Preface from Making Global Sense

Here is the preface from the audiobook version of Making Global Sense. 

Because my voice is  rough from cancer treatments, your narrator is Daniel Greenberg, a professional voice artist. His soulwork features supporting intentional communities worldwide, so he recorded this preface test run in India, and he'll be recording  the full audiobook in Mozambique. 

The audiobook will be available by summer 2025r. Please visit GlobalSense.com for news, where your feedback is welcome.

 And now I hope you enjoy the preface for Making Global Sense.

(Read my writings at Substack and JudahFreed.com)

Transcript

PREFACE from Making Global Sense

Making Sense of Global Life

 THE CAUSE of global awakening is the cause of all humankind.

Making Global Sense revives ideas and ideals from Thomas Paine and the Enlightenment to champion 21st century enlightenment.

Weaving essay and memoir, I update and extend Common Sense. Where Paine in 1776 challenged monarchy and hereditary succession, I challenge alpha male rule and authority addiction, our craving for kings. Where Paine proposed independence and the very first modern republic, I propose interdependence and mindful self rule with personal democracy in direct republics. Where he invited revolution, I invite evolution.

A global sense of life as One helps us rule our free will, or helps me. A global sensibility grounds my hope we can make democracy work.

Autocracies outnumber democracies. Our world is overrun with oppression. As Paine wrote, “Freedom hath been hunted round the globe.” Akin to the crisis moving Paine to write, these times try our souls. Global climate change frightens many into trusting leaders promising to save us from the mess we humans created on earth. During upheavals, societies historically seek safety under kings or other masters. Despots prey on valid fears and grievances to rule our minds and lives. An absurdity!

By design and default, humanity as a whole is poisoning our planet. We let business and government put wealth and power above our natural human rights. We let ruinous corrupt policies persist despite our protests. We let lying leaders lure us into appeasement and consent.

To survive the global crises humanity has generated over centuries, do we look to a king, or do we look to ourselves and one another? As a young yet dominant species on the planet, are we now ready to enter adulthood? Are we willing to mature as global citizens? Am I? 

Echoing Paine in Common Sense, to end our suffering and victimhood, we have a natural right and moral duty to name the abusers in our world and in our minds. We have a right and duty to end our reliance on despots by actually taking personal responsibility for liberty. We have a right and duty to be conscious in ourselves and in the world.

In a global emergency, we have a right and duty to consider scientific evidence of our universal connectivity or coherence. All existence is light, energy slowing to matter. Atoms sing we are stardust. Our interactivity or oneness gives us each global reach. We are naturally powerful.

At least one billion of us on earth today accept our oneness as a fact. We’re generating a cultural wave to awaken humanity and avert calamity. As part of this wave, I write to encourage practical enlightenment. We can create a future that works for all. And we can do it without kings.

Why Thomas Paine

 Making Global Sense is inspired by Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. Colonial Americans’ rebellion against their king, historians say, would have failed without Paine’s 1776 pamphlet. It swung public opinion in favor of the revolution. We again need such motivational works galvanizing us for evolution. Toward that end, I’m revitalizing his worldview.

Paine voiced in plain language for his day the basic “big ideas” of the Enlightenment. That 18th century democracy movement was ignited by the 17th century Age of Reason, kindled by the 16th century Protest­ant Reformation, sparked by the 15th century Renaissance, fueled by classical Greek and Roman writings, preserved by Islam until looted by Crusaders. Paine made sense of the big ideas from Enlightenment writers like Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, Burke, Hume, and Kant. He distilled their insights to help common people see democracy is possible.

Paine’s writings changed the course of human events as few have. His freethinking, egalitarian, democratic vision and values can assist us today. Ideas from the Enlightenment, I believe, can stimulate enlightenment in our own times. I say this from testing the ideas in my own life.

Common Sense animates Global Sense. I sought to write what Paine would write today, ofttimes in his voice. His thinking on hereditary kings and aristocracy spurs my thinking on male dominance and addiction to authority. His natural deism imbues my global sense of oneness. His views on freedom inform my thoughts on individuality, personal responsibility, self-government, and free republics. Paine’s clarion call for a declaration of independence stirs my call for a declaration of inter­dependence.

For us to heal our planet and mature into democracy, we need action inspired by hope grounded in reason. Paine’s thinking can help.

Why My Story

 To balance head and heart here, I tell the life story behind my ideas. Stories tell truths beyond ideas alone. Stories help make sense of life.

I narrate childhood abuse, school bullying; joining a cult at age 20, fleeing at 23; facing my authority addiction and committing to self rule. I recall ego follies in decades of local to international journalism. I relate world travel adventures, like landing in Fiji amid a coup. I share my soul choice at age 65 to survive cancer, so I can finish this book. I stand  on Paine’s shoulders, I admit, from insecurity standing on my own feet.

My literary model for weaving essay and memoir is Zen and the Art of Motor­cycle Maintenance by Robert M. Persig. His union of theory and story helped me find myself. As a writer, I like what he did there.

Style and Readability

 My writing styles are journalistic, narrative and discourse. I write American English at high school reading levels. Where I get technical for precision, I resay simply. My tone adapts to changing moods.

My talent is synthesis, distilling years of thought in a sentence. I write tight, a fast brush painting a global canvas. See the big picture. Read for ideas. Finish the book for the payoff. Let it sit a bit. Allow gestalt.

For brevity, I skip explaining common knowledge (lookup if new). For rereading, I layer in meanings, themes, symbols, and allusions.

Punctuation note: I write the compound-term “self rule” without the usual hyphen (self-rule) to spotlight the autonomy of the Self.

Book Structure and Preview

 Global Sense follows the structure and logic in Common Sense to show how we got to where we are and what we can do from here.

Part I. Where Paine explained the nature of government under law, I agree, and add that our lives are governed by how we make sense of life. A billion of us see our oneness. We form a global sense movement.

Part II. Where Paine blamed monarchy and hereditary succession for tyranny, I blame alpha male rule and authority addiction for the wealth and power abuses now menacing life and liberty on earth.

Part III. Where Paine surveyed the upset state of American affairs, I survey the state of world affairs, the threats to democracy and the planet, the real and present dangers of tyranny in our lands and our minds.

Part IV. Where Paine incited revolution for a republic, I invite our evolution for mindful self rule and personal democracy. I picture new men, gender equality and direct republics. A global sensibility gives me hope.

Clarion Calls are Overdue

 Paine speaks for me in his introduction to Common Sense:

•  Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

 Global thinking uplifts how we make sense of life together on earth. I see global thinkers joining hands to voice global sensibilities peacefully. Those not yet awake to our oneness may now safely open their eyes, 

Regardless of our age, gender, race, origin, health, ability, class, party, religion, ideology, or nation, rousing clarion calls of alarm are overdue for ensuring the future of freedom and life on earth. Among all those inviting humanity to unite for democratic global change, gratefully writes...

Judah Freed,

Denver, 2025