May we (royally) accept this energy... I
Sunday, January 9, 2022 4:44 PM
A Call to Accept the Impact of the Energetic Magnitude of our Economy on our Collective Consciousness
There is something fascinating about our current expression of economy. This overall has to do with the scale - the magnitudes in which we are operating. Presently, we have very little connection to this energetic magnitude. Foundationally, our economy is a representation of the energetic intensity of our human expression. We have, as human, devised a system which aims to facilitate a connection to our energetic magnitude - monetary expression. But we are severely disconnected from even this, the energetic foundations of our money.
The theme which I would like to convey in this essay is first, that whatever we're expressing in a monetary sense is out of touch with the energetic foundations of what it is meant to represent. Second, the magnitude of energy we are operating in, through our present expression of human culture, are beyond our limits of comprehension. Third, this disconnection with the magnitudes of our energetic expression is experienced in our stress, pain and suffering of our collective consciousness.
Let me begin by stating numbers beyond 100 are very challenging for our minds to comprehend. Our first two orders of magnitude are semi comprehensible. For those less familiar, order of magnitude is a representation of a logarithmic scale, most commonly base 10. Each order of magnitude is 10^order. Zero order magnitude being the scale of 10^0 or the one's place. First order being 10^1, the tens place. Second order being 10^2, the hundreds place. This is about pushing our limit of comprehension, especially when we expand to the outer edges of a second order of magnitude, that of where it begins to meet the 3rd order magnitude, the thousands place. For our minds 1000 is a huge magnitude. The average monthly rent in the United States for a one-bedroom apartment is about $1,098, how much work must go into obtaining this magnitude of value?
A challenge with our global economy is that we are not operating in thousands, we are operating in trillions to hundreds of trillions which is 12 to 15 orders of magnitude. Remember, an order of magnitude is a logarithmic scale, essentially it is an exponential expansion. Our minds shaped in our present form of human culture do not process exponential expansions well______________
Now to address my first point, our monetary economic expression is an underrepresentation of our energetic expression. There is a study published in Nature from 1997 (Costanza et. al.), which tried to estimate the value of ecosystem services and natural capital that was unaccounted for in the global market (ie. monetarily). The main takeaway from this study, considering their uncertainties and assumptions, is their figure is a gross underestimation. They concluded that for a global GDP at the time of $18 trillion, the unaccounted-for value of ecological impact (a gross underestimation, mind you) was $33 trillion.
For me, this study represents, and begins to illustrate that the energetic impact of our present human expression of society and economy, is severely energetically disconnected from the effects of our actions. At best, 2/3 of our energetic impact is unaccounted for via extraction of ecosystem services and natural capital. This 2/3 figure is with an assumption that no energetic exploitation occurs within monetarily accounted for actions. An assumption I believe anyone who has felt undervalued by their labor knows is hogwash, and those who have awareness the violent energetic foundations of our market society – war, slavery, rape, genocide – knows is simply false. I’ll return to this in a bit. For now, all I ask is to keep in mind that for any monetary representation you see, know the energetic impact of that representation is grossly underrepresented.
Now to my second point, the magnitude of our human energetic impact is beyond our comprehension. There is no way we can account for these magnitudes with our current style of individual thinking, with our expression of human power dynamics of relationships. Simply put, our global economic system is in a pattern of centralization – a central corporate, political conglomerate. The culture of the political/financial/industrial establishment of the United States is a central component of this global socio-economic centralization, that of the UN, WTO, World Bank, IMF, etc. This centralized model of economy, by the nature of its hierarchical organizational structure brings about the energetic disconnection of the centralized conglomerate with the general global populous to this economy – the disparity of energetic magnitude of scale.
Maybe, if we strive to get some sense of this scale, we can gradually come to a conscious connection to this scale. Let’s test this through a simple expression of 3, 6, 9 and 12 orders of magnitude. In our modern culture we are familiar with a construction of time perception – years, days, hours, minutes, seconds. The smallest unit we comprehend is a second - one Mississippi.
