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So how does a human live on a planet or should I say a human being - live on a planet - because we are not really \u2018being\u2019 are we? Growth has become the secular religion of our time. What Stephen answered with is that the so called \u2018dominant culture\u2019 and materialism is now in an extremely problematic phase. That growth in its many ways has become the secular religion of our time. \xa0This desire for consumerism is also consuming our future, yet \u2018growth' - and even the \u2018personal growth\u2019 industry is exponentialising itself - as an idea that \u2018inner growth and awareness can be sold as a commodity to people. This preoccupation of \u2018increase\u2019 - which can be easily seen in the consumer culture, is becoming predominant. Stephen who has worked in palliative care in what he called the 'death industry' he talks about - oncology, the study and treatment of tumours. He said they have a word that is a synonym for tumour and it is called - \u2018a growth\u2019 which is as a word widely used outside the industry too and it is called just \u2018growth.\u2019 He goes on to talk about what is this growth thing? \xa0Well, in cancer it grows itself to death. This can be seen in how industrial man keeps on growing his business and the repercussions are being seen in all areas of the biosphere. Tumors grow themselves to terminate the host A growth or a tumour has no concerns about anything other than its continued unrestricted growth until finally - it terminates its host. Its mania is its demise. And the collateral damage is the person in question. Respect for the Elder Generation \u2018Respect your elders\u2019 \u2026 in his days this is what Stephen said was a description of the way things were. That elders were to be held in generic high regard. Not elevating them over the top, not inflating them to some kind of heroic status but just a sense that they have endured as long as they have - has conferred upon them some sort of - what he calls reliability - and that is the way it was - however it is not the way it is now. \xa0And the change from then (only 75 to 100 years ago) - is now extreme. To the extent to respect your elders now is much more of a plea - that is his present day description of the way it is. Stephen says that something very fundamental has happened to people\u2019s willingness to hold older people in inalienable high esteem. The other half of this equations is that he says: Respect your elders and they - behave and comport themselves - respectably. Where is the respect of Elders today? The young today are having difficulty in finding common ground with elders and are fundamentally challenging the term \u2018respect your elders\u2019 - if not dismissing this notion out of hand. One reason is that youth are in a position where they are inheriting a world that is in considerable disrepair \xa0- and when they look to their elders they say but this has been done on their elders \u2018watch!' Listen to the interview. \xa0 So the youth ask, how come we let this happen when we knew that there are going to be repercussions in the future and still the elders did nothing! \xa0 This being the case - we can understand why the younger generation have difficulty in respecting \u2018the elders.\u2019 Respect what? Becomes their question. \xa0See Stephen\u2019s book \u2018Come of Age.\u2019 What happens when you do not hold older people in high regard? Plus how does this demean the culture fundamentally? Stephen says that we today have inherited deeply troubling challenges and we can not 'wish them away' - we have to quietly and in a focused way deal with them \u2026 Listen ... Wisdom Wisdom - how does it come about? \xa0Can you inherit wisdom? Stephen says it is not the case - Listen ... Prejudices \u2026and bigotry He also ask the question what can you inherit? He then states - Prejudices \u2026and bigotry - how do we pick these up? There is no labour in picking these up. There is no wisdom involved. How come these be so easily picked up? There are many subjects that are covered in this interview. Stephen\u2019s intellect and its acuity, shows that he is very adept at the spoken word. Awake? Awake what is it? \xa0An elevated mindfulness or \u2026 a kind of achieved state? He breaks down words like A-Wake and explains what they convey Hope? What is hope? \xa0This was a big one and he deconstructs this word as well. Tim here, I had a huge list of questions that I did not get around to asking many of these: \xa0 Questions that I had lined up - in any order ... The Great Mystery \u2026 Life, death and beyond. What does he perceive as \u2018the great mystery?\u2019 The tyranny of hope \u2026 Pandora\u2019s Box was the only gift that did not escape \xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0- We are in grim times. He did elaborate on hope. Zen poet Thich Nhat Hanh was asked, \u201cwhat do we most need to do to save our world?\u201d His answer was this: \u201cWhat we most need to do is to hear within us the sounds of the Earth crying.\u201d Did Stephen wish to add anything to this? We just did not have time ... Psychology has become monotheism without God. \xa0This is what Stephen had mentioned in a video. Could he explain? Anima Mundi, the Latin word for World Soul. His thoughts on this? We are Spiritual Beings having an earth existence? \xa0Stephen did answer this, but not in a way that it was being asked. That as there are 7.7 billion humans on earth, were they not in someway on a spiritual journey? Or as many would say be inhabited by soul, or have a soul connection? \xa0He did no concur or he may have misunderstood my question. \xa0Listen Many people today are generally perceived as so disconnected from any sense of the deeper self, or soul - having instead being so busy with the outside world with all its distractions and diversions - that they have omitted to cultivate any inner values, or \u2018knowing thyself\u2019 and deepening their inquiry into why they are here in human form. This translates to being in many ways, devoid of any spiritual context. Thus not peacefully knowing how to die - But dying by medication - \xa0sliding into a worsening stage of coma and drugged out - lacking any focus or coherency - 'dying badly.' Stephen has written on \u2018dying badly.\u2019 We are death phobic and grief illiterate - these are from his previous statements and we just never had the time to follow this up. Re-wilding our Planet and E.O Wilson\u2019s idea of \xbd of or planet being 'locked away' to regenerate without or with very little human interference. With no extraction of anything from these areas. \xa0 https://eowilsonfoundation.org/e-o-wilson-on-saving-half-the-earth/ Lack of vernacular to express one\u2019s feelings \u2026 that men in particular are generally unable to open themselves up to being more vulnerable in showing their feelings. This was a big one being, that men in general just seem to not have the ability to articulate and say how they feel. Ecological connection - to a planet that is under siege. We did cover this, however not in the sense of that of an indigenous person, living immersed in nature. i.e have mystical experiences - as a result of fasting or a vision quest. The denial and ability to hide from the responsibility to wake up to what is happening on earth. \xa0The Anthropocene stage that of humans now have overtaken the earth\u2019s natural systems to self balance or heal itself from the ecological damage that we are doing it to it/\u2018her.' We did cover this to a small degree. That so many contemporary adults are reading non fiction, i.e Mills and Boon books - (plural) and are engaged in living vicariously through literature that is increasingly becoming more risqu\xe9 and going into fantasy. That we are not acting responsibly, but in fact - deluding ourselves. A Planetary Cry In - that if we all did it - it could 'shift the field.\u2019 \xa0This was a blue sky - 'what if question' -the fact that humans, especially men do not cry, (very few) thus are emotionally blocked - that in a grief filled moment that when we realised what we have done to the world and our collective future and continue to do so - if we realised this, have you Stephen, any opinion on such a concept? That today especially in education that women lead the men in their fields - schools girls academic qualifications are higher - since 1893 when women emancipated themselves for the first time on our planet, do you see woman as being pivotal in bring our civilisation to its senses? \xa0 www.OrphanWisdom.com Stephen is in NZ from April 30th 2019