The Problem With Rules
By Chet Shupe
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Rules have existed for only a few thousand years, which is but milliseconds in evolutionary time. In that short time, humans have become so dependent on complying with manmade rules that we can’t imagine an existence without them. On the plus side, rules enable us to organize and live in mass cultures. Without “law and order,” for instance, the Industrial Revolution never would have occurred. But, neither would slavery. Both the Industrial Revolution and the slave trade were basically about the same thing: making money. Without legally imposed rules to authorize a universal medium of exchange, neither would have occurred.
Though we benefit, in countless ways, from the use of rules, we also suffer from the senselessness they bring about. We committed a senseless act when we rejected our inborn sensibilities by creating rules to organize human life. The slave trade is just one example of this senselessness. The activities that occur in cults demonstrate how easily the human mind can become possessed by senselessness. And the greater the senselessness, the more complete the possession. What inspires the human mind to go along with senselessness? Issac Wyler—a former member of the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints (FLDS)—explained it, this way: “Fear controlled us, the fear of being left out, the fear of not being good enough, the fear of being that one person who took a different course.”
All these fears reveal genuine human attributes. Indeed, our inborn desire to be part of a group, to contribute to the wellbeing of others, and to cooperate with the “flow of things” is what makes us human! Had evolution not endowed our spirits with these, and countless other values, our species would have gone extinct, long ago. But we can now see how these attributes—the very ones that make us human, and on which our species’ life depends—can work against us, given the “right” circumstances:
People who live in pursuit of “the promised land” ignore senselessness, not by design or free choice,
but because their emotional and material survival depends on it.
For the polygamous FLDS community, the promised land was Zion. They did not know what, or where, Zion was. They only knew that it was glorious, and that, if any member stepped out of line, by questioning their prophet’s authority, it would put every member at risk of never reaching Zion. The collective fear of not reaching Zion was so powerful that Warren Jeff’s directives, which, in his mind, were ordained by God, completely defined the reality in which his followers lived. This control continued for years, even after he had been imprisoned for life.
When we subjugate ourselves to rules—whether religiously or secularly inspired—we do it for the same reason the members of cults worship their rule-makers. We, too, are living in pursuit of a promised land.
Our promised land can be wealth and privilege, or eternal life, but, it need not be all that grand. It might simply be to get to the end of our life, with enough money to nourish and shelter ourselves. That’s not asking much, but, to the individual asking, it’s the difference between Heaven and Hell. Even people with modest desires can be as emotionally blinded to senselessness, as those who want to reach Zion are blinded by grandiose desires.
The practice of living for the future is such a recent phenomenon, in the life of our species, that our brains have not had time to evolve the sensibilities needed to warn us of its danger. Thus, all human minds are vulnerable to the emotional blindness that comes from living in pursuit of promised lands. Before mankind began imposing rules, there was no good or evil. Humans and animals celebrated life, by living in the present—doing what felt good and avoiding what hurt. But, since humans began living for the future, we have been unable to participate in life’s celebration. The reason is simple: Our need to realize future ambitions requires us to ignore most of our feelings. It hurts to have to ignore how we feel. And we suffer.
Our feelings in reaction to the situation at hand are the only access we have to the wisdom of our souls. Ignoring our innate wisdom causes senselessness. For example, does it make sense that less than ten percent of the populace possesses over ninety percent of the wealth? Is it not senseless for sports figures to live in luxury, while teachers are underpaid? And, does it make sense for a man to go unpunished, after having sex with a woman, just after midnight on her 18th birthday, when, had the act occurred an hour earlier, he would have been subject to years of punishment and disgrace? Does it make sense for us to rely on the institution of marriage, to provide women with homes in which to bear and raise their children, when, sooner or later, over half of those relationships will become emotionally estranged? And did it make sense for me to spend my professional career developing weapons to provide my government with the ability to kill Russian people, en masse, who, in Nature’s eyes, are no different from me?
These, and countless other examples of senselessness deeply offend our souls. Yet, as dependents on rules, for survival, we have no choice, other than to make peace with them just to go on living. Indeed, spiritual insults are so intrinsic to our existence that our minds, for the most part, perceive them as natural. No matter what techniques our minds employ, to overlook what’s going on, senselessness darkens the skies of our spiritual lives, beyond measure. Depression, loneliness, emotional illness, substance abuse, and suicide are part of that measure.
Living for the future can hardly result in anything other than senselessness, because the concept, itself, makes no sense. Common sense tells us that the future is unknowable. It makes no sense to devote our lives to an illusion—an image of the future that cannot possibly reside anywhere other than in our imagination. People keep doing it, however, because when one’s livelihood—even survival—is at stake, common sense carries no weight.
