When it comes to idealism of sustaining practices, the scale tips away from competition and towards cooperation. How do you implement this? Ideals by themselves don't go far in this world, they have to be applied. Like I said in part 1, this concept is a daily internal struggle for me. My mind keeps wanting to apply competitive strategies. I've been conditioned... we all have been.
As far back as I can remember, as far back in history I have read, the best gets the most. The smartest student gets the praise, the most charming performer gets all the acclaim, the best businessperson gets the money, the strongest nation gets the resources. This is what drives competition, the will to excel coming from desire to achieve. If we don't have competition, will advancement stop? And what of those who aren't best? What of those who really just suck at what they do?
There is an answer I have realized, and I hear more people speak of it more and more everyday. It isn't something we have to do, but something we must think. An awareness. It's not even that difficult to grasp or explain, but the re-conditioning tends to be the hard part. We have to realize we are one with our environment.
You are here because of your parents and they because your grandparents, so on and so on. You know everything you know because somebody or something already figured it out. Everything you do changes the enviromment of everything around you, and all they do does the same for you. Really, and this may be the biggest stretch for you, you can't take full credit for anything you do or achieve. But, you can claim some credit, and some responsibility, for everything that happens outside of you. That is heavy, if you stop and think about it.
This awareness provides answers those questions I posed.
These things are not completely lost from humanity, and that gives me hope. We still have groups, teams, and families, but the competition mindset is interwoven in them. The difficulty comes from re-conditioning, from re-learning. I have found that it's like anything, riding a bike for example. Master it with training wheels, then take them off. The inevitable falls will hurt, just the same as the feelings of falling back into the competitive "me first" attitude. Eventually, practice makes perfect and you can do ramp jumps and wheelies before long.
Each from their own ability.
For each one's need
-Charles Eisenstein
In part three of this blog, I will explore some of the pitfalls that seem to have emerged from a misunderstanding of how to apply the transition from competitive to cooperative mentalities.
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