We Here Now

Turning Away From Tyrants and Towards One Another

In 1971, under the name Baba Ram Dass, Harvard psychedelics researcher Richard Alpert published Be Here Now, a brief book about his journey from conventional success to spiritual transformation. Printed by a small press, it became an unlikely bestseller and ignited a mindfulness movement among millions of seekers worldwide looking for personal salvation following the collapse of Sixties progressive politics. It quickly became the touchstone for a rebirth of ancient Eastern spiritual traditions as they made their way to the West.

Now, half a century later, the potential demise of democratic governments around the world, an extinction-level annihilation of nature and the deliberate destruction of truth and fact have together triggered a quest for a new and more pragmatic path to collective and personal salvation. We Here Now is a continuing series of posts that seek to capture the many dimensions of this defense and celebration of all that is most unique, precious and worthy of cherishing in humanity and nature.

Beat the tyrannovirus with contagious kindness: In an increasingly chaotic and uncertain world, many turn to tyrants to protect their safety and security from all they are told to fear. Their collective emotional response is to “burn down the house.” When coercive power seizes the commanding heights, what can those of us who reject illegitimate authority do to preserve and strengthen our most cherished freedoms, values and institutions? Refuse cooperation with illegitimate authority and redouble practical cooperation with one another in pursuit of a more just and equitable society.

Migrate from Me to We: Focusing on “me” alone starves one of the emotional sustenance of “we.” We must extend our experience of we to include strangers we don’t yet know and those who think differently but often harbor the same fears and hold the same aspirations we do.

Be here for one another: The appeal of absolute authority is driven by our fear of the “other” and our loneliness and isolation from one another. Feeling there’s no one who “has our back,” we willingly surrender our freedom to someone who falsely promises to protect us even as he steals our safety and security. Like an immune system that turns on itself, those of us who surrender our sovereignty to an absolute power collude in our self-destruction. To overcome our self-isolation, we must instead turn towards one another, friends and strangers alike, in conscious reconnection and mutual support.

Warm up your world: Practice “heartfulness,” signaling friends and strangers our receptivity to connection through simple gestures of curiosity and welcome. Make time and space for friendships to grow. Cultivate ever broadening circles of friendship and acquaintance.

Practice kindness in word and deed: The best antidote to a culture of cruelty is to treat everyone you meet with kindness and consideration. Cruelty masks its insecurity in machismo and bravado. It is a counterfeit bravery. Kindness is not a sign of weakness but of courage and inner strength. Kindness holds a power all its own. How people treat you depends largely on how you treat them. Be kind to others and by and large they’ll be kind to you. It’s not a rational calculus or a material transaction but an innately empathic response, an exchange of reciprocal gifts. Give without expectation of return and it will come in its own way and time.

Limit your exposure to toxic news: One need not closely monitor the news to catch the gist of what’s happening in the world. Overexposure to the media’s preoccupation with crisis and alarm triggers the innate negative bias in human psychology and blinds us to more positive trends and possibilities.

We do better together: Authoritarians say we’re hopelessly divided and can never again cooperate with one another. Yet we already do work together, not rarely but routinely. Politics and the media that cover it exaggerate our differences and inflame conflict to gain attention. Broaden your perspective beyond politics to discover our deeper commonalities of feelings and values. We’re better at cooperating with one another than we believe even if not yet as good as we wish.

Lean into the positive: Life is an ever-shifting balance between positive and negative, with each triggering an equal and opposite response. With politics and the media’s default set point nearly always focused on the negative, it takes deliberate practice to learn to lean into the positive and rebalance the innately skewed perspective of conflictual politics.

Express your appreciation often to those whose kindness and consideration you receive. Never take their generosity for granted nor assume they know how much you appreciate them.

Re-center yourself in the here and now: It turns out to be harder to live in the present moment than in a regretted past or dreaded future. Random and obsessive thoughts get in the way of actual experience, clouding our perceptions and judgments with fear and anxiety. Practice meditation, prayer and other re-centering activities to open up blue sky moments. Even if initially fleeting, these moments eventually grow to create the spaciousness from which calm grows.

Live in your body more than your mind: With our increasing absorption in digital lives, we seldom make contact with the physical world. Instead we survive largely in airless simulations of life that have little to do with the real and actual. Exercise, especially in nature, brings us back to the lived experience of the 95% of us that dwells beneath our chins.

Cultivate awe and wonder in place of dread and despair: Look beyond the ordinary and routine to micro and cosmic scales to experience our surprise and amazement at the miracles that are always here to be witnessed and celebrated.

Expand your perspective to encompass the vastness, variety and richness of worlds beyond the solely human: We are a very small part of a very large universe. Our power struggles amount to little in the limitless expanse of space and time. Take comfort in our insignificance.

Laugh more, grieve less. Even the worst circumstances can become occasions for laughter through gentle ironic humor. Comedic situations and experiences release our stress and create moments of shared insight and relaxation.

Don’t let anyone or anything steal your joy: Joy is your birthright. Don’t let anyone or anything undermine your enjoyment of life. When all else is taken from you, you still have the capacity to grow towards the light and celebrate delight.

Play more, worry less: Research reveals that 85% of the things we worry about never happen and most of the few that do teach us valuable lessons.

Despite everything that disheartens us about our world, choose to cherish life: The grounds for cherishing are just as real as those that cause us to despair. The more you cherish, the more you discover worth cherishing.