History moves through us like waves through water, pulling us up and down, this way and that as the currents of time pass. Individually, we have little choice but to be a part of the world into which we are born, whether that means driving cars and using computers, or hunting with blow darts and building seasonal grass huts. We wear the culture of our world like a garment that is tossed away when we die, but collectively, there is a continuity of mankind that has an eternal life.

To what end is this eternal life of man?

Religions teach us to focus on our individual lives, and that the time spent between our birth and our death is but a trial for an eternal, spiritual life, whether in Heaven (if we choose salvation through Christ or purchase enough indulgences) or back on Earth with a better life next time around (if we have accumulated enough positive Karma). What is to be done with these ideas in a world of science and reason, where God is not so much a literal being, but an ineffable ideal of goodness and caring? There is an afterlife, not for myself, of course -- I'll be busy turning myself back into dirt -- but in all those who come after me. Humanity is eternal, and we are its medium.

This is the fundamental difference between man and animals, and it is this sense of a world before and after that gives rise to the mystical human soul. Some prefer to think of the soul as something separate from ourselves, granted by an omnipotent god, stuffed into this meat so that we can endure a life that is essentially a hazing ritual for something more important.

Our soul, like our language, our culture, comes from the world that was forged by billions of nameless men, women, and children growing, thinking, believing, loving, and sometimes hating and hurting, year after year after faded year. There is little doubt that we feel the same sense of love, family, anger, fear, pride, as any other human from any other period in time. These are the things that grow from our body, the animal part of our soul. A mother's love for a new baby is not so much different than the feelings a mother dog, cat, or bird has for her young. The anger you feel at an injustice is not that different from any other threatened animal.

Thus the human experience is a combination of the now, the urgent, laid upon the deeper channels of our roots and our legacy, represented in religion as a struggle of mind over body, soul over sin, so to speak. In other words, we strive to move forward, away from the common, limited, animal perspective, and toward an ideal, be it the Tao, Christ, or some smart ass with a pipe. As we individually move forward, we carry the torch of knowledge, bringing humanity ever closer to some ultimate enlightenment.

Slowly, for the past several thousand years, we have been gaining increasingly more control over the world, separating us more and more from the mere animals from which we evolved. We move stone and steel into structures. We write laws and build complex societies. We have built ships, canals, steam engines, locomotives, and then planes and space shuttles. In the future we will no doubt continue to wrest more of our destiny out of the hands of nature and into our own. We will discover how genes make us what we are. We will then change our own bodies as we have changed the world.

This isn't the first time we have built great nations. Ancient Egypt, Greece, the Aztecs, and Romans, and others before them, have come and gone. Each time, something is left behind for others to build upon. Much of our world comes from the Roman Empire and its theater, law, and engineering, if not directly, then by inspiration. Rome borrowed from the Greeks, who no doubt borrowed from others. There seems to be periods of accelerated growth, followed by times of dark ages and transition, a rhythmic heartbeat of the our species growing up.

Are we overdue for a contraction phase, slipping back into centuries of fear and isolation, or will we be able to keep advancing? Maybe it's different this time. Once we focused on the technology of communication, the technology of everything else grew as it never could before. Even a badly stocked grammar school library holds more knowledge of the world than the wisest of the ancient wise, but how much of this will we be able to pass on to the next great civilization if we tumble again into a period of darkness and superstition? Our books would crumble into dust, and all our precious bits would fade to zero.

Does all this technology represent a rising sun, or a setting sun, on the next step in the enlightenment of the soul of mankind? Are we really ready for the knowledge that we are revealing, or will we collapse into a cultural coma from the nasty acid trip of technology?

Knowledge is power. What does it mean, for example, that anyone can walk into a library, and within a few days of intensive reading and research be very proficient on almost any subject, from beetles to bombs? Our systems of government have always been top down, because in any big empire, it has always been necessary to cluster the people with the knowledge into one place. This out-dated idea leads to such amusing things as lawyers and career politicians pretending to understand science and technology and then passing totally irrelevant, out of touch laws.

We need new social structures, along with new governments and laws in accordance with them, which recognize the simultaneous decentralization of power and the globalization of the individual. Recognizing this trend will go far to advance the journey that humans have been on for the past several thousand years, because it is an enabling paradigm which encourages discovery, competition, and cooperation, rather than on conformity and the least common denominator.

Most power should be held at the city or county level, with cities forming together as they desire with other cities to work out regional or global standards for such things as roads, postal delivery, data exchange. The people of the world will soon have little tolerance for some global, or even national, power that, with cartoonish hubris, pretends to be able to write all laws for all of us.

However we manage it, the structure of the modern world supports us in so many ways, and most of us contribute, propping each other up a little higher as we go. Because I don't have to grow my own food, or build my own roads, or invent the telephone, airplane, or computer, I can spend time thinking about the eternal soul of mankind and sharing it with anyone in the world who has a web browser.

This leads to an irony, however. Instead of being freed by all this advanced technology that surrounds us, we are all able to do so much more and be more effective, and thus we end up busier than ever before. Could this world today spawn greatness such as Newton, Chopin, or Michaelangelo, or are we too busy watching CNN, driving our kids to ballet and tae kwan do classes, working forty hours a work, and trying to get in those critical twenty minutes of exercise? When was the last time you spent over 12 hours without hearing the radio, television, telephone, or some such clatter? When was the last time you took a walk under the stars and didn't have to look through the haze of the bright city? Can we even think, anymore, or must we always react, whine, and bounce our way through the world?

What is all this doing to the great journey? Have we come all this way to live lives of hurried clutter? If fast food and being bothered by bad news from Bosnia is where humanity is headed, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to build cities, much less kingdoms, in the first place.

It's just a phase. We'll get over it, but what I find potentially dangerous is that instead of growing spiritually and soulfully in accordance with this new world, we might become overwhelmed and then fall back on the tried and true animal skills of territory, tribalism fight, and flight. This is what seems to be happening all around us as decentralization and globalization is coming into conflict with the old hierarchical order of federalism and empire.

We will muddle through some how, through several more decades of stronger independence, more regionalism, idealism, and cataclysm. The Soviet Union may try some form of rebirth. The United Nations may try to become the World Government. China may try to maintain an iron grasp on her people, but where there are computers, fax machines, and tempers, there will be freedom. Where there is freedom, there will eventually be more freedom.

And what then? What legacy will form out of the memory of these days? There is greatness around us, but there's so much greatness that it gets lost in the constant background hum of the modern world. Is Mozart's music so much grander than, say, the sound track to Star Wars? Is Newton's physics that much more impressive than that of, say, Stephen Hawking or Richard Feynman? We may not see today such singular genius as we saw in the past because, more and more, our greatness is collaborative. Each of us becomes a specialized player in a complex dance out of which comes the fabric of a new world where, even amid all the clutter and noise, and perhaps because of it, we all have a chance to participate in the growth of the spirit of mankind.

This is not an original idea certainly, but we can think of ourselves not only as individuals, or members of some family, city, race, or nation, but also as cells in the body human which grows, learns, and advances toward some far off destiny. This idea may seem overly mystical, but remember that it is allegory, poetry to express the sense of something bigger than, but encompassing ourselves, a sense explained for thousands of years by myths of gods and demons. We are spiritual beings, not because we carry some separate self that leaves us when we die, but because we have language, understanding, history, and because others care to remember us after we are gone. Without trickery, illusion, fable, or faith, we can look into the glaring light of reason and science, and find therein a truer, perhaps richer, understanding of our soul, so much the stronger because it need not be in conflict with new depths of understanding with which we view the world today.

The king is dead.

Long live the king.

:^D