Humans are different from animals, in many ways, but, in one way, we are the same: Living in the moment is our comfort zone. Mythologically speaking, living for the future is what expelled us from the Garden of Eden. In the real Eden, where the emotions of our distant forebears once ruled, people felt loved, supported, and safe, in the presence of those on whom they mutually depended, for survival. Those people never worried about the distant future, because—with their sisters and brothers by their side—they felt they could manage anything the future might throw at them. That doesn’t guarantee that they could, of course, but they felt that they could. And, to the human spirit, it’s how we feel that’s important, not the facts. Indeed, there are no facts to justify our efforts to control the indefinite future, to our personal or collective ends. There are only dreams of a better tomorrow.
To return to our comfort zone, we must first understand why our ancestors left Eden. The authors of Genesis told us that we were expelled from Eden for believing that we knew what was good and what was evil. Why did we invent the concepts of good and evil, in the first place?
As language evolved, it enabled humans to imagine what the distant future might bring. Eventually, people became afraid of the possibilities they imagined. “My goodness, anything could happen!” they must have exclaimed. So, to ensure a safe, just, and peaceful future, our ancestors turned away from the natural human way of life, by creating legal systems, to punish people who did “bad” things. This was the birth of the knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis describes it this way: “On the day you eat thereof, you shall be like Gods, knowing good and evil.” In other words, any system of authority with the audacity to proclaim the knowledge of good and evil—be it a cult leader, a king, a legislative body, or whatever—is playing God. And because humans are keen to imagine how pleasurable it would be to live in the idealized future that “false Gods” promise, the knowledge of Good and Evil has been controlling human behavior ever since we created it.
Granted, Eden—the reality humans experience when our innate wisdom rules—does not result in an ideal existence. But it is where our species was born. Our spirits evolved to celebrate life there—hardships, uncertainties, conflicts, untimely deaths, and all.
How do we return to living in the moment—the only place where life’s celebration can occur? First, we must want to return. If we return to Eden, it will be for the same reason we left—to resolve our fear of the imagined future. When we become more fearful of the reality that results from living for the future than of the one humans experienced, when living in the moment, we will desire to return to Eden, as much as we once desired to leave our spiritual home. Whether we do return is another matter. But, having acquired the desire, we will have, at least, cleared the first hurdle.
Our imaginations sparked our desire to leave Eden. We imagined that we could make the world a safer place, by imposing rules. Likewise, our return to Eden will also be inspired by our imaginations. However, this time we will not imagine a safer world. We will imagine a place where we are free to live in the moment, by being true to how we feel, in our relationships with the people around us. People who lived in Eden depended on each other for survival, not on personal wealth. Materially, they were poor, but spiritually they were wealthy, because, as a result of their need for one another they loved each other.
Where is Eden? Eden is any place where a body of people depend on each other for material and emotional support. In other words, Eden exists wherever people trust their lives to each other’s spirits—thus without rules to govern behavior or assign responsibilities. Having evolved to take care of one another of our own volition, our spirits will find, in Eden, the only home they’ve ever known.
Fortunately, we don’t have to rely entirely on our imaginations, to understand what it would feel like to live in our comfort zone. People occasionally experience the phenomenon, even in our present world. It happened in WWII, among men crewing battle tanks. Their utter dependence on each other, for survival, created the circumstance in which unconditional love holds sway. It also happened in Restrepo, a remote military outpost in Afghanistan, where twenty, or so, young men experienced brotherhood, for the first time in their lives. Unconditional love also occurred among thousands of men and women in Sarajevo, throughout the four years that city was under siege. (ref: Tribe by Sebastian Junger) The love born of our innate need for one another also happens, regularly, in the wake of hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.
Whenever civil order breaks down—even temporarily—the love for one another that humans experienced in Eden reappears, as if by magic. But there is nothing mystical going on. When there is a breakdown of civil order, people have only their souls to answer to. It is then that our spirits are free to come out and play. And what game do our spirits love most? They love taking care of life, by placing the needs of others above their own.
When civil order is in control, the law protects us from one another, by outlawing “bad” behavior. But, that’s the problem with the law. To trust it is to distrust the human spirit. How are we to love one another, when we don’t trust each other, as evidenced by our belief in the law? Every legal document is an expression of spiritual distrust, including the contract of marriage. The issue is not whether people are good or bad, or whether a specific law is good or bad. It’s that the very fact that the law exists imprisons the human spirit.
Our spirits exist to reward us, emotionally, when we are serving life. But, as subjects of civil law, we are fated to comply with protocol—except in rare instances, when civil order breaks down. In short, our dependence on the law, for protection, results in a spiritless existence—one without the brotherly and sisterly love that is so crucial for human contentment.
