Polynomial

While I actually don’t push my views into people’s faces (I just usually go about my day meditating on these new modes of greener living, and then let them naturally filter into actions that work in line with my own ecological awareness and sensibilities)… I have now noticed that when people, friends and family now come over to visit or stay, they observe these new “unorthodox” patterns that have crept into my life, and they ask me “why?” To which I usually answer honestly, mentioning that I am doing my best at directing the whole of my being into “new” daily routines that translate into a greener, more sustainable way of life for everyone. And when I say this… I notice a mild shock, a sort of horror, that seems to strike in most of their hearts… And with it, I witness their facial expressions change into a protective mask of, “Seriously, it’s really not that bad now, is it!?”

And when I say I think it is… Then comes the protective rambling about their own usual routines i.e. not composting, not growing their own vegetables, shopping at those big super market chains, walking around at home in winter dressed only in bermuda shorts with the heating on full blast, forgetting to do the recycling, using the car to drive to the corner shop that’s only a five minute walk away, etc, etc… And how that even if they did change, it might not actually make enough of a difference, because so many other people just can’t be bothered to change… And I just listen to this, while I throw the tea bags into the composter and add the milk that I bought from the local dairy farm that I now cycle to, which is only a few miles down the road… Thinking all the time, “Am I overreacting?”

BUT… In truth… I honestly don’t think I am overreacting in the slightest!!!

I know I’m not perfect… So don’t get me wrong. I’m well aware that it is not necessary to change… And I know that survival is not mandatory. But I can’t deny the way the Tao operates and flows. And I know that there will be hard times ahead for the 7 billion of us here on Earth. I am a scientist… And I have put the facts and figures together. But more than that, I know we live in a universe that relies on an affine self-similar mode of evolution that is created by chaos, which creates cycles of abundance and dearth… And from these periods, new patterns and modes of being come into play so that we may survive and live on. Change is the only certainty that we can be totally sure of… It is eternal. Darwin’s natural selection is deeply ingrained in this process, as many of us know. However we, as a global population, have not acknowledged the truth of these processes, let alone properly grasped the intricate workings of our environment and our own minds, which allow us to perceive these changes (OR NOT, as the case may be)… Processes, that when grasped, will demonstrate how our current states of being are not really sustainable in the slightest… Why can’t we see this? Probably because we haven’t properly appreciated the patterns of the past directly, and thus feel these cycles are still some type of fantasy that might not actually be true… Or even worse, that they don’t apply to us, what with our technology and current abilities… Too be honest, I don’t really know.

BUT… I have studied population biology extensively… And in doing so, I have seen the intricate workings of its mechanistic and cyclic flow… For those that don’t know… Population biology illustrates the deep structure that underlies the apparent confusion in the surface behavior of chaotic systems. It’s like looking at the phase spaces of seemingly random pattern that might occur in a system, and seeing a hidden structure emerge, as we do with Lorenz Attractors. Some animal populations exhibit a boom-and-bust pattern in their numbers over a period of years (as human populations have). In some years there is rapid growth in a population of animals, followed by a bust created when the population consumes all of its food supply and most members die from starvation. Soon the few remaining animals have an abundance of food because they have no competition. Since the food resources are so abundant, the few animals multiply rapidly, and some years later, the booming population turns bust again as the food supplies are exhausted from overfeeding. This pattern, however, can only be seen if much data has been gathered over many years… And as humans haven’t properly observed their own cycles of civilization, we haven’t, as a whole, seen that these rules actually apply to ourselves too. Yet this boom-and-bust pattern has been seen elsewhere, including in disease epidemics. Large numbers of people may come down with measles, but in falling ill, they develop antibodies that protect them from future outbreaks. Thus, after years of rising cases of measles, the cases will suddenly decline sharply because so many people are naturally protected by their antibodies. After a period of reduced cases of measles, the outbreaks will rise again and the cycle will start over, unless a program of inoculation is begun.

This self-similar pattern is part of the divine universal flow… This is part of the Tao. If we are to honestly flow with the Tao, and see the “slinky-spring” relationship between cause and effect i.e. how change does NOT always yield immediate effect, but it rather takes time to catch up with our current actions… Then we might actually come to know and see that the effects from these current modes of being are still manifesting in the intricate chain of cause and effect. It’s not hard to understand… It really isn’t! Science, Buddhism and telecommunication have in essence supplied them to us on a silver platter… One only has to have the inclination and curiosity to see that these modes and patterns have already been proved time and again in all the scientific research currently documented… And it has been documented with much accuracy. But only a few of us have grasped this pattern, and even fewer are bringing it into our lives currently. And fewer still know them deeply enough to understand them properly, and be able to talk about them authoritively…