The Domestication of Instinct
As a species our historical journey has taken us from mother-rule, to partnership, then by way of conquest to father-rule, and now we find ourselves under the rule of brotherhood, or in the tension between the latter two.
During recent millennia the propaganda of materialism, championed by the father-rule and brotherhood eras, has rendered us congenitally inflicted with monarchial and tribal mindsets that have saddled us with a tyranny toward nature and each other.
Groups from the U.S., and other countries are moving to transcend these tyrannies through strategies, conversations, and deeds. The irony is that those seeking transformation are not taking into account that they are of the same mindset as those they endeavor to change.
Unless we become like the hero Ulysses and plug the ears of our shipmates against the siren’s seductive call to destruction and tie ourselves to the masthead to resist the siren beauty of materialism, tribalism, and other representatives of instinct, we will crash the ship of modernity upon the rocks of time.
There are maps and stories that will help us navigate these treacherous waters. They show routes and behaviors that avoid hypnotic pulls to annihilation. The choices they offer will sustain us in our quest, raising humanity out of adolescent superstitions of fear for survival in a civilization of plenty, root us in life-giving inquiry, and provide confirming love-based conversations that lead toward a sustainable destiny.
We can take our lessons from Bill Murray’s character in the movie Groundhog Day. We can awaken from the developmental drift of the slow moving monotony that binds us to thoughtlessly repeat yesterday’s actions. We can, individually and collectively, do as Murray eventually did, reinvent ourselves. The unwanted alternative is becoming patently clear for growing numbers — to stay stuck everyday on the same Groundhog Day.
Our ancestors domesticated the god, fire, and went on through the other mysteries to bring the elements into our homes. So too our instincts have waited long enough to be acknowledged, by humanity at large, for what they can offer humanity in partnership with that which is higher in us.
To liberate instincts from the command positions they largely hold, and insert them as the resource they are destined to provide will secure humanity in nature as a true steward and guardian rather than the tyrannical adolescent we have generally become. The Domestication of Instinct is long overdue.
