An Offer You Probably Should Refuse
(a winning pitch for a losing game)
Back in college I surveyed all the world’s spirituality to find the most comfortable place to hang my Belief and Belonging hat.
Top of the list for an action sports kid like me was Taoism. Minimal doctrine, maximal “go with the flow” instruction manual. Seemed pretty groovy, experiential, unfussy and relevant for skiing, surfing, mountain biking and music.
Next on that list were the Shakers.
Not to be confused with their Quaking bretherin, the Shakers were a protestant sect who were communalist, egalitarian and really into direct and unscripted connection with Source. (at which point, they would start doing their eponymous shimmy-shake).
![Jolo Holy Rollers – They Call Us Holy Rollers – Vinyl (Gatefold, LP, Album, Limited Edition), 2022 [r25140736] | Discogs](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TcAQ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5e54ab3c-f4bb-4c61-92d3-62e07c1116fc_600x597.jpeg "Jolo Holy Rollers – They Call Us Holy Rollers – Vinyl (Gatefold, LP, Album, Limited Edition), 2022 [r25140736] | Discogs")
But these weren’t the holy-rolling speaking in tongues snake handling charismatic Christians of Appalachia. They were chill and unassuming. Low key.
And what really caught my attention was all the super cool non-electric farm and kitchen implements they invented (along with their minimalist furniture style, which is what they’re still best known for).
While nursing back to the land, off-grid fantasies about living in a yurt in the mountains someplace, I’d pore over Lehman's Catalog (which was like an Amish/Shaker Whole Earth Catalog) filled with ingenious contraptions from hand crank whisks and washing machines, to super cool garden tools.
And their motivation for all of this labor-saving mechanical genius?
So they could labor less, and spend more time contemplating Spirit in all its majesty.
Seemed pretty spot on to me.
So what happened to these ahead-of-the-curve Shakers? Where are they today?
Damn nearly extinct!
For all of their innovations on social design, spirituality and “tools for better living” they had one fatal flaw.
Celibacy.
No way to grow the flock outside peer to peer recruitment.
Compare this to hyper-fertile Mormons, Catholics, Orthodox Jews, and Amish, and you quickly realize that the Shakers were backing a losing proposition.
Even though they had a great value-prop they failed to hatch an effective growth strategy. They were outbred and outcompeted by those running a different plan.
Beautiful. Noble, even. But ultimately doomed.
Which brings us to today.
As we find ourselves awash in the utter disorientation of our current moment, unsure how to stay sane ourselves, how to raise our children, plan our futures or stay ahead of any number of terrifying exponential curves from AI, to social media, to crypto, deep fakes, gene editing, plastic surgery, nuclear proliferation or neural implants…
We have an option that neatly solves for all of it.
(and we don’t even need to invoke Jonathan Haidt’s name, blessed though he be!)
We can opt out.
Of all of it.
Like some glorious post-modern Shaker/Luddite sect, we can take a solemn pledge to stand athwart these rising flood waters of dehumanization and yell Stop!
(h/t William F Buckley for the #inspo)
We can say no to phones for our kids younger than 16 or 18.
We can opt out of IVF gene selection for our little uber-baby embryos.
We can hold off on the immortality peptide stacks that Peter Attia et al are peddling for $250K/yr “concierge medicine.”
We can unplug from social media clout chasing and the desperate push to remain relevant with our unsolicited hottakes.
We can choose to go outside. Have a walk. Make love. Float down a river. Hug our kids. Bury our parents.
Doodle, noodle and canoodle, analog.
Unmodified.
The way we used to.
The way we always did.
And not as some curmudgeonly reaction or rejection of our current craziness.
But more as a profound embrace of this gift of life we’ve been given.
A commitment to experiencing it all, womb to tomb.
Unmitigated. Unmediated. Unbuffered, un-optimized, undistracted.
To accept at a profound and almost mystical level These Lives We’ve Been Given.
The miracle of gestation and child birth.
The beauty of raising families.
Of sunsets and full moons and shooting stars.
Of sliding down mountains and bobbing in oceans.
Of feasts and holy days.
Weddings and funerals.
The Agony and the Ecstasy, world without end, Amen!
All the way to the dying of the light. When life wraps up and we slide off this mortal coil. Forever remembered by those who loved us.
Inevitably forgotten as the Wheel takes another turn.
***
But like those crafty Shakers, we know that taking this stand would ultimately be a losing proposition.
Doomed in the long run even if it might redeem us and restore us in the short run (and forever thereafter).
Inevitably we would be outcompeted by our cyborg, gene-edited, crypto rich, Mars colonizing overlords (and their ubermensch offspring).
Sure, like some remnant tribe of neanderthals, the luckiest (or sexiest) among us might still get to interbreed with homo syntheticus.
