How to be Zeta Part I: Contentment

"The objective of life is contentment. Happiness is surficial and short-lived, but contentment permeates every aspect of your life consistently, once achieved. Religions tend to talk about enlightenment, but it is basically the same thing.”

We live in a society where size matters. Everything is target driven, from government ministers obsessed by management theory to school children dominated by SATS. If something cannot be measured it has no value, as how can you compare yourself to the ‘model of perfection’ if you can’t quantify either? We are constantly told, sometimes very subtly, that to be whole and happy people we have to have enough fun, happiness, money, beauty, sex & cool stuff. If we have enough of all these, which incidentally are generally on sale or available to those who tow the party line, then we too may become models of perfection and the envy of all our friends.

{The ‘model of perfection’ seems to be based on those lifestyles of the rich & famous that are detailed in Hello magazine. Unfortunately, these bear less relevance to real life than most Mills & Boon stories, even for those of us who are actually rich & famous. So we are on a hiding to nothing if we try to measure up to these models that are commonly peddled in our society. Even more unfortunately, most of us do just that.}

Now, most of the truly important things in life are not measurable in themselves or take years to be noticed. Examples are kindness, understanding, wisdom and gratitude. Also the most important of all, contentment.

Contentment is very like enlightenment, only you don’t need to like yoga or joss sticks to indulge. I use the word indulge on purpose, as it coveys a sense of doing something wonderful but naughty. Trying to achieve contentment within our society is just that: a wonderful thing to achieve but naughty because content people make poor consumers, are less swayed by spin and less blinded by duty.

Contentment is often confused with happiness, but they are quite different. The former is a pervasive state of being, a constant boon that permeated every aspect of your life. The latter is mercurial, easily conjured by good company or good booze, for instance, but just as easily lost. Happiness can animate even the most icy heart for a while, but once gone leaves nothing behind but memories. Or possibly even depression.

Once you are content, you will be able to accept your life as it should be and ignore the model of perfection. The fashions and fads of the world will hold no sway, leaving you free to pick and choose what you want to use and what discard. You will not be stressed by you imperfections, but accept them with a sense of humour and appreciation. Being kind to yourself will allow you to grow and, most importantly, help those around you grow through your kindness to them. This is why contentment and enlightenment are so similar, as they both lead to great wisdom and the ability to help those around you.

It is not easy to be truly content. To do so you need to understand what is important to your life, then act upon it. This will be different for everyone, so there is no Haynes Manual to contentment – rather, there is a system to follow that should allow you to understand what’s right for you. The basics of this are outlined in my blog post ‘A short sharp (ish) guide to zeta’, but will be explored in greater detail soon. ish.

Alpha versus Zeta

The most adulated people throughout human history have been the Alpha Males and Alpha Females. This is a direct continuation from our more hairy past and is generally the situation for most mammals. She (or he) who shouts the loudest, grabs the most and consumes the fastest is the best. Or so it has been until now, but for humans at least this is about to change.

Why? Well, throughout history there has always been a world surplus of resources. Even if there was local scarcity of food, for instance, there was always the ability to get more from elsewhere or grow more after the next rains. There was no boundary condition to prevent getting more stuff. This meant that she who could produce the most resources would accumulate the most wealth, which in turn would trickle down to the community around her. The equation is easy:

More resources in = more produce out = more wealth = happy!

This made her everyone’s favourite and the best mating potential in the tribe. The lack of a boundary condition meant that this equation was always valid (if managed right, at least).

In the impending Age of Change this will no longer be the situation: for the first time in history it will soon be impossible to find enough stuff on the globe as a whole. There will be a barrier to accumulation, a boundary condition. The equation will no longer be absolute and will often look more like:

More resources in = imbalance and scarcity = impoverishment = sad!

This makes the Alpha Female in question a very controversial figure amongst her immediate tribe and could lead to her complete downfall. She will have become a very dangerous choice of mate.

This may sound like a fairly fine flight of fancy, but how does it correspond to the real world? Throughout history and around the world people have starved whilst others prospered – why will things change now?

The answer again is the boundary condition. Even in a situation where some are starving, the successful Alphas have always procured a proportion of their wealth from outside the community and some of that wealth has trickled into it. This has kept the system stable enough for the Alpha to remain comfortably at the top. If the situation arises that the Alpha cannot procure wealth from outside their community, they will have to either hoard their produce or take from their immediate surrounds. This will lead to serious social instability and potential fall of the Alpha.

The real problem with the whole Alpha thing is not that they are successful or charismatic or strong, but that their attitude sucks. Alphas have been bred, both socially and genetically, to want to be Alphas. They want to consume, to accumulate, to be the best and they want to be seen to be doing so.

Zetas, on the other hand, do not have the attitude. They are still leaders, still strong and charismatic, if not more so than Alphas, but they have a much deeper understanding of what is important in life and how to live it. They rate enjoyment over ownership, contentment over wealth and understanding over material success. They are, in the broadest meaning of the word and not necessarily in any religious or New Age way, spiritual. They are wise.

It is this different attitude that we need as the world runs out of resources and we enter the Age of Change. We need to be led by Zetas, not Alphas. This is nothing particularly new, as many of history’s greatest figures have been Zetas rather than Alphas, but the reason and degree to which we need them has changed.

Why Zeta?

The worlds resources will run out, so we all need to start understanding the difference between ‘want’ and ‘need’, as in ‘I need clothes to keep me warm’ -v- ‘I want that Prada handbag to go with my Jimmy Choo shoes’. We have far more than we need, which does not make us content. The consumer society is based on buying, tiring and buying more. There is a quick burst of happiness when we buy something new, followed by the disappointing boredom of ownership and the stress of having to buy more to get high again.

Wealthy societies that are based on consumerism, such as the UK, have higher depression rates and lower contentment than poor societies based on spirituality (again in its broadest sense). This we desperately need to change and the only way to do so is to change the way we live, to become less consumerist and more spiritual. We need to wean ourselves of our addiction to quick shopping highs and learn how to enjoy the deep, long lasting buzz from actually doing things for ourselves and those around us; of having little and enjoying a lot.

This is already important, if only to improve our standard of living, but as the Age of Change comes upon us it will become essential to survival. A bit of depression over having only 50 pairs of shoes and a large overdraft will soon turn into an inability to provide the basic essentials for living and a complete failure to cope.

Zetas can show us how to chill out and make the most of life’s adventure. They can show us how to enjoy the world for what we have around us, rather than aspire constantly to what we think certain celebrities have around them. Zetas can lead us to live better lives: better for us and better for the planet as a whole.

So why will the Zetas become top dogs? It will be because they will survive serenely, they will know how to make the most of what is around them and will still manage to find true contentment. The Age of Change will not reduce their lifestyle as it will many others, because the shortage of material wealth will not reduce their wisdom or spirituality. They will continue to have enough, of everything.

They will also help others to survive, they will help whole communities find their way from consumption to understanding, spirituality and ‘enough’. That will make them top dogs.
A deeper discussion of the philosophy of Zeta will have to wait until the next post.