To understand is to perceve patterns. Now of course what this means is that true comprehension comes when the dots are revealed… and you see the big picture.”
TO UNDERSTAND IS TO PERCEIVE PATTERNS from Jason Silva on Vimeo.
Ego – From Birth to Adulthood
By Irene Rudnev
We are an old species! Nobody knows where we came from, but we certainly have a long history – by our standards at least. Scientists tell us we started as goo, while creationists insist we were sculpted from clay by the divine hand. But regardless of how we began, it was from one seed, one lump of clay, or one puddle of goo. And if dust is what we all are returning to, then there is going to be one cloud of it flying around the earth. No matter the matter, this is what we are all about – oneness.
Either way, once we took human form, we became mankind and embarked on exploring the allotted dimension. We floated on Tatum’s[1]back through infinite celestial waters, dwelled on a vast, lavish island carried by three giant elephants[2], and roamed virgin flatlands resting on three cosmic whales[3]sleepless in their sacred duty. All these empyrean colossi were doing an excellent job until we found ourselves on the round globe, where point A has the same address as point Z. The primordial beasts were laid off and their phantoms discarded. We finally reached point Z, and a millennia long, blindfolded journey came to an end.
The bandeau concealing reality was removed, and we entered a round world, which turned out to be surprisingly small – in fact, perhaps even smaller than our previously occupied, flat habitats. At least in those bygone days, we could still dream about some distant terra incognita[4], filled with imaginary wonders and captivating riches, where we would be able to move one day, in case we got tired of our neighbors, relatives, government, or the grass. Although the latter was getting greener behind another’s fence, border, and “NO TRESPASSING” sign even then, it still didn’t vex us too much, since space and novelties were plenty, and all we had to do was seek, find, and claim a portion of it, in order to fulfill a lifelong desire and make one sweet dream come true.
Moreover, once we had a chance to look about and tally ourselves, we couldn’t but feel proud of being admirably obedient to the order to multiply. After we had failed “Project Babylon”[5]and flipped on our collective faces, we got conveniently separated by languages and self-imposed borders, to demonstrate our newly discovered and well-defined differences, all of which we found great pleasure in, since our bursting, evolving desires demanded what we didn’t quite feel before – hate. We developed in color, character, behavior, and mentality and spread around the globe, to take a designated spot under the sun, as far as possible from our neighbors – so that we didn’t have to see their ugly faces and covet their still greener grass.
Since then, desires have swelled; the brain has blown up to service them; languages have bred countless offspring to distance us even farther. Now, the differences are monumentalized and the borders – legalized, to confirm once and for all: we own a piece of the world, and nobody else is entitled to its possession, because we spotted it first. What a peculiar species we are indeed! Just because we want something, we immediately think we are entitled to it, and would do whatever it takes to get what we want. And so we have.
But while we were claiming our domains, we were still undergoing the common stages of human development: infancy, toddlerhood, childhood, and adolescence. We bit and broke teeth; we grabbed and got punched; we touched and got burnt; we played and got tricked; we fought and got knocked out. As we grew, we felt weary and bored, so we switched gears and turned on the creative mode. We built art museums, conservatories, philosophy schools, and science academies. And that was quite fun, until we lost interest in it as well and went back to flexing muscles, but always better equipped. After all, there is no stress, longing, or melancholy that a war party can’t fix…
Since ego’s evil eye never sleeps and conscience does, we got convinced that all our problems are due to the flaws of “the others” and if we got rid of them, life would be perfect. But since we never really could live without one another, we had to hold each other’s attention by any means possible, whether it would be love or hate; and so, teasing each other mercilessly, we entered adulthood.
By then, we had had some basic traditional education and studied ourselves in the books written by us, swanky little sapience. We thought we learnt all there is to know about what everybody needs, and in order to prove that we are the most skilled at harmonizing dysfunctional ties, we decided to demonstrate our care and irrefutable magnificence, by making everyone happy – with or without their consent.
