“I rebel; therefore we exist.” –Albert Camus

Here’s the thing: the earth is not fucked. The earth will go on evolving with or without us. In fact, in many ways it is better off without us. No, it’s the human world that’s fucked. Either we adapt and overcome by making cooperation primary and competition secondary, or we’re fucked. It really is that simple. Unfucking the world will not be a walk in the park. It will be a complete upheaval of what we think we know about how human beings are “supposed” to live on this planet. We’ll have to turn the tables on our egos, our so called leaders, and even our loved ones. We’ll have to outgrow being indifferent and get used to being different. We’ll have to awaken and clear outdated, multigenerational patterns that need interrogation and then integration at a higher vibration. Here are five ways to attempt unfucking an otherwise fucked up world. Without further ado, let the unfucking begin.

1.) Unfuck Yourself

“To be human is necessarily to be a vulnerable risk-taker; to be a courageous human is to be good at it.” –Jonathan Lear

Before you can unfuck the world, you have to unfuck yourself and then lead by example. Start by questioning everything, especially yourself. Meditate on everything, and then let it go so you are free to create something new. Do it to the nth degree. Question yourself so hard and so ruthlessly that your bones ache with doubt and your soul trembles with uncertainty. And then let that doubt and uncertainty go. Question your devotion to an unhealthy, unsustainable lifestyle. Then brainstorm on ways to live healthier and more sustainably. Question why you tolerate and defend unjust, inept, and corrupt systems of human governance. Then free-associate ways to make it more just, more competent, and more honest. A mindfuck a day keeps the brainwash away. Question why you’re not doing what it takes too become healthier in mind, body, and soul. Interrogate your ego. Cross-examine your soul. Then take the answers and apply them to the natural world. Get out into nature and have a deep, interdependent conversation with Mother Nature using a language older than words, and then discard what insults her soul. Her soul is your soul, after all. Like Walt Whitman said, “Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book; dismiss whatever insults your own soul.” Unfucking the world begins at home. If you unfuck yourself again and again, you might earn the right to unfuck the rest of us.

2.) Learn the Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.” –Tom Robbins

Here’s the thing: we live in a grossly misbalanced, rigid, stuck-in-the-muck, head-up-its-ass Apollonian society. In order to balance it out, indeed in order to tonalize an otherwise atonal world, we need to dig down deep into our wild, playful, laugh-out-loud, humorous, drunken Dionysian energy. A primordial energy that could give two blue shits whether or not the powers-that-be approve of our actions. A primal energy that isn’t worried about pissing off authority or rustling the feathers of militant idiots caught-up in their robotic puppetry while gripping rifle butts and splitting the air with their tyrannical heil-fuckery. An ancient energy that gives zero fucks about cultural norms and outdated laws and parochial finger-pointers. We learn to accept what we can’t change, but change what we can’t accept. It’s the kind of laugh-out-loud energy that caused the beautiful Betty White (who just so happens to not give a fuck) to say, “Why do people say ‘grow some balls’? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding.”

3.) Become a Well-Armed Lamb (Lion)

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding on what to eat for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” –Benjamin Franklin

A well-armed lamb is a lion in sheep’s clothing that has the potential to trump the wolf. A black sheep who has unfucked themselves out of the illusion of being shepherded and into the reality that the world is what we make of it. “The price of being a sheep is boredom,” wrote Hugh Macleod. “The price of being a wolf is loneliness. Choose one or the other with care.” Or we can choose to be the wise lion and really become a force to be reckoned with. Part of unfucking the world is understanding how the world is put together, and that requires knowledge. A well-armed lamb is a wise lion that cannot be ignored. This type of person knows all the rules, but the rules don’t know them. They are artists par excellence. Their medium is human flourishing. Their canvas is the human condition. Their stage is the world. And nothing can stop them from performing. Paraphrasing Picasso, they’ve learned the rules like a pro, so they can break them like an artist.