Pupil:
Master, do you really think we can change things? This whole system?

Master:
Change is always possible.
But system change, child, never comes by waiting.

Pupil:
Then how?

Master (pausing):
Let me tell you a story. It begins not with humans… but with baboons.

Pupil:
Baboons?

Master:
Yes. A troop in East Africa. Fierce. Hierarchical. Violent.
Their strongest males ruled through fear.
They took the best of everything — food, mates, shelter.
The others obeyed. Or suffered.

One day, the troop found an easy source of food: a restaurant dumpster.
Every morning: meat scraps, rich and abundant.
And as always, the alpha males fought and fed first.

But then… the meat turned out to be tainted with tuberculosis.
The aggressive males, gorged and proud, ate the most.
And they died. Every last one.

Pupil (stunned):
And the rest?

Master:
The survivors were mostly females and gentle, low-ranking males.
And in that silence… something amazing happened.

They didn’t rebuild the old order.
They didn’t crown new kings.

They chose peace.
More grooming. More sharing.
Less fear. Less violence.
Even new males who joined them adapted.
The culture — their culture — had changed.

Pupil:
They never went back?

Master:
They remembered where hierarchy had taken them.
And they vowed, in their way:

Never again.

Pupil:
But we’re not baboons.

Master (softly):
No.
We are more intelligent.
And far more afraid.

You see, we are trapped in our own hierarchy.
One masked by civility, but built on the same rules:
The strongest eat first. The rest compete for leftovers.

And just like those baboons, we are gorging ourselves on poisoned meat —
fossil fuels, endless growth, extractive comfort.
It’s killing us.
Quietly.
But surely.

Pupil:
So what do we do?

Master:
You choose your path.

Some will cling to what they know.
They will become marauders — not out of evil, but desperation.
They will fight over what’s left.

But others — the visionaries — will begin to build something else.
Even now, they are growing food again.
Sharing again.
Learning how to live without waiting for permission.

Pupil:
And what happens when the system collapses?

Master:
The visionaries will remember how to begin again.
They will become the keepers of a different story.
A culture not of dominance…
but of care.

Pupil (quietly):
I want to be one of them.

Master:
Then begin.
Now.
Plant what you want the future to inherit.
Not when it’s easy.
But before the silence.
This is the last harvest.

Call to Action

To those reading this:
You don’t need to lead a movement.
You don’t need permission.
You just need to start.

• Grow something.
• Learn something.
• Share something.
• Organize your community.
• Leave the old story — even if just in how you treat others.

A peaceful reset is possible.
But only if enough of us walk out before collapse pushes us out.

The baboons rewrote their story.
What’s stopping us?

Govert van Ginkel

This article is written by Govert van Ginkel. Govert specializes in Nonviolent and Effective Communication and is active in this field as a trainer, speaker, coach, and mediator. More information about Govert can be found here. The current training offer can be found here