Steven,

I think one philosophical insight which would be useful in bringing about a healthier society and happier individuals, is the idea of yin and yang.

That life is a two way street. We get out of it what we put into it.

Our current linear, goal oriented paradigm has us searching for some ideal state, but since that utopian heaven is always just over the horizon line, many settle for a fat bank account to give them peace and security. Ignoring the fact that money functions as a contract between society and the individual and only seeing it as a commodity to mine from society and save and store, making it the god of materialism, Mammon. Rather than the tool enabling mass societies to function.

Politics is also an area where the concept would offer some clarity, as the two poles of liberalism and conservativism see themselves on the road to nirvana and the other as misbegotten fools, rather than each understanding that it is a larger cycle of expansion and consolidation, like the seasons. The energy of youth, versus the lessons of age.

As these mobile organisms, we are necessarily linear in our thought process, but nature remains cyclical, reciprocal and feedback driven.