And boy, did we demonstrate! We would try anything to earn one another’s respect, recognition and admiration. We’d bring not a few but a horse-load[6]of gifts! (Why do we squirm at hearing the word “Trojan”? As if we had other alternatives but to shove those trinkets down their ungrateful throat.) We never gave up and kept thinking of more valuables to offer: culture, freedom, democracy – let us refine your tastes, liberate you from ignorance, and teach you how to govern your arrogant selves! But the blessed barbarians wouldn’t accept our charity. What were we left to do if not make them? We couldn’t waste a perfectly good intention. But they wouldn’t understand…
When all our courtesies and advances failed, we decided to impress them full force and go as far as to share with them our God – a priceless and heart-guarded treasure. We were certain that this gift couldn’t be ignored and from then on we would be eternally loved. We dressed ourselves up and joyfully landed in our neighbors’ harbors. How shocked were we when we learned they already did have a God and claim they had a better idea how to please Him! That would tick anybody off. How dare they? Of course we had to punish the brutes! Poor little sapience: how love-sick and immature we are in our courtship. We come in peace and go in pieces…
And so we’ve kept playing this game, breaking each other’s hearts and noses, making up afterwards, and starting it all over again once we couldn’t reconcile those good intentions we had for each other from time to time. While we were at it, Mother Nature patiently watched us, in amusement and with deep sympathy for her evolving humanoids. When we got especially naughty, she would give a gentle shake, splash with a bit of cold water, or puff some hot air on us, just to remind us to play fair and be nice to each other as siblings we are. She knew we were just growing up and the time would come when we would mature and take responsibility for each other and…her. It’s about time we did as she expects, but we are trying our best to avoid just that. And Nature, who is no longer amused by our repetitive and infantile behavior, has begun to contract our “personal” space, forcing us to come out of blood drunken stupor and acknowledge our primordial genetic connection, which roots in oneness.
So, here we are, all 7, 000, 000, 000 of us, tied by gravity to a three dimensional firmament that we would gladly jump off of if there were a greener lawn nearby; but there is none. We want a divorce, but we cannot move out. We look at each other with spite and suspicion while we yearn to leap forth and unite in a longed-for embrace. It seems to be as easy as it is impossible; the gear is heavy, artillery is on the line…and we were told we look stupid with roses.
Now, we are standing on the brink of being squeezed out of our three dimensional spherical crib onto a new grid of existence designated for conscientious, accomplished adults. Our relationship has to mature, which means that all our narcissistic, compulsive obsessive, histrionic, anti-social, and paranoid behaviors have to go. Mother Nature doesn’t intend to beg that we honor the Cosmic Family Law – she demands it, and resistance is futile.
Therefore, if we are as sapient as we claim to be, we must show the ability to read between Nature’s lines and heed the unyielding wisdom of the eternal sage. We are being graduated to a higher degree of consciousness, where “sapience” is more than a book-learned intelligence and a millennia-long competition of wills. We must take off the gear and put down the arms, for we are entering the era of the meeting hands – the age of amalga-nation!
[1] World Turtle supporting the flat earth – a metaphor representing a popular notion of a primitive cosmological myth.
[2] Mythical animals supporting the earth in Hindu cosmology.
[3] Cosmic sea mammals carrying the flat earth in Russian mythology. [4] Latin for “the unknown land”
[5] A humorous reference to the biblical account of a united humanity speaking a single language and invincible due thereof, but who were confounded in their speech and scattered upon the face of the earth by God, as a reprimand for their arrogant attempt to build a tower to Heaven to demonstrate superiority of their collective ego.
[6] According the Greek legend, the Greeks conquered Troy by tricking the Trojans with their gift – a wooden horse they build, manned, and left outside the city. Hence saying -“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”
A Small Step for a Person, a Giant Step for Humanity
In order to reach balance with nature’s integrality, we have to start treating each other differently in all areas of our activity. Even if the change is slight, even if it’s only 1%, yet if it happens all over the world, it will bring about radical, enormous changes for the better.
In general, we underestimate small things. For example, over the last 50 years the world’s temperature increased by 0.1%, and look at what kind of changes this caused: the glaciers in Alaska and other places are melting, the ocean level has risen by several centimeters, and the climate is changing. And all this was caused by a mere change of 0.1% because it is happening in the whole world.
