Cravings vs. True Security

Author: Marjorie Smith (original website: http://www.people-for-peace.com/)

The war society is built on our cravings

Human beings feel a variety of painful emotions, which seem to be the same across all cultures -- sadness, boredom, fear, frustration, embarrassment.

There is one painful emotion that goes hand-in-hand with a war society, which cannot exist without it. This is what, in olden times, was called "greed" but in today's world we think of as "cravings" or "envy." It is the craving for more of something, or for financial or emotional security, that the war society is built on.

I don't know that I have ever met a person completely free of cravings, and I have my share of them.

People with feelings of craving can be manipulated into putting their "desire for what they crave" ahead of any other consideration, such as sharing, generosity, cooperation, fairness, or doing the right thing. We get manipulated all the time through advertising, TV, the press, political slogans, mis-used religion, peer pressure, the "mindset" of a profession, etc.

Right now our U.S. culture is extremely focused on "wanting more," and lots of us are wrapped up in "getting ours" in any way we can. It's a handy way to keep our attention away from interesting and worthwhile projects such as:

-- making friends with people "different" from us,

-- taking the power away from the mega-corporations,

and other such places the War Society would rather we didn't go.

No cravings

We do have a glimpse of what a society not built on cravings might look like. Anthropologists in the early 1900's found tribes and villages still remote and untouched by "advanced" Western society, where people were not acting as if they were driven by cravings. These societies didn't have war, and were built on sharing, cooperation, fairness, and generosity.

In these societies, babies were held in affectionate, skin-to-skin contact by an adult, around the clock, for most of their first year, only being put down when they asked. Several adults shared in the infant-holding so that it was not a burden on the mother.

It seems that a child who is held all the time through its first year ends up with a strong feeling of security, does not have the emotional distress that we experience as cravings, and is not susceptible to being steered away from cooperation and sharing.

Let's do a great big experiment!

Given how widespread cravings are in the War Society, and how badly we need to shift towards a society of peace,

it would be worth doing a well-set-up, well-funded, and widely reported-on experiment or demonstration project on the effects of "sufficient holding" of babies throughout their first year, on their sense-of-security and cravings as they grow up.

Folks who are interested in this road to peace can refer to The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedlof. Such an experiment should be fairly easy to set up and could be started within the next year or two.

Liedlof also points out that meditation gets the brain onto the same peaceful wavelength as that of an infant held in arms. Thus adults, who cannot go back and fill the lack of holding in their past, can experience a similar sense of security by learning to meditate.

Lakomnost proti resnični družbi

Vojna družba je zgrajena na našem pohlepu

Ljudje občutimo niz raznovrstnih bolečih čustev, in zdi se, da so ista prisotna v vseh kulturah – žalost, zdolgočasenost, strah, frustracije, stiska.

Obstaja pa eno boleče čustvo, ki hodi z vojno družbo z roko v roki in brez nje ne more obstajati. Včasih so temu rekli lakomnost, danes pa temu pravimo pohlep ali zavist. To je hrepenenje po večji količini česa ali pa po večji denarni ali čustveni varnosti. Na tem je zgrajena vojna družba.

Ne vem, če sem že kdaj srečala človeka, ki bi bil v celoti osvobojen pohlepa, in tudi sama nisem taka.

Pohlepne ljudi se da manipulirati. Ti na prvo mesto postavljajo svojo »željo po tistem, čemur hrepenijo«, torej pred pomisleki, kot so radodarnost, sodelovanje, poštenost ali pa preprosto početi pravo stvar. Cel čas smo manipulirani preko oglasov, televizije, tiska, političnih sloganov, verske zlorabe, pritiska vrstnikov, poklicnih »miselnih vzorcev«, itd.

Prav v tem trenutku je naša ameriška kultura zelo usmerjena na »željo po več« in veliko nas je zatopljenih le v kako na kakršen koli možen način dobiti kar nam pripada. To je zelo priročen način za odvračanje pozornosti od zanimivih in truda vrednih projektov, kot so:

--iznajti pot, kako ljudi povezati in pri tem upoštevati ekološka načela,

--sklepati prijateljstva z ljudmi, ki so »različni« od nas,

--odvzemanje moči megakorporacijam in njim podobnim, torej povsod, kamor vojna družba raje vidi, da nas ni.

Nič več pohlepa

Imamo bežno sliko, kakšna bi lahko zgleala družba brez pohlepa. Antropologi so v začetki 20. stoletja našli plemena in vasi, katerih se “napredna” zahodna civilizacija še ni dotaknila. Tam se ljudje še niso vedli, kot če bi jih vodil pohlep. Tam ni bilo vojne, temelje so predstavljale vzajemna pomoč, poštenost in radodarnost.

V teh družbah so bili dojenčki v prvem letu življena čez cel dan v ljubečem in pristnem telesnem stiku z odraslimi, odložili so jih le, ko so za to prosili. Da ni bilo to preveliko breme za mater, je za pestovanje otroka skrbelo več odraslih.

Zdi se, da se otrok, ki ga prvo leto življenja cel čas držimo v naročju, razvije z zelo močnim občutkom varnosti, nima čustvenih pretresov, ki jih zaznamo kot pohlep in ga ni moč zavesti stran od vzajemne pomoči in deljenja dobrin z drugimi.

Naredimo en super velik eksperiment!

Ker je pohlep v vojni družbi tako zelo razširjen in ker zelo potrebujemo preobrat k družbi miru,

Bi bilo truda vredno narediti eksperiment, ki bi bil dobro zamišljen, dobro zastavljen in tak, da bi se o njem na veliko poročalo oz. predstavitev učinkov pestovanja dojenčkov v prvem letu na njihov občutek varnosti in pohlepa med odraščanjem.

Tiste, ki zanima ta pot do miru naj se obrnejo na The Continuum Concept (Koncept nepretrgane vezi) po Jean Liedlof. Ta eksperiment ne bi bilo težko pripraviti in začeli bi ga lahko v letu ali dveh.

Liedlof tudi poudarja, da imajo med meditacijo možgani tisto mirovno valovno dolžino, kot otrok, ki ga držimo v naročju. Na ta način odrasi, ki ne morejo nazaj v čas, da bi zapolnili manko pestovanja, lahko občutijo podoben občutek varnosti, če se naučijo meditirati.