Everything is Energy, Everything in Berlin is Beautiful

We are all energy. Everything is energy. All these energies interact with each other. This is not an all-encompassing description of how this universe behaves, but it's an accurate one.

I got to the topic of energy because I was trying to fight the desperation I feel as I consume news that reveals all the depraved acts described in the Epstein files. As I watch innocent children murdered, dismembered, disfigured, and traumatized as a result of the violent acts of greedy and misguided men. Starting wars as easily as we choose our outfits for the day. Maybe I was just not conscious of this earlier in my life. Maybe now that I have kids, I am more sensitive to all of it. But at no point in my life have I felt more certain that evil is winning.

Evil as the Opposite of Love

The concept of evil is something that is, at the same time, well defined for all of us but also very amorphous. When I try to think about how I could describe it, I think I'll always end up defining it as the opposite of love. It took me a long time to understand what love truly means, or at least what I think it means now. For me, it means the opposite of selfishness. The willingness to sacrifice personally.

When you define it in those terms, you can see how I see that evil is winning.

The Small Evils

I see how evil tries to encroach upon my soul. I'm not a religious person, but I do believe in the concept of a soul, and I see how evil tries to entice me.

I see it when it is easier to sit on the couch and watch another shitty Netflix movie rather than putting myself in a position where I can help other people. I see it when I spend a disgusting amount of money on a good meal to make myself feel physically satisfied instead of donating that money to the countless number of needy people on this planet. I see it when I decide to take the easy way out and not have a difficult conversation, not try to communicate these ideas to those close to me.

The powerful don't have a monopoly on evil. The rest of us feed it every time we choose comfort. More so in a world that has a huge gap between what is needed and what is being done.

Energy as Proof

Let me give you an example of how I've seen direct proof that energy resides in us and has influence.

My wife and daughter can get into very heated arguments. If I'm conscious enough of myself, and not too tired to allow my own emotions to get drawn into the mix, I can de-escalate the situation by bringing an aura of peace and understanding. I'm not always successful. Sometimes I'm tired, sometimes I'm grumpy myself. But I notice a black and white difference when I bring a positive energy into a situation between them.

Everything that we put our efforts into, everything that occupies our trains of thought, all of this contributes to energy. We have to be conscious of making sure that energy stays on the good side and doesn't accidentally fall into the camp of evil.

Berlin, on a Beautiful Afternoon

I was in Berlin this past week for a few days, taking a break with my son since I had been so busy and hadn't had enough quality time to spend with him.

One particular afternoon, walking back to our hotel, it was perfect. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, the birds were singing to each other. I looked around and saw everyone trying to look fabulous and having a great time sitting outside drinking teas, coffees, beer, wine. And I just thought to myself that I live in such a different world.

I know this is going to sound dark, but I see where the train is driving towards, and there's a horrible accident coming. I don't know how to communicate that to everyone without sounding like a maniac. All these people having a great time, completely unaffected by everything happening in the rest of the world and what's coming over the horizon.

I have written before about the converging crises of AI and climate change. Crises compounded by people in power who have too much energy invested in everything except love. I think it will be impossible to avoid the coming disruption. Based on how I see most people close to me, completely oblivious to the forces moving these crises forward, I think it is pretty much inevitable at this point. And I doubt it's just the people close to me.

This isn't some Terminator fantasy. But I do think a lot of us will feel more pain than we have our entire lives. At least in the Western world. Of course, there are already plenty of non-Western people that are experiencing an amount of pain that I think is hard to imagine, and often as a result of the same forces that will cause our own pain. We should be paying attention and not thinking that we are immune to that reality. Malcolm X is famously quoted referencing the chickens coming home to roost. The evils perpetrated abroad, from my perspective, are partly dress rehearsal. Most of us are too busy on TikTok or taking care of our gardens.

A Note on My Desk

After coming back home from Berlin, feeling a little helpless after seeing these contrasting realities, I was sitting at my desk. I saw a note that I had written to myself, and it reminded me that all crises present opportunity.

Back in 2008, after the financial crisis, we saw this in the U.S. in the form of Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party. There were a lot of pissed-off people because they saw the injustice, they saw the criminality. They saw the lack of accountability. Those that suffered were not the ones responsible for the crash. The popular uprising seen in the Occupy Wall Street movement is an example of not just the organizing that took place, but also an example of how the government crushed that movement. Not necessarily something that you would expect from the freest country in the world.

This time around, when things crash, the crash will last a lot longer. And that's exactly what will give rise to an opportunity. A chance to organize people. A chance to get them to consider other alternatives. It's crazy how the reality we think is hard-coded, the default for our human experience... everything we see around us has been built by us. We forged this path through the wilderness, and I think we don't give it a second thought because it's comfortable. Once things get uncomfortable, I hope we can make better use of our imagination.

What I'm Going to Do

What I think we need to do now, or at least what I will be doing, is project into the future. To that point where emotions will boil over and desperation will seep into the lives of many. Figure out how to start there and work backwards. Help people understand how we got to that point. Chronicle the steps that were taken to get us there, and who got us there.

That does not absolve the rest of us of responsibility. Be careful what you put your energy into. Be conscious of who you are as energy.

I would be surprised if consciousness of this concept takes enough foothold in enough of us to derail the tracks of this train. But the earlier we start to figure this out, the quicker the dark ages that are coming will blow past us.

I don't have a good ending to this post. These were random thoughts that turned into something more cohesive that I needed to lay down on paper. But at least it reminds me to keep the crises contained within a more positive enclosure. Helps me keep my energy positive. Gives me hope.