In the same way, a tiny change in every individual will be multiplied by seven billion souls who are all tightly interconnected with each other, a circumstance that was not present before. There is already universal closeness among us in some regards, and therefore this tiny movement will cause tremendous changes, transforming the world in an extraordinary way.
Since the current processes are happening on a very large scale, this small change in individuals will bring about many consequences in our lives. Under conditions of mutual influence, every person influences everyone else because we are all connected within a single network of thoughts, desires, plans, and so on. Scientists are proving this as well. As a result, our thoughts and desires are coming closer and becoming inter-included in one another.
This is creating a completely different territory and platform for humanity’s existence. Through it, we, the people, magnify our changes due to every person’s influence on everyone else. A small change in each person is multiplied by seven billion, while seven billion interconnected people influence every individual that much more powerfully.
Ecologize Growth
The words “Economy” and “Ecology” both come from the Greek word “Ecos,” meaning “household.” In other words, Ecology is the science about how to arrange our household on the planet Earth, and Economy sets forth the rules by which this household should operate. Therefore, we shouldn’t separate ecology from economy.
Economy and ecology both have their own natural laws. And if we’re building an artificial economy, one that’s based on our own invented rules instead of the rules embedded in nature, then we’re leading ourselves to bankruptcy. Nature is a massive, complex, harmoniously designed, living household. By meddling in it and violating its laws, we induce the crisis. The entire economy must be reconstructed from being an economy of consumption to an ecologically correct economy – an economy of sensible consumption.
Clouds in My Coffee
Nature is filled with examples of endlessly repeating patterns, where the whole is built on the balanced interaction of the parts. For generations, man has only looked at his “parts” – individuals. Now, maybe it is time to consider the whole – humanity.
I feel another downhill day coming, and I dread going into work. Will I get a sudden escort out this morning like poor Erika? Our manager, Phil, wouldn’t want us to steal or damage anything, especially staff morale – as if there were any left! I’ve known Phil for 30 years; what’s happened to him? To the whole world?
At least we still have some creature comforts, most notably – a gourmet cup of java to give me some courage. Watching that drop of cream in the coffee, the pattern of swirls within swirls, I can’t help thinking back to that 1972 Carly Simon song, “I had some dreams; they were clouds in my coffee, clouds in my coffee…”
Clouds in coffee… swirls within swirls… patterns, unfolding within themselves, over and over, like variations on a theme. Isn’t this the way all of Nature is? Fern leaves, coastlines, clouds – each is composed of a geometric shape that’s repeated at a smaller and smaller scale, each shape nested within its larger counterpart. Isn’t there something to be learned at this time from this property that is so pervasive in Nature? Perhaps the world’s problems and solutions are hidden within these unique, yet universal, patterns. And perhaps we could unlock this universal secret if only we had a master key, the “fractal”!
Patterns of Life
This term, referring to all these pervasive self-similarities, was coined by Benoit Mandelbrot, due to the common element in the recurring patterns – their fractional dimension. The math behind a fractal is a simple repeating formula, yet it can produce awesomely beautiful visuals. Looking into them, one senses a deep, almost frightening, power – a two-way ebb and flow, as though looking into the eyes of Infinity itself.
There really is a dynamic transcending the still image. As pointed out by Robert Shaw, a pioneer in the science of “Chaos”, there’s actual communication reflected up and down the orders of magnitude between the inner and outer patterns. But for us, the consequences are a lot more serious than pretty pictures.
A most important example is our complex heartbeat and circulatory flow. The complexity actually keeps us alive. Because all the components work together in perfect harmony, communicating as though in mutual love, coronary interactions operate smoothly on every scale. Natural fluctuations at any level are corrected by the system as a whole. However, if this “love” breaks down and a part of the system selfishly pulls itself too far away for too long, something ominous begins to happen. The beat pattern grows smoother, at first glance seemingly a sign of stability; that is, until it smoothes down to a simple sine wave, and finally – the straight line of cardiac arrest.
