by Chet Shupe
organic bent, all institutions are anti-Nature—that is, they force us to break the laws of life. If humans were actually a pair bonding species, the institution of marriage could not possibly exist, because lifetime pair bonds would occur naturally.
The practice of lifetime pair bonding had its beginnings even before centralized rule. It probably began when pre-civilized men began forming coalitions to authorize the ownership of women. When men spiritually enslaved women, in this way, they deprived humanity of the essential spiritual guidance that is inherent to female social bonds, and without which humans cannot long survive in any world—natural or otherwise. In the absence of the reference for order provided by female bonds, humans became dependent on artificial sources of purpose, direction, and order, that varied wildly among cultures. This initially resulted in large tribal systems and, with the advent of the written word, nation-states.
The disbandment of female social bonds was the first step on our road to the inevitable cataclysms to come. As I see it, the reformation of female social bonds will be the indispensable first step away from cataclysms, and towards our reconnection with one another, through natural families and communities of such families. It will also result in our eventual reconnection with the land—which is essential if the land is to be taken care of.
On the macro level, the eventual consequence of instituting laws is social upheaval—the very chaos we think we are avoiding by instituting laws. The cataclysms that typify the ends of all civilizations reveal that the laws of life—not states—are sovereign. Life’s laws cannot be ignored, not for long. But, being unaware that the laws of life exist, we have had no way to comprehend the message.
The message is:
Just as the universe’s existence is dependent on the laws of physics, life’s existence is dependent on the laws of life.
To Honor Life’s Laws, we must Respect Emotions
Because they are revealed by emotions, the laws of life are far too complex to put into words, or—as with the laws of physics—to describe mathematically. For instance, how would you like to be tasked with describing, in detail, every possible situation in which honoring feelings—such as hunger, anger, acceptance, rejection, romance, or to self-sacrifice or kill—creates the order required for our species to flourish? You would end up with libraries of documentation.
Though life’s laws are too complex to be documented, we can respect them by keeping in mind that, because they are expressions of emotions, life’s laws and our emotions share the same qualities:
They apply only to the moment.
They apply only among individuals who are emotionally acquainted with one another, and with the habitat that sustains them.
They are uniquely expressed by each individual’s personality, sensibilities, and behavior.
As expressions of life, we are born to be subjects of life’s laws. Yet, in the modern world, we eventually awaken to find ourselves subjects of legal truth. We are thereby forced, by the necessity to survive, to regularly ignore the above three observations regarding where and how the laws of life apply.
We ignore them in the following ways:
Each time we contract for a lifetime relationship, or agree to any other legal arrangement, believing we will always feel the same about it as we do at that moment, we are committing ourselves to deny many of the feelings we might have towards that arrangement, for the rest of our lives.
Each time we judge another person with whom we are not emotionally acquainted—whether on the basis of color, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, ideology, or by voting—we are ignoring the laws of life, which apply only in circumstances of emotional intimacy.
And, each time we impose legal truth to prescribe how everyone in the land is to react to a specific situation, we ignore that each individual is a unique emotional expression of life, and thus of life’s laws. (Of course, the word unique does not include disfigured behavior—behavior that is dangerous to others—which would be unacceptable in any culture—spiritually free or otherwise.)
What are the consequences of breaking life’s laws? What if, for instance, we were respecting our feelings of the moment, as humans once did, and thus living according to the laws of life? How would that affect our existence differently than honoring legal truth? Here are a few of the ways:
The laws of life organize us so that we simultaneously serve our own and our species’ needs. Because we are expressions of our species, both needs are one and the same. Legal truth organizes us to serve ourselves, as individuals, but only in deference to the state, and as servants of the state.
When we abide by life’s laws, our full spectrum of emotions is poised for immediate expression. When we abide by legal truth, we hide most of our feelings of the moment, for the sake of satisfying our overriding concern, which is: “How am I going to secure my future needs?”
When abiding by life’s laws, we live in the moment. We satisfy all feelings by doing something. When abiding by legal truth, we live mostly in the future. We satisfy most feelings by pursuing the promise of beliefs, goals, hopes, and dreams.
When honoring the laws of life, we are agents of our species. We have the spiritual authority to self-sacrifice or kill, on behalf of our species. When honoring legal truth, we are agents of the state. We are willing to self-sacrifice, and have the legal authority to kill, on our state’s behalf.
As subjects of life’s laws, we know the unconditional love of interdependent relationships. As subjects of legal truth, we are dependents of the state, largely spiritually estranged from one another, sometimes even within our own homes.
The laws of life are grounded in the wisdom each species has genetically accumulated over evolutionary time. Legal truth is grounded in mankind’s belief that, by virtue of pure reason or by the word of God, we are privileged to use this planet to our own ends.
The laws of life are viable, as is evident by the fact that life continues to flourish on this planet. Legal truth is not viable, as is evident by the eventual collapse of all nation states throughout history.
Happiness is Our Reward for Being True to Life
Unaware, as we are, that there are laws of life that maintain order among animate beings, humans love legal truth. We love it not just because we see it as essential for order, but also because it feels good to believe that, by virtue of our good intentions—made manifest by instituted law—we can have things our own way…or God’s way. But, regardless of how much we love it, legal truth can never justify life’s existence. In fact, I know of no truth in the universe that says life should exist. Life can persist only by virtue of our emotional natures, through which life gifts us with the will to live and the emotional wisdom to make choices that optimize the likelihood of its success. If truth cannot justify life’s existence, then no truth can govern it—whether that truth is religious, legal, ideological, philosophic, scientific or otherwise.
Except for habitat destruction, no greater disaster can befall a species than for the laws of life that sustain it to be ignored. Fortunately, our species is the only one to which this has happened. Unfortunately, the habitat destruction resulting from our misguided activities has caused many species to go extinct. But, their suffering is over now, while our state of spiritual estrangement continues, which is as great a suffering as there can be for a member of any social species. (Having been through two divorces, I can testify that my dear ex-wives and I have contributed many human-years to the body of human suffering, as a result of trying to establish a home, according to the edicts of legal truth.)
Why does legal subjugation result in suffering? To break any law results in suffering. How can we not suffer when, as subjects of legal systems, we must break life’s laws to survive. The freedom to be true to ourselves is the only way we can be true to life. (To thine own self be true—William Shakespeare.) It is the only freedom our souls want. Unfortunately, that is the one freedom that legal truth cannot allow—indebted, as it is, to state sovereignty.
By
virtue of evolution, happiness is as simple as this: Our emotions reward and punish us on the basis of whether or not we are succeeding at being true to life. When our survival is dependent on our being true to the state, we can hardly be truly happy. As a consequence, unhappiness is so rife in the modern world that we spend our lives largely in the pursuit of wealth and privilege, which aren’t what we really want. As members of a social species, what we want is the unconditional love that occurs only amongst the members of an extended family who are taking care of one another, for the sake of their mutual survival.
Significant Obstacles Stand Between Us and Life
If our souls prefer the intimacy of interdependent relationships, over wealth and privilege, why don’t we simply form families that are bonded by mutually-experienced emotional and material needs? There are many reasons. Here are the main ones.
Because we have never experienced the unconditional love inherent to interdependent relationships, we do not know its source. We have nothing to inspire us to form families based on mutual needs.
As subjects of legal truth, we view the idea of trusting our lives to our feelings as animalistic, not human. To trust our relationships to our feelings would engender the contempt of our society, which sees