The human species has become totally dominant on this planet because of fictions. Made-up stories that allow us to cooperate to an extent that no other animal can. Yuval Noah Harari writes about this in Sapiens, but the concept is very simple. Without fictions a troop of apes can be about 50 individuals. Beyond that number coordination stops working and the group splits up. But we – humans – believe in fictions!
Money, countries, religions, companies, laws, sports clubs, jobs, brands, you name it: made-up, unreal, totally non-existent entities. And through these fictions we can cooperate on a global level and utterly dominante every other species on the planet.
And it seems that evolution has selected for the apes that believe in fictions the most to survive. So what we’re left with is very, very gullible apes. Believer apes. 👋🏻 🐵
And it’s not just stories about fictional entities that we’re good at believing. We believe all kinds of nonsense. We believe stories about ourselves and what we should be and should do. We believe we have all kinds of responsibilities. We believe that the way things are somehow make sense. We believe that we are undeserving. We believe!
We believe with our minds. With our little peanut brains. 🧠
Our beliefs are destroying this planet and us as a species and they’re destroying us on an individual level. We’re very, very unhappy, unhealthy and unbalanced. We just believe that we aren’t.
But there’s a way out, a solution, a remedy. And it’s through the body. We believe with our minds, but we can learn to stop believing, like we did with Santa Claus. By directing our attention, away from the propaganda that is fire-hosed into our little brains, away from the incessant thoughts that keep looping in our minds, and directing it into the body.
The body knows a lot more and is far wiser than our gullible little minds. And it is there for you to connect with (again), its communication and wisdom is just drowned out by thought. But like all animals we have the ability to fully inhabit and connect with our bodies. It’s a matter of practice and attention and a readjustment of our relationship to thought.
More about this later…