The fractal’s universality makes the above a fundamental law of nature, ruling all systems: mineral, vegetable, animal, and human. But only at the human level is there the freedom to follow a dysfunctional policy of “every man for himself.” Sweet as it may first appear to gifted predators, beneath the surface the system begins an accelerating decay, until the nightmare finally comes out of the woodwork as Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”
It’s a bit like an enormous pocket watch over wound to the point of no return. Though it may still be beautiful, gold and shiny on the surface, a look at the inner mechanism will reveal a flaming explosion of snapping teeth and mainspring, leading to the grand finale – the freezing of gears, grinding to a halt. So it is with our business models: systematic doom seals the fate of even the most “successful” individuals along with the rest of the human mechanism. It’s just a question of “who by fire and who by ice.” And the predator , who was so gifted, sees he now has no prey.
Hope for the Future
Humanity’s evolution into a global economy through ever-growing and entwining infrastructures has given it a worldwide heartbeat and circulation. Murphy’s Law has already started to go berserk before our very eyes, yet we continue to proceed mindlessly against Nature, like lemmings treading toward a cliff’s edge. No force can turn the situation around other than every person’s individual, free choice to see others as the greater part of himself, rather than isolated prey to feed upon. Do we not yet realize that the pattern in each of our personal fractals is actually made of all of us?
The clouds in my coffee dissipate on a hopeful note – a song the Youngbloods provided five years before Carly Simon, “Come on people now, smile on your brother. Everybody get together; try to love one another right now.” And when we look into the eyes of Infinity, maybe we’ll be met by an infinite fractal smile. Wouldn’t that be something!
Despite the odds, my cup of java has once again kept its promise to encourage. What message will your favorite brew be giving you?
Elliot Ponderer
Living Systems – Nature Is Calling for Love: Part 3
Fortunately for us, there are a few foresighted individuals that are already planning and building living systems based on ecological strategy. For instance, Living Systems breaks their plan down into five concepts and offers their information to all via the website. Examining their ideas for sustainable living, we see the same composition as an ecosystem.
- Mutually empowering communication skills – networks. Conflict is necessary in order for human beings to learn, grow, and advance; but it must be handled delicately and intelligently. It then becomes an asset rather than a liability because it is based on mutual responsibility. Each person searches for a way that the society can benefit from.
- Permaculture/biodynamics – nested systems. A garden is the foremost environment to nurture both humanity and the planet: living systems within living systems.
- Eco-villages/Eco-cities – development. With a super efficient infrastructure, mutually empowering communication skills, and a social environment, where we know most of the people we deal with regularly, the community is set up as a meta-organism ( in the place of a microorganism).
- Environmentally beneficial manufacturing – dynamic balance. Currently, our manufacturing technology is environmentally damaging and depletes our non-renewable resources. Buckminster Fuller’s idea of a mobile factory is only one of many new models being explored.
- Internal economies – cycles and flows. With our own economy, we can control what is considered valuable, such as mutually empowering communication skills. By holding this skill in high esteem, it could become enormously useful and therefore more valuable. Combining this with the Local Exchange and Trading System (LETS) would create an internal economy, which could be easily exchanged for local currency, until such time as currency exchange is no longer required.
The benefits of clean air and water, renewable fuel sources, and fresh food will be immediately felt by a population that is weary of fighting to maintain a meager existence. Because eco-living environments are not conducive to the practice of using others for personal gain, huge income disparity will become obsolete. By investing our time and effort to create such systems, we will assure a level playing field for all and encourage sustainable, universal, and reasonable prosperity.
As as result, much of the animosity that pervades society today will disappear, and a sense of mutual responsibility and a concern for the whole will appear in its place. We can rest and recuperate in the loving boughs of Mother Nature that will no longer wreak havoc across the land. ‘I’ has to be replaced by ‘we,’ and the entire system will feel less stress. This will allow human nature and Mother Nature to evolve harmoniously together.
After all, mankind’s ultimate goal is to reach its highest internal potential, and as we study and learn to navigate an integrated world, we must cooperate with the laws of nature.
