Why Changing The Game We Play Is An Existential Need

The win-lose game is increasingly unsustainable. It has become a lose-lose game, and we need to design a win-win game.

Since the origin of time, life has been defined by the survival of the fittest. Those who lived were able to dominate their environment in order to control and exploit the available resources. In the wild, this rivalry dynamic was needed to survive. Those who did not develop their ability to compete were taken over by those who did. Power struggles naturally and sustainably drove the evolution of humanity toward the situation in which we find ourselves now. We have survived with the technological power that we know of today. We have reached undisputed domination of our planet, access to abundant resources and the ability to expand in the universe.

It will only develop faster as technological progress drives technological progress exponentially with our ability to impact ourselves and our environment. The paradigm has changed. A new era has started: the Anthropocene and the great acceleration of the dramatic, continuous and roughly simultaneous surge in growth rate across a large range of human activities.
Yet, in this new paradigm, exponential technological progress amplifies everything in human nature, including what is twisted and broken in ourselves. In this context, our competition for power, resources and status is increasingly destructive and therefore unsustainable. It results in conflicts, overconsumption and conformism to the very norms that are desperately in need of change. Our inherited collective patterns to dominate, accumulate and conform have become a threat to our very existence. In a twist of fate, we are being called to overcome our primitive survival patterns in order to survive.

In order to do so, we must understand the principles of interdependence and interconnection of our universe. The predator cannot become too good at catching its prey without consciousness, or it will deplete them. It needs to understand that there is a need for a balance that needs to be respected. For us human beings, it means that we need to integrate that success of the individual at the expense of others, or of a ingroup at the expense of other outgroups is no longer viable. Power over others perpetuates the very rivalry dynamic that is self terminating for our species in a context of exponential technological progress and destructive power. We must come to understand that our best interest to no longer compete with each other for material resources and power. Unless we collaborate to become the best version of ourselves and contribute to make our world a better place, then I am afraid that we are doomed.

For all of us, this is a great challenge, as our survival instinct is deeply embedded in our collective unconscious. In order to overcome it, we have no other choice but to make our collective unconscious conscious. That implies bringing our level of awareness to uncover what used to be hidden, diving in to explore the nature of our collective beliefs, fears and traumas, healing what is wounded inside of us. It implies a profound inner and outer transformation that needs to be catalyzed by the uncovering of great knowledge about ourselves and the nature of our reality.
But as much as this is challenging, we have to remember that change is not an option, but a vital need. New era requires new teachings, and so do we. What a better time to start than here and now…

Benjamin Casteillo — New World Together