The natural human comfort zone does not derive from wealth and privilege, modern conveniences, upholstered living, justice, peace, progress, or any of the things that are held in high esteem, by people who find solace in future dreams. Our spirit’s comfort zone rests on a single value—that we feel needed. In his book, Tribe—On Homecoming and Belonging, Sebastian Junger put it this way: “Humans don’t mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary.”
Unfortunately, perfecting that art is easy. All that’s needed is to impose a rule, and soon you will have it, the whole dismal scene. Rules exist to create a better future. Thus, they prevent the human spirit from attending to life’s real and present needs. So, once rules are imposed, more rules are needed, to manage the unintended consequences of having imprisoned our spirits. Eventually, the number of rules increases exponentially, ultimately causing the whole scheme to collapse. Then, people create a new system of rules, based on fresh agreements about what is good and evil. This is how imposing rules—even a single rule—eventually results in the rise and fall of civilizations, a cycle of boom and bust that never ends.
As I see it, there are only two means of escape. One would be the demise of our species. The other would be to return to Eden, where the concept of good and evil does not exist, nor is it needed. In Eden, people serve both their needs, and our species’ needs, by doing what feels good, and avoiding what hurts. Feelings tell us everything we need to know—indeed, everything there is to know regarding species survival.
Should we desire to return to Eden, what’s the next step? To clear the second hurdle, we need to recognize that human beings, by our very nature, are both physically and emotionally vulnerable. Success in Eden requires that we love, and are loved by, a body of people on whom we mutually depend, for survival. As civilized people, our situation is just the opposite. Out here, success is equated almost entirely with material wealth, which means that we must each make it on our own.
So, we manage the appearance of success, by repressing the feelings through which we would normally realize how much we need one another. Having to hide our sense of vulnerability, we exist in a state of shame that arises from a deep feeling that we don’t measure up. How could we possibly measure up? We came into this world with the inborn desire to serve life, by attending to the needs of our sisters and brothers. But we find ourselves in a situation where our very survival requires that we put our needs above the needs of others. Consequently, we don’t have sisters and brothers, thus no way to serve life. Our state of shame is so universal that we perceive it as normal. But it’s not normal to spend our lifetimes feeling inadequate! The authors of Genesis mythologically revealed our general state of humiliation by noting: Then, the eyes of Adam and Eve were opened, and they realized that they were naked. So, they stitched fig leaves together, to make loin coverings for themselves. (Genesis 3:7)
In Eden, where we were born to live, we will not feel inadequate, as a result of having to make it on our own. In our spiritual home, no one has to make it on his or her own. Instead of being ashamed of our need for each other, that need will be celebrated through the mutual love of sisterhood and brotherhood. So, if we return to Eden, we can’t do it alone. It requires a body of people, socially bonded by their real, present, and obvious, need for one another—not just for material survival, but, more importantly, emotional survival.
The persistent failure of cults and communes would imply that humans can’t live together. The fact that communes and cults fail—sometimes spectacularly—is an interesting phenomenon. And it is particularly true, given that there is no archaeological evidence to suggest that, before the introduction of rules, people ever lived other than in groups. The difference between cults and communes, vs. our natural human way of living, is that, in our natural state, there are no rules, while, in cults and communes, there are. We can’t expect to be able to live together, while placing our ultimate trust in rules, and the paperwork they create. The human spirit will not tolerate such nonsense! This is fortunate. If our spirits did tolerate it, it wouldn’t be long before our species ceased to exist. A loveless existence, combined with the necessity for people to lie about how they really feel, in order to comply with protocol, is the spiritual insult that causes communes, cults, and eventually, nation-states to fail.
There is a message in the rise and fall of civilization that has not yet registered in the minds of modern people: In the end, the human spirit will not tolerate manmade rules, no matter how good they may look on paper—or inscribed in stone.
Let’s face it. As human beings, we are emotionally and materially vulnerable, by our nature. For us, survival is a collective affair. So, clearing the third, and final hurdle, on our return to Eden, is something no individual can manage, alone. If we return, it will be extended families that lead the way.
Civilized humans view mankind’s existence as a given. Governing bodies thus feel free to impose rules to maintain order, giving no thought whatsoever to how those rules hinder normal social interactions, thus also our ability to sustain ourselves as a species. In Eden, on the other hand, everything is about species survival, even order. The “survival unit,” for a social species, is an extended family. That family exists to raise the next generation. Every individual who participates in the family’s life contributes to the well-being of our species. This is not by intent. We don’t realize that our purpose is to sustain the life of our species any more than animals do. As members of a social species, we are born—genetically programmed, if you prefer—to take pleasure in doing whatever we feel will contribute to our family’s wellbeing. If we can contribute, then we will feel needed. Through the feeling that we are loved we will find all the contentment a living being can experience. When participating in life’s journey, all questions about our ultimate purpose, destiny, or whatever, will evaporate into thin air.