If we do not, we will have to face undesirable consequences. Mother Nature cannot be fooled; nor can it be compromised a compromise with her. Inevitably, the truth will be unveiled in cooperation with her laws. Mankind must adjust. Then, our great-great-grandchildren will look back and proudly say, “Our ancestors were intelligent enough to transform the world”.
Sustainability and Advancement – Nature Is Calling for Love: Part 2
To establish a sustainable society and begin a less painful advance toward our objective we must understand and observe certain social principles that work much like a large family:
- each member receives their needs from society,
- each member provides for the well-being of that society through their work.
As good parents we all want our children and grandchildren to have a better life than we did. That desire represents the essence of a sustainable society. According to Fritjof Capra, PhD (physics), “a sustainable society is one that is able to fulfill its needs without diminishing the chances for future generations”. For the perfect example of a sustainable society we need only to look at nature, whose ecosystems represent sustainable communities of plants, animals, and microorganisms. The Center for Ecoliteracy has identified six of Mr. Capra’s principles for a sustainable community as core ecological concepts, which are:
- Networks – All living things in an ecosystem are interconnected through networks of relationship. They depend on this web of life to survive. For example, in a garden, a network of pollinators promotes genetic diversity; plants, in turn, provide nectar and pollen to the pollinators.
- Nested systems – Nature is made up of systems that are nested within systems. Each individual system is an integrated whole and, at the same time, part of larger systems. Changes within one can affect the sustainability of the others that are nested within it, as well as the larger systems in which it exists. For example, cells are nested within organs within organisms within ecosystems.
- Cycles – Members of an ecological community depend on the exchange of resources in continual cycles. Cycles within an ecosystem intersect with larger regional and global cycles. For example, water cycles through a garden and is also part of the global water cycle.
- Flows – Each organism needs a continual flow of energy to stay alive. The constant flow of energy from the sun to Earth sustains life and drives most ecological cycles. For example, energy flows through a food web when a plant converts the sun’s energy through photosynthesis; a mouse eats the plant; a snake eats the mouse, and a hawk eats the snake. In each transfer, some energy is lost as heat, which requires an ongoing energy flow into the system.
- Development – All life, from individual organisms to species and ecosystems, changes over time. Individuals develop and learn, species adapt and evolve, and organisms in ecosystems co-evolve. For example: Hummingbirds and honeysuckle flowers have developed in ways that benefit each other; the hummingbird’s color vision and slender bill coincide with the colors and shapes of the flowers.
- Dynamic Balance – Ecological communities act as feedback loops, so that the community maintains a relatively steady state that also has continual fluctuations. This dynamic balance provides resiliency in the face of ecosystem change. For example, ladybugs in a garden eat aphids. When the aphid population falls, some ladybugs die off, which permits the aphid population to rise again, which supports more ladybugs. The populations of the individual species rise and fall, but balance within the system allows them to thrive together.
By its own definition a sustainable community and an ecosystem share the same structure. Therefore, what causes one to flourish or perish will have the identical effect on the other. Taking all of this into consideration, it is evident that we must act more responsibly as stewards of the family resources if we sincerely want a world left for our offspring.
By Angela Moore Duck
Nature Is Calling For Love
Millennia from now, will we be just another figure on the evolutionary chart? Looking back, will our future generations know that at this point in time humanity became aware of its integral relationship with nature and each other? Right now, it appears the answer is ‘no’. If we continue on our present trajectory, there will be a mushroom cloud marking our place in the biological process.
We have insulated ourselves from nature so well in this age; our predicament comes from a conviction that we are beyond the laws of nature and its rules do not apply to us. Patrick Henry, one of America’s founding fathers confirms, “It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts… For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it”. Apparently, mankind has been utilizing the ostrich approach for a very long time…
Instead of inventing our own rules as we go along, we should study the laws of nature and learn to work within them. Knowing the rules was essential when our ancestors shared living area and hunting grounds with saber-toothed tigers and mammoths. The difference between surviving and becoming a quick snack depended upon their knowledge of the system and the ability to work within it. Failure meant a swift and merciless end. Even up until the 20th century, our forefathers wouldn’t have imagined themselves living outside this system.