But for those of us who became conscientious objectors to this whole algorithmically optimized, testosterone-addled techno-utopian fever dream?
We’d be given back the gift of stewarding this miracle of life. Of experiencing awe, wonder, grief and gratitude the way we were meant to.
Unplugged.
Vinyl (with all the grooves, skips and scratches).
Because let’s fast forward to the likeliest scenario if our current path goes uncorrected: an AI Transhumanist Techno-Singularity where we all upload our simcard souls to the cloud or fuckoff to tin can solariums on Mars.
What might we discover/recover then? Some glorious insight that the sweetest most precious things we could ever imagine or engineer are the simplest, and most embodied.
First love.
Fresh grass.
A full belly.
Sand between our toes.
The wonders of nature, down by the river.
The Hero’s Journey was always Home-AWAY-Home.
The Hero has to leave what they’ve got, risk it all, only to remember in time they had what they sought all along!
It’s Dorothy realizing there’s no place like home.
It’s Frodo and Sam legging it back to the Shire.
It’s us, re-enchanting our awareness of what it means to be alive, and saying enough is enough for all the attempts to commercialize or “optimize” these existences at the expense of our experience.
So here’s the offer you almost certainly should refuse, since it’s a noble but doomed losing proposition.
Who wants to turn their back on their AI smartphones, unplug from the digital world, have stock DNA kids and eschew life extension and all aggressive attempts to hot-mod our bodies and brains–in sum, to live as we always have.
Fully, without apology, and with deep gratitude for this mysterious journey of a lifetime.
Not in some retro-Romantic way like Paleo fitness freaks, or out of touch Bohemians.
But in a simple and sincere way, much more in keeping with those old “Tis a Gift to be Simple” Shakers.
It’s certain to lose out in the meme-wars. But if we’re all doomed anyways, this is at least a way to reclaim our sanity, our sanctity and our sense of agency as the Good Ship Modernity starts taking on water.
If pictures are supposedly a thousand words, reckon a good song is worth a million.
Check out this gorgeous paean to the Bittersweet of being alive. Can’t really sum it up or make the case better than this tune does.
Watch the video of live singing here
May I suggest
May I suggest to you
May I suggest this is the best part of your life
May I suggest
This time is blessed for you
This time is blessed and shining almost blinding bright
Just turn your head
And you'll begin to see
The thousand reasons that were just beyond your sight
The reasons why
Why I suggest to you
Why I suggest this is the best part of your life
[Verse 2]
There is a world
That's been addressed to you
Addressed to you, intended only for your eyes
It's a secret world
Like a treasure chest to you
Of private scenes and brilliant dreams that mesmerize
A tender lover's smile
A tiny baby's hands
The million stars that fill the turning sky at night
And I suggest
Yes I suggest to you
Yes I suggest this is the best part of your life
[Verse 3]
There is a hope
That's been expressed in you
It's the hope of seven generations, maybe more
And this is the faith
That they invest in you
It's that you'll do one better than was done before
And inside you know
Inside you understand
Inside you know what's yours to finally set right
And I suggest
Yes I suggest to you
Yes I suggest this is the best part of your life
[Verse 4]
This is a song
Comes from the west to you
Comes from the west, comes from the slowly setting sun
This is a song
With a request of you
To see how very short the endless days will run
And when they're gone
And when the dark descends
Oh we'd give anything for one more hour of light
And I suggest this is the best part of your life
More and more, this looks like the option. I’ll just keep leading others back to the ocean to learn breathing, freediving, and connecting to nature. Making love. Listening to music. Watching sunsets. Cooking for people and enjoying watching them enjoy the food I’ve prepared for them. Learning to dance, move, and laugh more freely. This is it. I’m glad I’m far from alone in this.
As an aging hippie who stayed culturally engaged in my vocational life, and benefited spiritually and interpersonally from cars, computers, and cell phones, I still don’t see this as an either/or proposition. Yes, I’m watching today’s tech revolution from the sidelines, mostly from the woods and beaches near my home—but I’m still watching, with curiosity, and even with some tattered remnants of hope.
If society shatters, then we’ll continue to cherish and nourish these reciprocal relationships with nature and the simple truths of the world; this is indeed the most human path through a new dark ages. But at the same time, all these same ethical and practical and interpersonal qualities of connection with the annual cycles of seasons and beauty which we are embedded within will ALSO be a core of the essential rebalancing and re-enlivening that our culture will need if we manage to make it through the eye of the needle into a functional and expansive eco-techno future, where being deeply alive in the real will be more important than ever. While I wouldn’t bet on us making it through that portal, it truly feels like the shape of the future is utterly unknowable from where we stand today….it’s dizzying, the possibilities….
So thank you for weaving the core essence of not-so-simple human connection so beautifully here. Wherever we’re headed, we’ll want to take this along with us.