An Idyllic Society

 

 The problem with an idyllic society is that it would be so fucking boring.

Ellen Wilds, 2025

 

And yes, I am sufficiently old that I don't censor my language.  

 

Every religion preaches some sort of idealized version of our lives if only we would just believe what we are told to believe.  We are taught to be good in order to avoid going to Hell.  We are taught that when bad things happen it is because someone somewhere committed some sort of sin at some time and now our loving God insists that we all suffer accordingly because we allowed sin.  A god that denies the living the comfort of burial rituals just because the deceased died by suicide or was unbaptized or married out of the faith is not a god worthy of worship and I have no desire to associate with such a deity.  

 

The simple truth is that religion -- every religion -- is an entirely man-made structure.  All the laws and rules were created by people.  We wrote the scriptures and the Liturgy.  We decided what was and what was not a sin, then said it was "God's Laws."  Self-affirmation.

 

GDW's laws can be found in Science -- in physics, in biology, in medicine, in geology, in astronomy, in climatology.  And yes, slowly science is replacing religion as the source of knowledge about our reality.  As that has happened people have learned that natural disasters are not the result of sin, real or imagined.  Like GDW, Nature just is.  It has no motive and answers to no one.  With religion's grip on our consciousness waning we are free to study other paths to see what they offer.

 

I don't know if an idyllic society is possible, given human nature.  Christianity might have been a start.  However the entire religion with all its strictures was founded by Emperor Constantine on the model of the Roman Empire so a "Pax Romana" was the only plan for the idyllic society promised.  And of course, the Church was quick to point out that no one was really doing the Christ stuff here on Earth, but if we just bear with them we will go to Heaven after we die.

 

This has led our society to focus on the wrong things.  We are fixated by wealth, by power, by clicks and likes.  We want to collect trophies and souvenirs (leading adults to steal sports memorabilia from children).  Our society has become about who can get the most.

 

He who dies with the most toys is still fucking DEAD  

 (Ellen S Wilds) 

 Still can't take it with you. 

 

So what would an idyllic society look like?  Assuming that there is ample motivation to put the needs of the many before the wants of a few, that we accept that all life is connected at the source, that nothing here is permanent and that we do not know what happens after death perhaps there is a way to change the way we think about our world.

 

Buddha told a story about a man who was just miserable in his life.  He was poor, his wife yelled at him, etc.  Buddha took the man to a pond where a lotus flower floated on the surface.

 

"What do you see?" he asked the man.

"A beautiful flower," the man answered.

"Now look deeper," said Buddha, "where does the flower come from?"

The man pondered a moment.  "Well, they grow out of the mud under the water."

Buddha nodded.  "It is still a beautiful flower no matter its origins.  Stop looking at the mud and focus on the flower."

 

We can never have an idyllic society as long we focus on the wrong things.