Human Survival
Field Guide.

FINAL DECREE / A KINDER SORT OF SELF-INTEREST The Dignity of the Disgusting

We are magnificent, ridiculous, needful creatures. We want comfort. We want the credit. We want our hurts to count. We want someone else to understand us before we must explain ourselves. None of these wants requires a disguise.

Admit the appetite

We can ask without claiming. Refuse without condemning. Disagree without erasing. Protect ourselves without collecting a second injury as payment. We can enjoy being gloriously imperfect without turning imperfection into an excuse. We can admit the appetite and still choose the method.

Keep every useful capacity available

The figures give familiar human habits a face. Reaching out, taking space, accepting help, checking a promise, agreeing and objecting can each have a place. Let the situation and the available agreement guide the choice. No figure has to become the whole human.

The seven orders of the Society’s Earth Desk

01 Observe conduct. 02 Consider a second explanation.

03 Ask for informed, voluntary agreement. 04 Respect a refusal.

05 Protect yourself without unnecessary injury. 06 Own and repair your contribution.

07 Remain willing to discover the next fault.

Allow an ordinary beginning

Practice can begin with one honest request or one promise made smaller. A useful repair may be quieter than the speech prepared to introduce it. If you notice another fault tomorrow, the archive has not failed. It has acquired a relevant new entry, ideally before the committee orders commemorative furniture.

“The finest specimen is not the one without faults. It is the one still willing to discover the next.”

Society of Snake People / Three Million Years, Allegedly