbles we live within, it’s still reeeeally hard to burst your cultural bubble. It’s hard enough to step outside of your personal perspective even just for a little itty bitty moment. For real!

Burst Your Bubble

Jump ahead six years and I’m sitting in my seventh grade history class. Do you know how you have those memories that are crystal clear? This is one of those moments I remember like it was yesterday.

My history teacher drew an undulating line across the board. He told us this wave-like drawing represented the rise and fall of civilizations throughout time; the cycles of history. And he shared with us his own personal belief… that our civilization was currently on the decline. That we were most likely entering a new dark age. The only thing he wasn’t sure about was how far along the descent we are.

My curiosity was piqued! After that I became a student of history, studying the ebb and flow of history’s waves. I learned that “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes“ and I saw how our current era rhymed with the trajectory of former powerful civilizations. I began to agree with my seventh grade history teacher — it certainly feels like we are on a downward trajectory.

Shoot. I hope I’m not bumming you out. Stick with me! I promise I won’t leave you in a bad place. I am really happy you’re still reading this, so I feel like it’s only fair to warn you… it’s gonna get worse before it gets better. But I promise you it will get better!

Anyway— worse yet, along the way I learned another rule of history… collapses come suddenly. Things tend to hum along just fine until suddenly they don’t. For example, although the ultimate collapse of ancient Rome took a long time by modern standards, the inciting event —a series of political crises in the third century that resulted in over 20 emperors during a 50-year span— was pretty fast. The tail end of its decline was simply a slow death due to the inertia of its massive power.

The way ancient Rome collapsed also struck a chord with me. Rome’s military was so massively powerful it was never entirely defeated militarily, instead it rotted from the inside out. It destabilized as wealth inequality grew, its foreign engagements grew and strained, its citizenry became apathetic, and its government became thoroughly corrupted. Any of this sound familiar to you?

The West is obsessed with ancient Rome. But during its era ancient Rome overlapped with an equally great power in East Asia. Although they peaked at different times, ancient Rome and the Han Dynasty in China have some remarkable similarities. Ancient Rome’s peak territory of 5 million square kilometers and domination of 57 million people is comparable to Han’s peak of 6.5 million square kilometers and domination of 58 million people. It’s only relatively recently that scholars began comparing the two empires and the parallels are pretty mind-blowing.

The Han Dynasty suffered a similar fate as ancient Rome; mass corruption led to wealth inequality, resulting in peasant revolutions that gutted the once powerful civilization from the inside out. In fact, in a study of dozens of dominant civilizations from around the world and throughout time, they all pretty much follow this same trajectory. The unifying factor is limited resources and wealth inequality. And without fail we get the rhyming patterns of the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the French Revolution, the Peasant’s Revolt, the Young Turk Revolution, etc etc.

Sadly, I see the same historical rhyme schemes dramatically outlined in our current era. Don’t you agree?

As I continued to study history, I found it hard not to notice that the cycles of history have gotten exponentially faster. As we modernized, the cycles of the waves increased their pace. Compare the Han Dynasty or Roman Empire’s slow-burn collapses to the rapid collapse of the British Empire. It occurred to me our current, relatively peaceful and civilized era may only last for an eye blink in the grand scope of history.

I used to think of history as the past. Then I realized no one lives outside of history. And now I refuse to acknowledge any distinction between “breaking news”, “current events”, and “history”… it’s all part of a continuum. I began to wonder if I should stop worrying about future generations and start worrying about myself personally.

Blunt Force Impacts

In the most recent slice of our continuum —during the first two decades of the 21st century— we’ve experienced three blunt-force impacts… September 11th, the Great Global Recession, and the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s hard not to take an extremely dismal view at this point.

But not me! Like I said, my first grade guru taught me to always keep my mind open.

And I’m so happy you stuck with me! It gives me hope that maybe you feel the same way!

My faith in human brilliance is unshakable. Humanity is simply amazing! There is no predicament that we can’t innovate our way out of! I am fully confident that we can overcome anything (if we just put our minds to it). Because if there’s anything the cycles of history have taught me it’s that light always comes out of darkness. Always.

This time it can be different… if we want it. We’re blessed with the most enlightened and interconnected society in human history. The exponentially intensifying cycles of history coupled with our worldwide connection and universal interdependence have given us an awareness no previous human society ever had access to. And this newfound awareness even gives us the power to break the cycle itself! Modern day humanity is better equipped to learn from our prior mistakes than any other society of humans in the history of humanity!

