Faith is an evolutionary imperative.

When a man (or woman) is born, he has faith in his first experiences. He believes that his mother will feed and protect him, just as she had. The cave man had faith that he would find food when he went out looking for it. If not, he would have never left his cave on the endeavor.

However, it was through trial and error that man realised tools made light of their efforts and this realisation, in turn, yielded a sense of power. It was through the exploration of the world that we made discoveries that yielded better opportunities for ourselves as individuals and as a society to better control the odds of success.

Realising that one can increase success rate through empowerment gives one freedom; a sense of control over security and overall destiny. Nevertheless, this acquisition of power stems from belief or faith, not in what one already knows, but in what one hopes could become. Without faith as a first step, there can be no journey or endeavor to achieve the unthinkable because change requires new ingredients- new experiences- new knowledge – the unknown.

Today, we understand that aggression and forceful acquisition was a necessity of survival in the past and that without such ‘barbaric’ behavior, a quite literal fight for survival, death or failure would ensue. We have evolved beyond this way of thinking, but how far have we gone and how far are we prepared to take it?

Power can be acquired through unlimited means, however in our modern world, where societal systems have marginalised chance in place of order; an order that most cradle to one’s own sense of self-satisfaction, do we still possess an unlimited array of opportunities to acquire power and self-satisfaction? Many live their life happy to know that they can rely on the knowledge and work of a whole community, allowing them to live an altogether better quality of life without carrying so many burdens. How many people know how to bake bread, let alone generate a flow of electrical current? At least we can get our piece of cheese in this ‘ordered’ society, right?

Just as the early man was certain that the knife would yield better results or that the fire would keep him warm in winter, the man of today is certain that only by working together, following the path of an ever-specific ordered society can we continue to live a ‘comfortable’ life – a life of certainties. A life where others could be relied upon to ensure the survival of even the least privileged.

Faith, the thing that brings about change, driven out of necessity, hope and vision, will only catalyse when it is acted upon. Having ‘faith’ that things are good, just as they are, changes nothing and limits our ability to discover new ways of acquiring more opportunities to thrive. The opportunities for limitless freedom and independence without fear of persecution or oppression; the opportunities for limitless possibilities.

By most accounts, we live more comfortable lives today than ever before, but can we really call it ‘comfortable’, when we still live in a world of murder, greed, starvation, disease and war? Is it acceptable to feel comfortable knowing others suffer? Is it, therefore, acceptable to want to keep things the way they are?

Some believe that having faith in our system paves the way to prosperity for all; faith in our government or faith in faith itself (‘yes we can’ paradox). How many people deny faith’s catalyst – the determination to act in the interests of change, rather than invest in cementing ‘established systems’ because of lost hope.

It was because of our faith, the relentless hope we held, despite the risks of sickness from eating strange plant-life, that we discovered new foods and medicines – that allowed us to survive.

Ditch the Menu

Evolution requires change and the precursor to change is faith because all change is more-often painful. Without it, humanity stagnates with its acceptance of what it deems certain, where we can abandon hope in place of math. There are those who value their intelligence and understanding in order to keep things the way they are and chase self-empowerment in order to try and prevent society from moving their cheese – to make things better for themselves in a world where, as individuals, they moreover feel unjustly left behind, when compared with what others seem to have acquired. For those who are already privileged, why change anything? They have an abundance of cheese.

We are so focused on catching up with the acquisition of what seems to yield a happy and fulfilled life for other idolised archetypes, that we feel comfortable playing the cheese game in an ‘ordered’ world that provides an opportunity to become the idolised cheese-bearer. There are many indulgences on offer, which we seem to already ‘understand’ how to acquire; and seem to understand oh, so very well. Heaven forbid the pieces of the puzzle should change before ‘success’ is acquired. Please don’t move that cheese. Do well at school, study hard at university, be a good employee and one day you can be a manager and have 2 holidays a year, house, car and partner that respects you for your social status.

It’s never a sure thing

The cheese is always out there but moving in a random pattern at all times. The moment you see the cheese, it has already gone. Therefore if you chase the cheese, you will never catch the cheese, for it will already be gone by the time you get to it.

Sometimes when cheese happens upon you, perhaps in the form of a promotion. You eventually realise that it is not really cheese, only to be confirmed when you analyse the ingredients of your life. Out of frustration, we begin to accept the fake cheese though, because it seems much easier to acquire and brings us at least some satisfaction which we can relate to, based on what we know about our idols. The fake cheese eventually gives us cancer, commoditised satisfaction and an inability to catch any real cheese, because we are too sick and institutionalised to compete.

All opportunities come from within

To get the cheese, we need to be prepared for anything. We should not focus on the cheese in order to acquire satisfaction and instead focus on our own ability to be more flexible, to be more prepared for when the cheese materialises, to think outside the conventional box.

We know the cheese appears in this room and we are all fighting for the cheese that appears inside it. You may have never left that room, but I say leave it. Don’t worry, you’ll find more cheese, there will be fewer people fighting over it and you can share the new abundance of cheese with the others.

Get busy living or get busy dying

You may die in the quest for cheese or you may find yourself cheese aplenty. Either way, you do it freely with the prospect of bringing an abundance of cheese to the rest of the world. It’s the only way to make things better for everyone, yourself included. It’s either that or start making fake cheese that will kill you and your neighbour, freeing up more cheese in the room. Eventually, the others will find out the truth about your cheese and the chaos that ensues will only result in an unsafe environment for your children along with everyone else in the declining spiral of decaying humanity – not evolution but regression. It matters not how many new armoured drones you create – it’s a broken environment.

The Peanut butter’s in the other room

So keep trying new things, be good to others and have faith, because without faith we cannot evolve and without evolution, we are doomed to slavery and cancer. Don’t worry about failure because we can’t discover peanut butter if we are only focused on finding cheese. As they say, no guts no glory, but remember to keep hold of your faith; it can mean the difference between life and death and sometimes even peanut butter.