Summary reminder about this guide.
Our world view is simultaneously shaped by and reflected in our use of symbols. The human ego can easily generate very subtle and sophisticated rationales for any use of a symbol. This guide employs deep psychoanalysis founded in the profound wisdom of the principles of physics. It enables us to use that wisdom to transcend the ingenious deceits and trickery of the ego so that our use of symbols sustains us.
True hope resides in symbol use that embraces change/stewardship.
Delusive hope resides in symbol use that denies change/stewardship.
Symbol: Energy Efficiency
True Hope: Energy efficiency = enjoying the maximum benefits of the resources of our solar system, including those of Earth, while sustaining them in perpetuity for humankind.
Comment . Energy is understood to be as bounteous as the universe(s) and manifest in myriad, transient forms. Energy efficiency involves embracing the universal change and practicing stewardship of the flows and balances that sustain humankind. It is the exercise of frugality i.e. true economy. It involves our continual revaluation of the economy of our actions so our children are sustained.
Energy efficiency is not about using more or less energy, as is commonly believed. Rather energy efficiency is about ensuring our actions are in harmony with reality i.e. the universal transformation.
True energy efficiency is most usefully symbolized in the yin-yang symbol. It reminds us in the continuously evolving paradox of existence in which a more sustainable action in one instance can become less sustainable in the next instance and vice versa.
Delusive Hope: Energy Efficiency = using less energy and experiencing greater deprivation.
Comment. This delusion arises from the confusion of energy with a few, very finite forms of energy. This confusion reflects and generates addictive uses of these forms of energy – typically the wasteful combustion of fossilized biomass and excessive dependency on bulk-manufactured electrical products. Any reminder to the addicted user of the finite nature of the abused substance tends to generate sensations of panic, loss, deprivation and hopelessness in them. These all work to disempower stewardship.
Related hopeless symbol use: see energy conservation, energy saving
Symbol: Energy Conservation
True Hope: Symbol not used as it is in complete denial of the Conservation Principle of Energy. This prime principle of physics reminds us that energy is so bounteous that it can usefully be described as a constant. It cannot be created or destroyed and it is, by its very nature, conserved. True hope resides in understanding and communicating clearly that energy is conserved.
Humans can however conserve and destroy useful forms and sources of energy.
Delusive Hope: Humans can/must conserve energy.
Comment. This is a classic exemplar of the ego’s incredible capacity to deny change/stewardship. The ego is very insistent in its denial of our mortal nature and it generates delusions that human beings can act without regard to the principles of physics. The belief that humans can conserve energy is born of subtle sensations of fear, desperation, arrogance and vanity. Energy rather than our uses of energy is perceived to be the problem.
Symbol: Energy Saving
True Hope: Symbol not used as it is in complete denial of the Conservation Principle of Energy, which reminds us that energy cannot be saved, lost or wasted. Humans can however act in ways that are economical in that our actions are in harmony with the universal flows and balances that sustain humankind.
Delusive Hope: Humans can/must save energy.
Comment. This delusion is born of the same flawed psychology as the notion that humans can conserve energy. It reflects an inherent sense of deprivation and loss and the belief that energy is somehow deficient. It commonly arises from the confusion of energy with one or more of the forms it may take. This confusion results in the addictive use of the form (fossilized biomass, Bulk-generated electrical products, forests, etc) so the form is depleted and transformed into useless forms and pollution.
Symbol: Energy Use Crisis
True Hope: Human can experience an energy use crisis.
Comment Employing the “use” symbol is a potent reminder that we are stewards of our actions. It reminds in us a direct connection between our decision and the universal flux,
Delusive Hope: Humans can experience an energy crisis.
Comment. All sentient beings, including human beings, can be impacted by major solar, tectonic, climatic and other change. Such change can sustain us or destroy us. Our survival as a species depends on our capacity to adapt and conserve that which sustains us.
Almost invariably when humans speak of an “energy crisis” they are experiencing stress because they have failed to use and conserve true resources. At such times it is convenient for the ego to attribute the cause of the problem to energy rather than the addictive use of certain energy forms.
Symbol: Economy
True Hope: An economy = a system of exchange characterized by thrift and stewardship of the flows and balances that sustain humanity.
Delusive Hope: An economy = a system of exchange characterized by waste, pollution, planned obsolescence and continual increase in the consumption of materials.
Comment: This delusion arose about the 1650s in England, became widespread in the Anglo-American empire in the 1950s and it is now considered normal behaviour. The confusion of an economy with a diseconomy indicates profound amorality and denial of stewardship/change. (See cartoon history below)
Symbol diseconomy
True Hope: A diseconomy = a system of exchange characterized by waste, pollution, planned obsolescence and the continual increase in the consumption of materials.
Comment: Rarely used though it accurately describes contemporary Anglo-American and other exchange systems. It is now common to describe the above system of planned waste and pollution as “the economy” i.e. the economy symbol is made meaningless by associating it with its inverse meaning.
Note: the ego is well capable of such inversion of meaning without our being aware of it. Smile.
wiki. traffic jam. Cars are not primarily designed to move people, as is commonly believed. The prime design of these devices is to burn mineral oil in wasteful ways. Traffic congestion raises the general waste of over 95% to 100%.
Symbol: Energy and Resources
Note. This discussion repeated from the Energy (definition) page.
True Hope: Symbol not used. The resource symbol arises from the Latin resurgere – “to rise again” Energy is the ultimate resource i.e. re source.
Delusive Hope: There exist energy and resources.
Comment English people first began to strip the “ resource” symbol of its associations with change/stewardship about 1610. This process was completed about 1779. (See cartoon history below)
This coincides with the advent of the massive excesses of the Industrial Revolution when anything that could be burned and destroyed for an immediate profit was defined as a resource regardless of the consequences.
The extreme excesses of Anglo-American countries this last generation are reflected in Governments being founded in the symbol in the Minister of Energy symbol. This Office almost invariably associates energy with a limited number of forms – primarily fossilized biomass and Bulk-generated electrical products.
The Minister of Energy and Resources
symbol compounds the denial of change/stewardship in inherent in the Minister of Energy symbol to an extreme degree. This gross denial of physics guarantees misery.