Let’s use our common understanding of time perception to explore 3, 6, 9 and 12 orders of magnitude as they relate to seconds:
- 3rd order magnitude: 1,000 seconds is just about 16 ½ minutes.
- 6th order magnitude: 1,000,000 seconds equals 11 days and 13 h, 46m, 40s.
- 9th order magnitude: 1,000,000,000 seconds is just over 31.5 years. I have not been alive for 1 billion seconds.
- 12th order magnitude: 1,000,000,000,000 seconds equals 31,688 years.
Even with such an analogy we quickly get lost.
One thousand seconds is fine, we can comprehend about 15 minutes, sure. One million is a bit of a push. Woah, over 11 days. Wow! Can you remember what you’ve done the past 11 days? A lot of it, I’m sure, but I’m also sure more goes unremembered. That is only a million. Such a small number. Jump to one billion and minds are blown. 31 years?!? How many people, for whatever reason, never make it to live 1 billion seconds?And one trillion seconds? Forget about it. By current scientific understanding, 1,000,000,000,000 seconds ago humans were in the process of evolving behavioral modernity.
The kicker is, our global economy is operating in the tens of trillions of dollars per year, that is 13th order magnitude, another exponential expansion. According to the World Bank, in 2019 global GDP was ~$87 trillion dollars; 2021 is estimated to be around $95 trillion. And what of this magnitude of energetic impact – this is only for what is accounted monetarily on an annual basis. Recall, at least 2/3 more energetic impact is present but unaccounted for. And what of our historical accumulation of impact? The past decade alone - $900 trillion, 14th order.
While we may not comprehend this scale, we are sensitive to this unaccounted-for energetic impact. It is expressed in the stress, the pain and suffering we experience on every sensory scale we are in tune to. On more of a societal scale of US culture, this may be sensed in our expressions of our political climate, of our dehumanization of “others,” our felt victimization, and our actions as assailants… On more communal scales, the abuses of various demographics: laborers, women, “minorities”, underprivileged, children expressive of their sparkle… More personally maybe it is felt in bodily health, chronic pains, mental darkness, financial challenges, ineptitude of fulfilling self-expression… Environmentally maybe it is sensed as a loss of winter, boiling summer, growth of wildfire, landslides and flooding, plastic oceans, toxic water… The list of the pains we are sensitive to go on. Before I can elaborate further upon how the unaccounted-for energetic impact of our cultural expression is experienced in the pain and suffering we can sense, we must have an inkling of a sense of the interdimensional interactions of the magnitudes of energy we are discussing.
And that is the catch-22 of this moment. We are hard-pressed to sense these orders of magnitude. The analogy of 1 trillion seconds bends our minds. What of $28,000,000,000 of national debt? Or 25 trillion kWh, our estimated global electrical consumption for this year? What of the 1,450,000,000,000 barrels of oil remaining in our global reserves? –Now let’s have some fun!– What of the ~38 trillion bacterial cells in one human body? Or of the ~30 trillion human cells in one human body? Or the ~6 trillion miles in a light year, and then consider its 27,000 light years to the center of our galaxy? We can create models to aid our understanding, but these scales are beyond our present abilities of comprehension.
So how do we address a magnitude of energetic impact that is beyond our ability to comprehend? Do we need to comprehend? We already feel its impact, especially that of our energetic disconnection. Is this enough? Can we allow ourselves to feel that deeper? Or rather, can we allow ourselves space to live in a greater connection to what we feel? Allow space and time for our stress, pain and suffering to heal? Maybe we don't need to know, but we can allow ourselves to accept, to be in a greater energetic connection to the scale of our human impact on our collective life on this planet. We are intimately embedded in the incredible expanse of energetic life. We can learn to allow ourselves to be consciously connected with this magnitude of energy.
I
-Trexler