Gudda future
Piers Maddox is prompted by creativity and invention in his search for meaning
gudda [from the ancient word ghedh: to unite]
1 impulse to make the world better, to stand for values of humanity and justice;
2 becoming gudda: a process of self-transformation;
3 gudda inside: authentic inner goodness kernel.
See also: wannabe gudda, misguided gudda, pseudo-gudda, badda
We’re part of an economic system that encourages us to exploit each other and the planet, with a dog-eat-dog morality. There is a lost sense of community, and lost connection with the natural world. Taxpayer-funded war machines wreak destruction and misery. And now we face climate catastrophe, and mass extinctions of species, caused by human beings.
Some say our species is naturally selfish, and that we’ve evolved to be more aggressive. But when we each just act for ourselves, in the end we all suffer – as when each fisherman takes as much as he can, resulting in overfishing and ending in the destruction of the fishery. This is the tragedy of the commons, which occurs when individuals exploit a shared resource to the extent that demand overwhelms supply and the resource becomes unavailable to some or all.
Yet, we’re also instinctively unselfish. We have an instinct for justice, to know what’s right and wrong. Other primates have it too. We see injustice and want to help. We want to share, and give back, not just take. At heart most people just want peace and justice, and to live by the golden rule: ‘Don’t do to others what you’d hate to be done to you’. It should be a simple matter to satisfy our basic needs and then flourish.
At this time of global village crisis the impulse to justice is much needed. I suggest that we might we call it ‘gudda’, though it’s not about goodness (doing the right thing; doing what others want). It’s about finding meaning, seeing the need, having the courage to be authentic, and choosing to be a part of the community of people working to make the world better, to contribute to the extent that you can.
We all have the choice, in each moment, to be open, authentic and constructive – or not. It’s a choice that people have always faced. It was written in the Christian Teachings of the Twelve Apostles as the choice between the way of life and the way of death. But it requires us to authentically feel the spirit of wellbeing, of joy, of life. It’s that spirit, combined with our gudda instinct, that we must nurture. And we need to embrace the global dimension to transcend the tribal ‘us and them’ of the past.
Surely anyone who feels the precious life spirit also feels the impulse to act, and to be a part of the global gudda effort, to the best of their ability. It’s not a matter of venerating gudda, but becoming part of it. When you see things clearly, it’s the obvious only choice. To paraphrase the Quaker Gerrard Winstanley, action is everything… words without action mean nothing.
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