Presently the majority of people still don’t realize that we operate under nature’s laws and these laws, unlike man’s, don’t change and can’t be manipulated without consequences. To avoid the mushroom cloud on the horizon, we must pull our heads out of the sand and learn the ground rules.
The law of development has been in operation since the beginning of time and works to ensure that our evolution unfolds properly. Our progress wasn’t left to blind chance or coincidence. There is an over-arching plan in the natural world and humanity is an integral part of it, not separate from and independent of it. Little by little, we are beginning to understand that countless negative circumstances occur because we don’t realize our role in this system correctly. Therefore, it benefits us to study these learn how to advance within them.
It is nature’s law of development that defined us as social animals. Hence, nature compels us to interact with each other and our natural environment. We cannot live or grow in isolation; science and history both support this truth. Being the willful animals we are, we continue to ignore the obvious and try to insulate ourselves from the very environment that our existence depends upon. This obstinacy is why the steps on our evolutionary ladder are often experienced as suffering.
By Angela Moore Duck
Photography: Marc Hollembeak
Continue to part 2: Sustainability and Advancement
How to Live in a New World
First, it is impossible to manage in the new world when each one thinks only about oneself. We have to think about everyone. There is no other choice. This is nature’s law that is being revealed in our times.
Second, every member of society should be concerned about others like organs in one body. In the global world, we need not build egoistic systems for media, governments, social systems, health care, education, etc., which today do not care about what happens to others. What we need to be concerned with is how to build a healthy person in a healthy society. All the systems should be focused on this purpose. This means that there must be one general plan.
The leaders of society must understand that we need to integrate and embrace mutual responsibility, and use our voices and votes to insist on this. Otherwise, each will continue with his protectionism, which will lead to opposition to and destruction of nature.
We should aspire for this same mutually beneficial relationship to exist in the family, children’s education, neighborhoods, cities, nations, and the whole world. This means that we don’t have to develop separate, specific systems for education, culture, and health, but rather we need to work in circles, moving from small circles to wider ones, and eventually encompassing all of humanity.
We have to restructure all international organizations differently, so that this will be their goal and how they aim all their activity at. All the laws in the world should reflect its integrated nature, so that integrality becomes the essential law of our existence. The leadership, courts, and systems for human rights should be aimed only at that.
What stems from the integrative laws influences all spheres of our lives, including factories, companies, and businesses. If a business doesn’t match the essential production system, it is like a splinter that enters a body and infects and harms the whole body.
This is a totally new perception according to which no one has the right make exorbitant profits off of others. Instead, we can discover that it is good business to work together to mutual advantage for everyone involved. This is totally opposite to our present approach and everything will change according to it.
Awaken Your Caring for the Whole World – Within You
How can we start caring for the whole world and feel it inside our hearts?
We all exist on one globe, in one circular, closed system, and it is impossible to selectively care for just one part of it, as one would care only about his arm or leg and not care about the rest of the body. Nothing exists “partially” in Nature.
If a person does not care for the common system, the whole of mankind as his body, he does not care for himself. We just have to open our eyes and see that the world is an imprint of what we have inside.
Therefore, the aim isn’t for “me to start caring for the world,” but to open my eyes and see the truth in order to understand that caring for the world and caring for myself is the exact same caring.
This is the inner revolution we have to go through. When a person begins connecting with others and identifying himself with what is outside of his self interest that he previously identified with, then this inner revolution occurs. This blindness and deception are the reason for all the anger, hate, bigotry, and crises we see now.
Integrative Education for the Integrated World
According to a year-old report, there are more than two hundred million unemployed in the world. Over the coming year, this number will grow astronomically, as global production wanes and natural resources continue to dwindle. This development constitutes an enormous problem for the unemployed themselves, as well as for society and governments, which are utterly powerless to stop it.
As the ranks of the unemployed grow worldwide, the need for a comprehensive educational course, explaining the new integrated world and its governing laws, will be indispensable in preventing the kind of bloodshed and unrest that we’re already beginning to see materialize.
So what is this “new world” that the global crisis is ushering us into? Well, if we take a step back and analyze the word “crisis,” it actually doesn’t have a negative connotation. Rather, it signifies a new stage that is similar to birth.
