Perception controls so much in our minds and therefore in our world.
Cultural blind spots are like collective denial practiced with such fervor that reality is held at bay (for a time) as one would hold an oncoming flood back with a powerful fan. If you channel the flood waters with great care, then you can at first achieve remarkable results keeping the truth of a situation from fully manifesting.
But eventually the consequences of the forces at work manifest, and like the water held back from a bunch of hot air, reality rushes in and overwhelmingly destroys the source of resistance, but not the source of denial, for that is sadly infinite.
If the "flood" we are in denial about was a cyclical sort of thing, a period of crises we could come together and solve at the appropriate time, then go back to normal, perhaps our denial might serve a good purpose to leave us blissfully happy as long as we can be before we turn to face the problem and solve it. No reason to rush if we have time.
But aren't we really holding the flood waters at bay on the first floor of the house and emptying a hose from every window on every floor above? Won't we ALL eventually drown in that kind of system?
How can we best be unflinchingly honest? Should we even want to try? In a world that is killing itself in every major category, from pollution and energy, to health and human care, to food supply and safety, to economic sustainability and human rights, do we want to hear the truth?
Do we tell our kids there's a good chance they will not live to their projected life expectancy? Do we tell them that their standard of living is going to be less than ours, that they will be paying for our mistakes their whole lives, that our selfishness ate up the good parts of Earth as quickly as free-market capitalism could allow it and we're sorry to (predictably) leave them a polluted, infected, waring time bomb?
Is it better to ignore the realities of what is going to happen in the next forty years, before our very eyes, keep our same economies and families and expect that somehow an additional 3-4 billion children added to our world will somehow make it better?
In planning our own merry little lives and families, it's romantic to be in denial, to enjoy the last generation with the luxury to do it and let hope and faith bridge the gap not even science or math can bridge any more. Yet won't all these and more come due within the lifetime of a child born today?
Why would you want to break down these walls of denial to see such foreboding truths? I don't think many do, and I can't say I blame them. I just wish I could put my own blinders back on.
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