A preview of the unpublished book A CIVILIZATION WITHOUT A VISION WILL PERISH: AN INDEPENDENT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH by David Willis
LESSONS LEARNED BY THE AUTHOR (Part 7)
A disorder and afflicted land
China in the latter years of Lao-Tse’s life as a government official was a disordered and afflicted land. In the Book of Tao he condemns the rulers’ struggle for power, the resort to war, and the enslavement of the masses. But he places greater emphasis on the causes of those evils. He blames the wide-spread aspiration for power, for extravagant display, for so-called honor. He stresses the emptiness of the enjoyment of earthly fame, of caste distinctions. Beyond that, he observed the frivolity, the callousness, and the actual degeneracy among rulers and courtiers, who feasted, dallied, and intrigued at grievous cost to the people. The saddest part of it was that no one was really made happy. For the rulers and courtiers gained only the illusory enjoyments of the flesh, and they were periodically harassed, harried, and overcome by rivals.
A world in crisis
When the world is at crisis, caught in chaotic violence and threatened with catastrophic ruin, as it was in Lao-Tse’s time, as it is today, spiritual leaders return to the truth that salvation cannot come from without and certainly not from governments. They know that peace and ordered life depend upon change in the life-ideals of the individuals making up a social community.
Nothing can save the world except wide-spread personal regeneration
Nothing can save the world except wide-spread personal regeneration. Frugality, moderation, and gentleness may lead to a withdrawal from the overactivity of the world. But this frugality enriches one, this gentleness leans on strength. Withdrawal from excesses intimates no retreat into nothingness, no assumption of puritan austerity. The sage may seem to have withdrawn, because he is indifferent to so much that a fevered civilization counts important. Withdraw from materialistic living in order to enter fully into life. Withdraw from the cross-purposes of an artificial and violent civilization in order to move harmoniously in the one purpose of the natural universe.
The death throes of the civilization I grew up with
My secondary interest is in survival and prosperity in the short term. We are living through a period of a clash of civilizations when there will be inevitable chaos during the death throes of the civilization I grew up with and admired so much and the new civilization that was born some 150 years ago. The evidence for saying this is contained in the chapter The End of An Era & A New Beginning.
The Millennium Development Goals
The closest we have come to a planetary vision in recent years is the Millennium Development Goals, with agreed sums of money pledged by the rich nations to be spent on achieving specific targets, to be accomplished by specific dates. Only a part of the agreed sum has been forthcoming and the plan has fallen behind schedule. This is not the first time that our leaders have made empty pledges.
Visioning is a process for creating the life you want
Lucia Capaccione in Visioning: 10 Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams states “Visioning is a process for creating the life you want. It is a method for finding the dream that lives in your heart and translating it into the world of three dimensions. Visioning can be described as practical dreaming. Walt Disney’s vision of this complex process of designing and building a theme park became known as ‘imagineering’. Blending whimsy, imagination, and art with the discipline and groundedness of engineering, Walt came up with a word that speaks volumes about how dreams become reality. Disney theme park designers are still called ‘imagineers.”
Michael LeBoeuf
In Imagineering: How to Profit From Your Creative Powers, Michael LeBoeuf quotes George Bernard Shaw: “Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire; you will what you imagine; and at last you create what you will.” Albert Einstein said “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Disraeli said “Imagination governs the world.” “The history and growth of the United States is directly tied to the vision and ability of creative people. Names such as Edison, Bell, Morse, the Wright Brothers and numerous other inventors fill the pages of our history books.” “The future prosperity – indeed the very survival – of the United States will depend on imagination to generate solutions to the gigantic problems we face today.”