We know from experience that transitioning from one state to another is hard, as it entails coming out of your comfort zone. Whether it’s changing jobs or modifying any other aspect of life, we tend to resist change and prefer to stay within a familiar operating system.
With that in mind, there are two sides to this global crisis. On the one hand, we are experiencing genuinely awful and dramatic afflictions: horrendous floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcano eruptions, riots and wars, revolutionary coups, bloodshed in the streets, and increasingly dimming prospects of a bright future. On the other hand, we may view our current predicament as the normal pains of a process we don’t yet acknowledge, one in which we transition from one state to another.
These pains can be likened to a baby going through the process of birth. Picture a child peacefully growing inside the mother’s womb—a safe and protected place. Delivery, however, is triggered by a rather “unpleasant” process: the mother feels immense tension and experiences contractions, while the child also feels tremendous pressure but doesn’t have any idea what’s going on. Thus, our present state is similar to birth pains.
We have been through similar states at other times in history, although they weren’t as tragic or radical to justify calling them a “birth.” We regard them as developmental or transitional phases in human history.
And yet our current state is different. In the past we’ve always striven to reveal or attain new heights. We foresaw potential revolutionary conditions of a social or technical nature, and change was effected as a result of new breakthroughs, whether via discovery of new lands, inventions of innovative weapons, or implementation of new technologies such as the Internet, which have unveiled a completely new level of connection between us.
The difference is that those innovations never have been global in nature. They have never influenced all aspects of human life, nor have they impacted humankind on a larger scale, including every country and continent, every family and individual. Nowadays, the new revolutionary (evolutionary!) spin involves all of the above.
Disoriented and bewildered, we’re growing increasingly aware of the fact that something is happening, but we’re not quite yet certain what that “something” is. The crisis we’re experiencing is similar to the state that precedes delivery. It presses us more and more with each passing day, both individually and collectively.
Just as we cannot seem to solve the tumbling economy, we are utterly powerless to reverse the decades-old trend of families falling apart or the astronomical rise in depression, suicide and substance abuse. If anything, the one common denominator here is that in all areas of our lives we suffer from a complete absence of understanding as to the root cause of these problems.
Moreover, for the first time in human history, this is happening on a global, integrated scale. There’s literally “nowhere to run” to escape these issues, even if one had the means. And the worst thing is that we don’t know what the future holds.
In revolutions past, the social and economic structures we aspired to were more progressive than the ones they replaced. The abolition of slavery, for instance, paved the way toward a more civilized society. Even though drastic changes triggered new uprisings, religious and civil wars, people nonetheless anticipated a brighter future at the end of it all.
Presently, however, we all are undergoing a global process the likes of which we’ve never seen. This process encompasses not only the society and the individual, but actually extends to climate and ecology. (Looking back at the evolution of our species, global warming and cooling periods have always necessitated vast adaptations in humankind, such as huge communities being forced to migrate from Siberia and Asia to Europe.)
Whereas in the past revolutions happened for concrete reasons (climate change, new technology, despotic regime, etc.), today all the changes are happening simultaneously and on every level. Simply speaking, people no longer can reconcile with the world we live in.
Even the systems we have come to depend on for our very survival are on the fritz, including the food industry, the job market, the family unit, the educational and security systems, and so on.
We have arrived at a general state in all areas of our lives where nothing seems to work as it should. And with the tools currently at our disposal, we cannot predict with any degree of certainty what our future phase on this evolutionary path might look like.
Is it possible to study the laws of this new integrated world and thereby learn to meet its demands? Can we look ahead and be sure that the path we’ve chosen is correct? Can we calculate our future beforehand?
If the answer is yes, we can facilitate our progress and avoid needless wandering in darkness. If not, we will continue making the same old blunders, only now the stakes are much, much greater.
In light of the above, we must aim to develop an educational course for the whole world. The goal is as vital as it is straightforward: to open people’s eyes to the new reality we find ourselves in, to glimpse a future that’s not only possible but unavoidable (indeed, for the baby there’s only one way out), and to teach the world how to transition from the existing state to the future in the quickest and most painless way possible.