The great new barbarians - the great future Earth

  I had another post-civilization dream last night, adding itself to all those before it, one more about the challenges and joy during and after the collapse of the world-wide tyranny marring humanity for so long.

  We had to teach ourselves how to live again, educate ourselves in order to not repeat the vast mistakes of the society of our birth, adolescence and adulthood.

  But doing that, teaching ourselves and the emerging children aren’t that difficult. We encourage everyone to think for themselves and not being led by others. In only one generation we unlearn everything making humanity a plague on the Earth.

  This is a work in progress, an ongoing, never-ending process.

  This is the future Earth, the future human societies as they, generally speaking, should be.

  Forests and wilderness cover the planet. Civilization has been abandoned, its physical and psychological scars slowly, painfully fading until nothing but ruins and echoes remain. Wildlife returns everywhere.

  A child is born to a tribe. It, male or female, is welcomed and cared for by the entire tribe, not just the biological parents. All the tribe’s members are its parents, but the children don’t owe any obligation to any of them, except to become a complete, independent person, not owing any obligation to anyone.

  A society with a justified pride in itself and its citizens needs to encourage variety and creativity and independence, not merely accept it, and it must certainly not do everything it can to smother it, like civilization does.

  The children play with each other. They learn how to value their friends and fellow tribe members, and not put them down at every turn, not put themselves before others. They learn that everyone and everything have true value, and that life is precious, and that property, the very idea of it is a bad thing. They are told empathically that strangers should be welcomed around the campfire.

  They learn to hunt and gather and survive and thrive, in a world teeming with life and fire, both spiritual and actual.

  The new barbarians and nomads cross the wilderness with determination, smiles and laughter on their mind.

  There is no perfect society, nor will there ever be one, fortunately not, but this will at least encourage humanity’s good and great traits, not the bad and ugly, like civilization does.

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This is the premise for my upcoming novel Terrana, the third and final book in the Thunder Road trilogy.