What if many of the struggles we face today are not simply political, economic, or cultural problems, but symptoms of something more fundamental—a way of relating to one another and the living world that we have gradually forgotten? What if some of what we need is not something entirely new, but something ancient that we can recover together?
Maybe we must now examine that what we know as imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism’s evolution into its modern extractive form were once thought to be beneficial human progress, but it can reasonably be argued that history has now shown us otherwise—systems sustained through appropriation and the consumption of people, cultures, land, labor, and the living world for their own continuation and enrichment, without equitable reciprocity. They coldly turn life into resources to be selfishly consumed instead of relatives to live and share together with, and the evidence we are now seeing reveals that this is simply not sustainable. To heal, we must now work together to recover and restore the original relational truths that ancient wisdom reasonably reveals, which may require owning poor choices in our interactions with ourselves, others, and all life. We can understand these truths through three essential virtues: acceptance, significance, and security—first for the Earth and all life as kin, then for each other as humans.
These three virtues are an interdependent trifecta—if we practice any one without the others, what is missing can produce the experience of its opposite, leaving love incomplete and ultimately detrimental. But love requires all three working in concert to truly function.
And so we must now relearn to practice them all in relationship to all things, to affirm and lead each other, and ultimately within ourselves, creating positive experiences that reinforce and maintain these truths. Aligned, like pistons in love’s engine, they heal us and move us from brokenness to thriving.
But we must always remember to extend this way of relating to all life, through our four essential connections—nature, healthy community, meaning, self. Remembering and reminding one another that when we falter, we must, using these virtues, practice and learn with humility to get back on track to love.
Only then can we heal the world and get back to living with all life in accordance with our naturally interdependent existence—and finally restore peace for our entire living world, upon which we all depend, with equity and reciprocity in what we must take and give within the living world, so that all may survive.
This is the original way that can be called Equitarianism, but ultimately, it is simply the way of True Love—and surely we can now reasonably conclude that this offers our most effective way forward for all life to exist in harmony.
We have much work to do... together.
-Alvin Zamudio, 2026
Updated Sep 15th 2026
