When we are children it’s difficult to explain why we are upset and why we feel the way we do. But we usually experience simpler problems that can be handled and surpassed.

As we grow into adolescence our problems become more complicated, and more difficult to articulate – something necessary to the process of problem solving. Our problems sometimes become more complicated than our language can explain and maturity can handle.

Humanity is in its adolescence. Our technological progress in the last fifty years or so is comparable to an adolescent undergoing a dramatic growth. And we, as a global collective of humanity, are the worst type of teenager; the type that thinks we have all the answers and know it all.

All of our problems are of our own manifestation in the most adolescent hubristic terms. And we, as a global collective, know something is wrong. We can variously put our finger on our problems and point to factors, but the bigger picture is almost too massive for our maturity level to fully comprehend and explain.

Our adolescent being causes massive global destruction and pollution, and like a teen alcoholic, this adolescent misbehavior leads to a less productive adulthood. All of our stately, corporate-driven impulses to stake a claim in the world are part of the adolescent era of mankind – and are akin to an unchecked teen drinking spree.

When we cannot explain the turmoil we experience, individually and collectively, we will continue to experience the turmoil, and perhaps continue making it happen and magnifying it.

All of the adolescent problems we manifest can be equated to oligarchical collectivism, a phrase coined by George Orwell in ‘1984’. The phrase essentially describes a pyramid social system where the few benefit over the many, essentially the 1% benefit over the 99%. Throughout our collective adolescence, we have cemented the most detrimental oligarchical activities – like war, over-consumption and nuclear experimentation – into our social structures. But  like a thirteen year old taking up smoking cigarettes, these activities are detrimental to us, although they might momentarily feel good or justified.

Today, we literally cause biological damage to ourselves and our planet in an oligarchical collectivist fashion. We are adolescently instituting destructive practices that ultimately benefit the few.  We have allowed the institutionalization of systems that harm everything on the planet and benefit the often demonstrable, if not approximate 1%, at the cost of generations and all future life to come. For instance the destruction of the environment, of Earth Mother, through mining and then setting fire to earth-sourced gas and oil elements, harms all living beings alive now – and for the foreseeable million years, as far as nuclear experimentation is concerned.

Our adolescent problem is the instituting of destructive systems that benefit the few. If we could understand that what we are doing is essentially crapping the bed of our offspring, we might be able to get a grip and come together, to grow in maturity, to communicate and attempt to solve – or at least not create more – problems. In order to survive, we have to grow past oligarchical collectivism, which requires first understanding and addressing it.

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Activist, author and Tai Chi teacher Ethan Indigo Smith was born on a farm in Maine and lived in Manhattan for a number of years before migrating west to Mendocino, California. Guided by a keen sense of integrity, humanity and justice, Ethan’s work is both deeply connected and extremely insightful, blending philosophy, politics, activism, spirituality, meditation and a unique sense of humour.

You can connect with Ethan on Facebook, check out his author page on Amazon, or visit his new websites, Geometry Of Energy and Meditation 108, where Ethan offers lessons on individuation, meditation, the conceptualization of energy, and the metaphysical significance of 108.