Q: What is Humanity’s worst invention?

A: Separateness.

A diversion from conscientiousness.

Positing an isolation of cause from effect.

Attachment to an unquestioning fundamentalism of dualistic reasoning.

Each of these proclivities attempts to negate the ultimate condition of unity which
we find as the basis of reality. The denial of oneness, systems thinking, or the holistic
mindset seems to be a symptom of our negation of what it means to be sentient and
indications of the prime invention which creates stagnancy within our species’
perspectives and approaches. Throughout its gradual evolution, humanity has
exemplified the invention of ‘separateness’ through its institutionalization into the norms
of how we relate with the physical world, the advent of technologies, and the very
philosophical constructs we rely upon to give us meaning and shape our behaviour. In
wanting to escape from the relationships between system elements and whatever form
those elements take, we have tirelessly offered up separateness as a method of creating
easy excuses - ways of absolving ourselves of effortful responsibility and critical thought-
hence, often our most promising potentialities have come to fruition in the most
destructive of ways. I maintain that it is the projection and thus the manifestation of this
separateness that is the invention which is most moving us towards self-destruction.

Quite possibly, the greatest indicator we have today which, in physical terms,
points towards the unity of the process of Life is anthropogenic global climate change.
However, in phrasing this concept of us domesticated primates as having an impact on
the global climatic system and attempting to deal with it we have run into a major
ideological hurdle: in the software of the collective mind, we are still running a program
which denies the very existence of such interconnectedness.
Throughout the history of the project of civilization humans have fulfilled the
necessities of the ‘human world’ in the ways we have been able to, giving little thought to
the consequences of our activities regarding our relationship to the working whole; that
is, the ecology. Because our global population has been increasing exponentially since
primary industrialization, we have coincidently had a growing effect on the degree to
which we impact ecology. Yet, because of the relative sluggishness of the current state
of psychological adaptation it has been exceedingly difficult for the consensual
worldview to adapt to the resulting conditions.
Hence, it is with great hesitation and resistance that we consider the possibility of
the soccer mom driving the dead-dinosaur-burning motion machine being partially
responsible for the melting of glaciers and the daily extinction of scores of life forms. Our
conceptual layout of the world, which has been largely influence by the ideal of
separateness tells us that this is not feasible.
The sheer unpredictability of the possible causes, courses, and consequences of
climate change staggers the common mindset. Nowhere is this more evident than when
the ‘leaders’ of the U.S. Empire (the largest CO2 emitter) effectively decide to deny the
existence of a relationship between human industrial activity and the changing weather
patterns, they confirm the human addiction to perceiving reality as being composed of
separate boxes- neat little categorizations which keep isolated the variables which
contribute and mingle while presenting justifications for political rhetoric and societal
inaction.
With the passing of peak oil1 and the subsequent rise of humanity’s clash with the
limits of the biosphere it is evident that we are on the brink of having the separate boxes
we place on the world mashed together by the ultimate inseparability of our physical
reality. Ecological collapse, global epidemics, and the rise of alternative socio-economic
approaches are all signs that world we wish to keep away refutes our best attempts. It is
an uncomforting but necessary truth that if we are to survive this century we must strive
to reconcile the unity of our physical reality with the methodology of how we go about
the functioning of our civilization.

Contrary to what contemporary adults in mid-life crisis are prone to say, there is
nothing wrong with technology. Technology has been, thus far, an unintelligent tool
whose purpose, design, and operation assume the control of an individual or group of
sentient creatures. The alienation that many humans feel in regards to the technological
advances of the industrial and information age is the natural extension of the
preponderance of the belief that humans are isolated from the technology we create and
use. When the minds and wills that compose and/or utilize a technological adaptation do
not bear the responsibility of viewing any innovation as being primarily supportive and
subservient to the humanistic needs of the macrocosm and all its incumbent
complications, they deny the very inter-relationships which make that technology
possible. To be obstinate in believing that we may divide the world into smaller parts,
isolate them and generally, keep the implications of interconnectedness out of our
experiments with both hard and soft technological adaptations, is to imply the necessity
of being at odds with the things which are supposed to be helping us along a path of
positive evolution.
When the Roosevelt administration dropped two atomic bombs on Japanese cities
in August 1945 they did so viewing the world through the lens of separateness. To bring
an end to the pacific theatre (and to see what their new-fangled toys could do) they
vaporized hundreds of thousands of human beings in a matter of moments. In viewing
the history of atomic fission we may see how mechanistic logic, a very refined breed of
separateness, necessitates the externalization of the human factor from our relationship
with technology.
For much of the twentieth century it was a very good possibility that either the
Soviet Union or the United States would attempt to use nuclear weapons on the other and
as a result trigger an all-out exchange of said technology. To take a step back and look at
the result of such a thing demonstrates how far the blinders of separateness have taken us
to the edge of extinction. Hundreds of millions of human beings murdered in a few
hours. Billions suffering unto death by radiation poisoning and cancer. The failure of all
1
For clarification please refer to ‘The view from Hubbart’s Peak’, “Join us as we watch the crisis
unfolding”, February 11, 2006, Kenneth Deffeyes. http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/current-
events.html
cultivated crops with the onset of nuclear winter. What could any party have hoped to
gain from this utilization of technology?
Little have the harsh realities of interdependence bothered those with their shaky
fingers on the buttons. They are, to this day, much preoccupied with the fanciful
concoctions of ideological competition, and the sensationalism of technocratic
calculations; devising games of theory and power which barricade themselves from the
implications of the technology in question and rationalize the avoidance of the bigger
picture.
With nuclear technology, it is particularly observable that when we fall prey to
blocking out aspects of our interconnected reality, the ramifications of our trials with
‘hard’ technology take on disturbing qualities. It is much the same with ‘soft
technology’. By designing management systems, job environments, and work schedules
that do not take into consideration the full spectrum of human needs, psychology, and
capacity, we have promoted the shaping of tired, grumpy, and frustrated creatures that
generate negative reverberations within the entire socio-economic gamut.
When one speaks about the human-tech approach2 one is arguing for a more
cohesive approach to how we design, integrated, and utilize technological innovations in
human society. As history suggests, our technology cannot be separated from our past,
present and future. The more we attempt to pass off the responsibilities of creating and
using material or immaterial tools the more we fashion devices and systems which do not
serve the larger interests of our species and every other life form we share existence with.
As in our dealings with the interconnectedness of physical reality we must also strive to
open our minds to the notion that our relationship with technology partially defines who
we are and how well we create a possible future. Through this, we will be well prepared
to develop a synergistic approach to technological innovation and adaptation.

