I have unwavering faith in humanity. This belief has always been with me, accompanied by a deep conviction that "life doesn’t have to be this way. We can live together in peace, harmony, and love."
For over 35 years, I’ve explored both our human nature—the qualities that define us as individuals—and our essential nature, the deeper truth that we are all part of a single, unified being. This exploration has only strengthened my faith in who we are and what is possible.
This faith persists even—and especially—in the face of today’s cultural crises: the polarization, inequality, disillusionment, and erosion of democratic norms and institutions.
Why?
Because at our core, our essential nature is one, shared being that includes everyone and everything. According to all the great wisdom traditions and religions, that being is love.
The crises, the hopelessness and helplessness disguised as apathy, the challenges over whether we’ll sustain democracy or slide into authoritarianism—these are not just problems to be solved. They are symptoms that reveal deep-seated cultural issues, reflections of beliefs, conversations, emotions, and historical conditioning that may no longer serve us.
We could see this unrest as the Universe trying to get our attention, or, more accurately, as us trying to get our own attention so we can return to the love at our core.
With these underlying dynamics now visible, we have an opportunity to examine their origins and ask ourselves if our beliefs, conversations, and behavior are consistent with the world we want to live in.
Only we, you and I, can create that world. There is no one else. There is no hero coming to save us or fix things.
The hero archetype is outdated. We’ve been conditioned by movies and stories to believe that heroes will save the world. If that’s what we believe it takes, then we all get to be heroes. My first superhero by the way was Mighty Mouse, the cartoon character who always saved the day.
It’s easy to idolize heroes, to put them on pedestals, and to believe that someone else will take care of things.
Yet, as British statesman Edmund Burke once said, “Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could do only a little.”
Perhaps our fascination with heroes has kept us from challenging ourselves to make the small but significant changes in beliefs, conversations and actions that align with what we want. The culture won’t change through some grand heroic act, new law, or sweeping decree. Have you ever driven 57 miles per hour in a 55 mile per hour speed zone? Laws alone don’t change behavior. People change behavior.
Cultures don’t change from the top down; they change from the bottom up.
What we do now will reverberate through generations. Shall we decide the future through fighting? Or shall we decide the future by working through our issues and learning to live together with grace and peace?
Peggy O’Neal, Founder, Democracy Is Us
Originally published with minor edits in The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette,
August 17, 2024
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