“Demand it of yourselves, Julie. Tribal wealth is the energy that tribal members give each other in order to keep the tribe going. This energy is inexhaustible, a completely renewable resource.”
I groaned. “You’re still not telling me how to do that.?
?
“Julie, the things you want as humans are available. This is my message to you over and over and over again. You can have these things. People you despise as ignorant savages have them, so why can’t you have them?”
“But how? How do we go about having them?”
“First you have to realize that it’s possible to have them. Look, Julie, before you could go to the moon, you first had to realize that it was possible to go to the moon. Before you could build an artificial heart, you first had to realize that it was possible to build an artificial heart. Do you see that?”
“Yes.”
“At the moment, Julie, how many of you realize that your ancestors had a way of living that worked very well for people? People who lived this way weren’t perpetually struggling with crime, madness, depression, injustice, poverty, and rage. Wealth wasn’t concentrated in the hands of a lucky few. People didn’t live in terror of their neighbors or of the future. People felt secure, and they were secure—in a way that’s almost unimaginable to you. This way of living is still extant, and it still works as well as it ever did, for people—unlike your way, which works very well for business but very badly for people. How many of you realize all this?”
“None,” I said. “Or very few.”
“Then how can they begin? To go to the moon, you first had to realize that it was possible to go to the moon.”
“So what are you saying? That it’s impossible?”
Ishmael sighed. “Do you remember what I advertised for?”
“Of course. A pupil with an earnest desire to save the world.”
“Then presumably you came here because you have that desire. Did you think I was going to hand you a magic wand? Or an automatic weapon with which you could gun down all the evildoers of the world?”
“No.”
“Did you think there was nothing to be done? Did you think that you would come here, listen for a while, and then go home and do nothing? Did you think that doing nothing was my idea for saving the world?”
“No.”
“On the basis of what I’ve been saying here, Julie, what needs to be done? What needs to be done first before people will begin figuring out how to get the wealth they so desperately need?”
I shook my head but that wasn’t nearly enough. I popped up out of my chair and windmilled my arms. Ishmael looked at me curiously, as if I might have lost my mind at last. I said to him, “Look! You’re not talking about saving the world. I can’t figure you out! You’re talking about saving us!”
Ishmael nodded. “I understand your puzzlement, Julie. But here is how it is. The people of your culture are in the process of rendering this planet uninhabitable to yourselves and millions of other species. If you succeed in doing this, life will certainly continue, but at levels you (in your lofty way) would undoubtedly consider more primitive. When you and I speak of saving the world, we mean saving the world roughly as we know it now—a world populated by elephants, gorillas, kangaroos, bison, elk, eagles, seals, whales, and so on. Do you understand?”
“Of course.”
“There are only two ways to save the world in this sense. One of them is to destroy you immediately—not to wait for you to render the world uninhabitable for yourselves. I know of no way to accomplish that, Julie. Do you?”
“No.”
“The only other way to save the world is to save you. Is to show you how to get the things you so desperately need—instead of destroying the world.”
“Oh,” I said.
“It is my bizarre theory, Julie, that the people of your culture are destroying the world not because they’re vicious or stupid, as Mother Culture teaches, but because they’re terribly, terribly deprived—of things that humans absolutely must have, simply cannot go on living without year after year and generation after generation. It’s my bizarre theory that, given a choice between destroying the world and having the things they really, deeply want, they’ll choose the latter. But before they can make that choice, they must see that choice.”
I gave him back one of his own bleak stares. “And I’m supposed to show them that they have that choice. Is that it?”
“That’s it, Julie. Isn’t that what you wanted to do in your daydream? Bring enlightenment to the world from afar?”
“Yeah, that’s what I wanted to do in my daydream, all right. But in real life, gimme a break. I’m just a kid wondering how I’m gonna make out when I finally get to high school.”
“I realize that. But you’re not going to remain so forever. Whether you know it or not, you came here to be changed, and you’ve been changed. And whether you know it or not, the change is permanent.”