In our civilized world, concerns about our purpose, or destiny, provide evidence that we are not participating in life’s journey, not because we don’t want to, but because we are not free to contribute. No one who is loving and being loved endures the spiritual insult of meaninglessness, because, when we are taking care of life and life is taking care of us, meaning is implicit. Without love, be it romantic love, motherly love, or brotherly-sisterly love, life has no real meaning. We are left to make do with whatever our imaginations can conjure up. Consequently, many classical philosophers have been reduced to arguing that, by the authority of reason, alone, we can establish our own purpose, as if we were our own creators—an oxymoron.
The principal organizing feature of natural families is that sisterhoods—social bonds among women—form the family’s core. In Eden, where there are no rules, women experience a shared need that men do not have—the need for a viable place to bear and raise their children. It’s only natural, therefore, that women evolved to bond as sisterhoods, to fulfill that need. Indeed, this shared need among females is so profound, that I believe it is safe to say that, without females’ need to socially bond, for mutual support in raising their young, no social species would exist.
As we can see, life in Eden revolves around the needs of sisterhoods. As our rule-based society continues to disintegrate into potential chaos, women will increasingly seek the mutual support of sisterhood, to make sense of their lives. This fills me with hope that Eden may well be on the way, whether our ivory towers are ready for it, or not. The question is, will it arrive in time to save us from our enslavement to rules?
Our return to Eden will not result from someone’s assurance that we will eventually arrive at “the promised land” if we follow a system of rules. It will happen when women realize that, through sisterhood, they can create a viable home in which to bear and raise their children NOW!
Should women begin trusting their lives to one another for the sake of their children’s wellbeing, men will show up to support, and protect them, and their children. They will not do it to fulfill promises, satisfy legal obligations, or have sex. We men will appear because we, too, want to be where we feel needed. In Eden, everyone seeks contentment, by serving others. An individual who does not feel needed will go in search of a place where they do feel needed. If the individual can never find that place, then he or she will never experience love. So, even in Eden, success is not guaranteed.
But, if you seek guarantees, be careful what you wish for. If Nature guaranteed success, evolution would never have occurred, in which case no species would exist. Where would that leave you and me? Also, if success were guaranteed, there would be nothing to celebrate in achieving it.
Regarding sex, the spiritual authority of sisterhood enables women to control all sexual activities, in Eden. If one of the men seriously mistreats a woman, or her child—whether sexually, or in any other way—he would be lucky to escape alive. And it is the brothers, functioning as protectors, who would take care of the matter. The principal source of intimacy, in Eden, is sisterly and brotherly love, not sex. In Eden, no woman would likely agree to have sex with a man with whom she was not romantically involved. And when a romance was over, so would be the sex.
In Eden, relationships are based on the need to satisfy spiritual obligations, not legal ones. The first extended families to appear will be operating outside the law, in the context of relationships among their members. Though no one is to blame, this will, quite naturally, strike fear in the larger populace, causing the state to officially object. Also, once sisterhoods begin demonstrating that they can take care of life, when functioning without legal obligations, they will eventually put the state out of business. So, confrontations between the state and sisterhoods would be unavoidable. Though spiritually free people may have to accept some sacrifices, along the way, in the end, the spiritual authority of women will gain the upper hand. A sisterhood, you see, can do something that no institution ever can. It can provide a viable home in which to bear and raise children. In Eden, any entity that can take care of children has the power. That’s what gives sisterhoods the upper hand.
Sisterhoods have no legal authority, nor would they have cause to seek it. It is by virtue of their spiritual/emotional authority that sisterhoods create and maintain order. Should mankind ever recognize that raising the next generation is what life is about, legal authority would be of no significance anyway.
“I agree that this all seems to make sense,” a skeptic may say, “but, given the world’s present population—our technological advances, modern medicine, and our dependence on rules and money, for survival—returning to our natural way of living is simply not possible.”
This commentary is not about what’s possible. It’s about how things are, as perceived by our souls, which value our species’ wellbeing above our own. If we are content with our circumstances, then, from our spirit’s point of view, our species is doing well. If we are not content, it is our spirits informing us, through our suffering, that, for the sake of our emotional health, and the wellbeing of the generations to come, our need to comply with rules is causing us to overlook things that, sooner or later, must be taken care of.
If humans return to Eden, the journey will not be undertaken by people who know what’s possible. The people who light the way will be those who are suffering— “those who are poor in spirit” thus, recognize that something is fundamentally wrong. They will be the ones who find out whether humans can return to living in the moment. And if they discover that the human spirit—that includes yours and mine—celebrates life by taking care of it, if we only trust its ways, it is they and their descendants “who shall inherit the earth.”
In the face of Mother Nature, and all that she can throw at us, we’ve got to remember that, as humans, we’ll always have each other.
—Voice over in the Documentary, “Rescue from Whakaari”