But, again… only if we want it.

All of civilization has been bootstrapped from total anarchy! So our reaction to so-called “hopelessness” must always be to find the glimmer of hope within it. Trust me, it’s always there. Always! Hopelessness is no impediment to hope!

Of course, you’re a smart person. You must know by now that hope alone won’t do the trick. We can’t just sit back and wish for everything to be fine. The fall of modern civilization may still be in the cards and apathy only increases the chances it will be dealt to us. We can have faith in our abilities, but at the same time we need to be constantly vigilant because civilization is a thin veneer; a mere patina that separates us from the chaos it was born out of.

Many years ago I had an incredible experience. Words are too inadequate to explain it, although I’m trying. I imagine it could be called an “epiphany” or a “kundalini awakening” or perhaps even a “manic episode”. Take your pick! Without getting into the details, let’s just say I had a major opening of my own perspective. In an instant, I realized everything that’s currently on this site (and more!). I have spent years trying to distill that experience into the clumsy object that is human language. The words you’re reading right now are the tip of that iceberg.

But the most important thing I learned during that experience was how my personal perspective shaped me and continues to shape me. I discovered I’d failed to truly learn (and live) the lessons about open-minded humility that my first grade guru was trying to teach to us.

Being open-minded involves challenging your beliefs, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you need to change them. Sometimes, after challenging your beliefs, you’ll change them… and if you are truly open-minded you’ll appreciate the learning experience of discovering you were wrong to believe what you believed previously. Sometimes you will soften your beliefs as a result of challenging them. Other times you will find that challenging your beliefs simply reinforces them, as you discover you were correct all along. And now open-mindedness —tempered by humility— is my guiding light.

Pessoptimism

Open-mindedness will breed what I like to call “pessoptimism”. You become simultaneously an optimist and a pessimist, borrowing the best from both worlds… you become a rational optimist and a constructive pessimist. Becoming a pessoptimist doesn’t really require a major change to your personality; it’s more of an awareness of traits you probably already have. Personally, I believe the vast majority of people —if not all people— are already pessoptimists.

If you ask people if their lives up to this point have been “good, bad, or a mixture of good and bad”, they usually say “mixed”. But if you ask those same people to predict what their future will be, most people predict a far rosier future for themselves than you’d expect, given their “mixed” experience so far. So most people are optimistic.

At the same time, studies show most people have a tendency to veer towards negative thoughts. If you think about it, this makes logical sense. We live in a harsh world where life can be cruel. Projecting with dark thoughts is a method of mentally preparing for the worst so you can overcome those obstacles. Today’s pessimism is a survival skill; a perverse product of social natural selection. So most people are also pessimistic.

Being optimistic doesn’t necessarily mean denying reality or becoming a “Pollyanna” because the brutality of reality is near limitless.

Being a pessimist doesn’t necessarily mean denying reality or becoming a “grouch” because the wonders of reality are near limitless.

I used to think I was a pessimistic person, but as a result of my experience I’m gradually changing that. I won’t claim that I don’t still have my moments of darkness, but they are less frequent and more fleeting. After my experience, I realized in some ways I was (and am) also overly optimistic. My chronic lateness is because I’m overly optimistic about time. I was overly optimistic about my first career. Etc.

At the time, my epiphany/kundalini awakening was crushing. Maybe you’ve experienced something similar? This indescribable sensation feels like your world is “closing”. Anyway it was crushing for me. When I look back on it I think… Good! Although at the time it felt like my entire being was being crushed, I realize now all of the crushing was confined to my ego.

Now I’m not claiming I’m some kind of saint who’s immune to the trappings of the self and other vanities. No way! I’m just saying with my newfound awareness I’m trying to minimize those trappings. Humility is crucial; you cannot practice open-mindedness if you do not try to be humble. And trust me… the sensation of being “open” far exceeds the sensation of being “closed”.

Here’s the good news. Some people are naturally more pessimistic and some people are naturally more optimistic. But pessoptimism is a learned skill; with a little practice you can train yourself to use each trait to its full advantage.

To put it another way, someone once told me, “you need to be a theoretical pessimist and an operational optimist.” Rational optimism is a learned skill that can help you overcome negative thinking while simultaneously reducing stress. Constructive pessimism is a learned skill that can save you from peril while simultaneously keeping you grounded.

The glass is not half full. The glass is not half empty. The glass is in perfect balance.

Then again… I could be wrong.

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