Many analyses of the environment and climate spheres tend to be kept separate - and held up as distinct and delineated objects - from analyses of political and economic spheres, though of course there are always accompanying commentaries that make note of crossover effects that one sphere might have on the other. There are plenty of excellent analyses to go around which deliberately make use of multiple spheres to build a holistic case, though these analyses do tend to be shoved to the margins by those dominant institutions of information dissemination which those analyses threaten.
Nevertheless, less plentiful is an appreciation of really how explosive the human element tends to be within this greater metabolism, all of which make for a holistic object of study. Say, we look upon the growing storms and wildfires with trepidation on the one hand, and then upon the frothing global trade and nationalism with lamentation on the other, but then never the twain shall meet, at least in the public eye.
Yes, we're trained to look out upon an object and cast judgment on it, or else switch gears and turn the perception inward within a stream of introspection, both processes of which are very useful in different situations and yield their respective fruits. But to synthesize the two? We don't seem to be as good at that, at least collectively.
Which is just as well, and seems to be a common condition of modern conscious existence. After all, how many can withstand the intense feelings of vertigo, upon becoming alarmed at the increasingly kinetic and turbulent biosphere, and then looking inward to find that explosiveness mirrored in one's own self and society? This is an explosiveness which is ready to burst forth from the mere necessity of motion, where everywhere solutions to problems stand poised to beget yet more problems.
This may seem an esoteric line of inquiry, but energy itself does seem ever more esoteric the more one stares it in the face, which becomes mind-melting. The simplistic metaphor of a dying fire - deprived of its fuel, heat, and/or oxygen - is dashed to pieces upon application to a human organism deprived of food and water, which in its advanced state, becomes ever more explosive and dynamic.
Like the locust, which, finding itself in drought, is moved to frenzy in a consuming cloud which tears across the landscape, the advanced human organism, in a state of deprivation, is spurred into monopoly, war, and total control.
We are left with a choice of actions in which the consequences of each are not significantly different. To avoid turning our gazes inward, it is necessary to continue along the same pathways, the same ruts, marshaling conventional methods, such as current technological fixes to current technological problems, which draw in a whole different set of resources to substitute for the resources being depleted, which at the current scale, sets into motion the same patterns of depletion and turbulence that the previous patterns effected.
Otherwise, to turn the gaze inward is to come up against one's - and others' - own explosive nature. One is moved to change one's nature internally only through dramatic constraint, change, or trauma, all of which tend to originate from external sources.
One's nature can be changed externally from the influence of others, though this outside influence more than often fosters resent. Witness the political directive to "change your life" and save the world. Well who is beckoning this change? Are these beckoners changing every aspects of their own lives, are just the parts that are convenient and have a favorable image?
And then there is the problem of the global elite, whose very natures and existence are predicated on the image of total power and control. And so the inward-facing appeal to change their lives, and give up some control and power is actually an absolute threat to their control and power, which is met with the thirst for more control and power, which increases the need for them to change. Now they exist as the mortal enemy of all of humanity, including themselves, which requires a marshaling of comparable amounts of energy and resources to vanquish them, which produces a turbulence - both internal and external to the human organism - which we are trying to avoid.
At the end of this analysis, the human element itself takes hold in the consciousness as a fearsome and dynamic force, its presence front and center, and even those terrifying environmental storms and fires take a back seat. This is the storm and fire par excellence.
Its modern form, which in its material expansion and global breadth, and its cultural atomization and resent, is poised to explode upon being antagonized, and is currently in a historical state of explosion in response to historical antagonisms, and then as it explodes it continues to antagonize itself and its own environment. This is a mechanism which is more fearsome than the atom bomb itself, which was merely birthed by it.
Is a life of peace and dignity possible in the face of such a state of affairs? Well of course. But first this is a vision which must be seen and felt.