The desire to assert one’s self ‘in spite of’ instead of ‘as result of’ indicates the
psychosocial need to feel needed, important. Most mammals exhibit this in some form or
another. But unlike our related cousins, we are faced with the perpetual existence of
uncertainty and so in seeing ourselves as unique we mistake reality as being made up of
us/them, heaven/earth, good/evil. In attachment to ignorance our generic worldview has
been one that encompasses these dualisms so as to justify our perceived ‘separateness’.
The attempt to construct certainties which exempt us from the immense implications of
oneness, the mechanism of cause and effect, and the call to evolve can be said to derive
from our coveting to the small ‘me’, the petty ‘us’; our limited definitions of self.
Approximately 2005 years ago a person of our species spoke the words: “I am the
light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a
piece of wood; I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there." 3 In doing so he
refuted the argument of separateness handed down to him by the fearful consensus of his
time and place while emphasizing a message we have yet to grasp fully. The three major
monotheistic religious traditions of the West (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) primarily
attempt to deal with our species’ condition with the construction of an ideology which
distinguishes, and ultimately judges, two opposing polar forces. This is not necessarily a
bad thing- for utilitarian purposes we must often distinguish what does and does not bring

2
For a better understanding on this, see Kim Vicente’s ‘The Human Factor’, Vintage Canada Publishing.
3
77, The Gospel of Thomas, believed to be the words of one Jesus of Nazareth
about our intended ends, yet because the psychological construct of ‘separateness’ has
been operating within our metaphysical framework as a given, because we have reified
non-thinking victim-hood as our identity, the beneficial aspects contained within these
perspectives have largely been lost. We need only to take a look at the rising conflict
between Christian/Judaic fundamentalists and Islamic extremists to see how the
psychological construct of separateness prevents us from discussing the authentic causes
of our discontent and resolving our respective disputes in a mature, non-violent manner.
In examining Eastern philosophies we also see hints of separateness but are
fortunate to find that they tend to view the forces of reality in more unitary terms. The
Vedic concepts of Brahman and Atman demonstrate our relativity in an inclusive way. In
much of the Eastern thought, the barriers between our self and the other are conceived of
as being transient; superficial. This is to say that, if we try, we may touch the eternal
within the impermanent, that we may transcend the boundaries of our lesser tendencies
and achieve a work-in-progress oneness with the process. It is in this effort that practices
such as Ashtanga Yoga, Qigong, and Zen have arisen.
Ignorance flourishes where philosophies of separateness are embraced as the plot
of reality. When an ideal dedicated to ‘drawing lines between’ rather than ‘connecting the
dots’ pervades one’s mindset, it is the natural conclusion to see one’s self in petty terms.
In order to create a peaceful global civilization it is necessary to emphasize the
incorporation of the concept of unity into our philosophical inquiry and our spiritual
practices.

The simple bio-survival existence of our species has lessened and has been
replaced by a want to perceive an exterior world or the other that we may fall back on or
blame in times of tribulation and in issues of controversy. As the emergence of symbolic
dualisms helped us to adapt to the changing circumstances of the past, we have now, in
attachment to static patterns, adopted those symbols of dualism as actuality itself. In
other words, the mechanisms of separateness that arose as a means to understand our
place in the whole have become the crutch we use to hobble away from the obstacles that
this whole presents to us. It is in our best interest to do away with this invention that
projects the idea that we may continue on the path we are on; it is time to discard this
crutch which reinforces the delusion that we actually can avoid what it means to be what
we are.
Because humanity is tied together in an unconditional way with the world that has
given birth to us, because we cannot extract our selves from the hard and soft
manifestations of our creativity, and because our behaviour arises out of our beliefs, it is
wisest if we do not disguise the challenges and responsibilities that face us with the paltry
invention of separateness.
The more we deny that we are not the earth, the less the earth will support us. In
each occasion that we use technology without thinking about its broader implications, the
greater the possibility it will be misused and misdirected. In developing and adhering to
philosophies which attempt to define the existence of humankind in narrow, dualistic
terms we limit our potential and stifle the likelihood of acknowledging the other as
essentially the same.
The greatest task that humanity has, that is, one which each and every individual
person may look towards as the thing which will reconcile their individuation with the
whole, is the gradual movement towards a reality tunnel which embraces all of the
qualitative nuances of our existence. To push away, or to deny, a part of (hence, the very
fact of) the superseding, value-neutral cosmic unification of reality is to effectively blind
ourselves to the kaleidoscope that may guide us through the unkind territories of this
dimension’s evolutionary imperatives. We Are One. Until we realize that “[we] are that
vast thing that [we] see far, far off with great telescopes”4, we will be but silly creatures
pretending to be other than: ignorant of our place, purpose, and potential.

Kurtis Ewanchuk
Vancouver, Canada
604) 437-3558
Kurtise6@canada.com

4
A tribute to Alan Watts.