I am actively recruiting conspirators to take part in a plan to save the world.
There are no clandestine meetings, no high-risk behaviors, and no financial investments required. No special equipment is needed. No special training or sign-up sheet. You don't even have to go out of your way at all; you can do it from the convenience of your own normal life. But you must commit to it. It won't always be easy. At first, the hardest part will probably be just remembering you are even part of the conspiracy. But there may be some danger involved as you go, so don't take your commitment lightly.
In return, your efforts will eventually be appreciated globally and you will be an active participant in the betterment of humankind. Sound good?
To be an official conspirator, you only need to do the following things:
1) Consider how you can help others before considering how you can help yourself.
2) Understand that all of us are in this big mess together.
3) Don't let injustice happen without a fight.
As I mentioned before, there may be some dangerous aspects to this conspiracy. That danger comes from adjusting a couple of your priorities. Mainly, you can no longer allow personal survival to remain your highest priority. Some of us might think this isn't our highest priority, but some of us would be wrong. Personal survival, at some level -- protecting ourselves, our families, our bloodlines, our religions, our careers, our wealth, our entertainments -- motivates everything we do. It is self-centered even when it seems like self-sacrifice.
The television show Doomsday Preppers is a good example of this. It's popular, but I suspect for different reasons than I like it. I enjoy it because I think being self-sufficient and prepared for emergencies is an interesting topic. I'm a big fan of learning how to generate renewable energy, build a house that exists in harmony with nature, and dehydrate different kinds of chili. However, there is a dark side to the show as well -- the "defending what is mine" side. Building booby traps, stockpiling weapons, and doing anything in our power to protect what we claim is "ours" may be attractive to many viewers, I'm sure, but that mentality supports an outdated, static, and dead-end life philosophy. If we really want to live in a world of progress, we're going to have to come up with something else. The planet already has its fair share of people obsessed with looking out for their own interests. Any apocalypse worth preparing for is going to be hard enough without a bunch of these assholes running around making it harder for us. And who wants to live in a post-apocalyptic world populated with hotheads willing to kill other human beings to protect their chickens or treehouses anyway? That doesn't sound fun at all.
What a real post-apocalyptic world could use, on the other hand, is a population of people trying to make the world better than it was -- a population of people motivated by cooperation and looking out for others who might need help. Hell, even if you actually believe in an impending apocalypse, it should comfort you to know that it can be averted by all of us joining the very conspiracy for which I'm recruiting. It seems reasonable to believe civilization would be less susceptible to ruin if we could create an organized philosophical shift that explores interests beyond our own, interests of humankind as a whole, and interests necessary to improve the quality of life for as much life as possible. Not just our own lives. Not just the lives of people we know. Besides, teaching everybody how to develop and implement strategies to help others with their varied needs, seems a much more enjoyable, comprehensive, and effective survival technique when compared to one that focuses on reminding the kids to aim for the kill zones of the stranger walking across your property looking for a glass of water.
I am not asking anyone to get rid of personal survival as a priority completely. I am not asking anyone to be a martyr. That is reckless and stupid. Obviously, the longer we survive, the more opportunities we have to be a part of the conspiracy and save the world. But the simple act of moving our survival priority lower on the list may be just enough to give us that different perspective needed to not only save the world in the long run, but to also save ourselves from being exploited by those non-apocalyptic bullies we run into on any given day.
"You should be happy just to have a job. If you don't like working here, you can leave."
"Okay. Good-bye."
As I said, this adjustment will be the most difficult part. It will take you to a place you're probably not used to and may result in being criticized and ostracized by every other person not in on the conspiracy. The true secret in this conspiracy of shifting attention from oneself to something more unified with a broader worldview, however, is that it will eventually create a global environment that ends up protecting your individual interests better than you could ever have done on your own.
Once that secret gets out, everyone will want to join up. Until then, it's just us. Be strong.
Originally posted on the blog This Remarkable Life. Find other Dirk Hughes blogs at land of quo, American Dream Art Project, and Thrifstory on Wordpress.