It’s like watching a TV special about media affecting culture. You don’t realize you’re in a play within a play until much later, maybe never.
Could it be that life works the same way? We try to understand it from the context of living it. Is it possible to be unbiased when examining our choices within an environment that creates (and limits) those choices?
Using the word conundrum is so tempting, but we’d be back in a box again. One where communication is only as good as the vocabulary we share. It’s like a Yogi Berra quote that leaves you hanging. One of my favorites:
“Think! How the hell are you gonna think and hit at the same time?”
A possible answer lies in quicksand, where escape is counterintuitive, demanding relaxation instead of panic, breathing deep instead of fast and thinking with a clear mind so you can be aware enough to take action:
Thoughts of Haiti or any natural disaster like Katrina or the flash floods in India make me consider how unjustified the loss of life is. Who deserves such an unexpected fate? Is it fair? Why them? Why now? What possible meaning can we derive from this?
Our petty worries of “Why me?” when we don’t make the team or get pulled over lose their value in the face of such disasters. Eventually though we all go back to our daily routines and such menial things start once again taking on more value. I remember feeling this strongly a year after 9/11. Business as usual.
How can we learn to stay with that keen focus that results from realizing how ephemeral life is – how random fate can be? We can’t control for the unexpected. We can try preparing for it with sandbags and supplies and extra food, but to preserve what? To go back to live the way we’ve been living and prepare for the next big catastrophe?
It doesn’t add up. The preservation of life as it is seems banal. The trauma of loss can be an opportunity to evolve at an accelerated rate. To maintain the foresight of seeing life almost gone and suddenly saved at the last moment. To take advantage of a second chance that we so rarely get as adults unless we put ourselves through the minor trauma of moving, changing jobs, or leaving a loved one.
DailyOMs can be overly spiritual for some, yet they resonate a strong sense of philosophical sense that can actually be applied. The whole post is here, but it’s fun to excerpt the most provocative parts, starting with the first paragraph:
Sometimes we look at the actions of others and find it difficult to understand what motivates them. But we are all doing the best we can with the information we currently have. We have all been taught how to see the world from the examples of those around us and by our experiences. Keeping this in mind, we can accept the choices made by others while seeking ways to increase the world’s level of consciousness as a whole.
Looking back at the past, I sometimes want to reevaluate my decisions and then I realize that I was doing the best with the information I had. If I knew what I know now, I wouldn’t have made those decisions. It eliminates regret and helps me focus more on the path that got me to those decisions so I can better understand my past mind to help my future mind think smarter. Likewise, I think of others on their own paths and don’t view them as ahead or behind but in the right place to learn what they need to. Hence,
We can share our experiences and understanding with others not from a place of condescension but of connection.
There’s no better or worse, it’s all apples and oranges of a different variety. Approaching others this way leaves little room for judgment. At the same time, we can better acknowledge current status, restrictions, behaviors and culture if we agree that we’re coming in with a personal bias. Getting rid of our idiosyncrasies to say we’re equal makes us drones. Connecting on a premise of differences makes us one. I think of looking at a cloth through a microscope and seeing all the little connected strings pattern together and when someone pulls the cloth, they flex and move but don’t break.
I love the way it ends:
Every thought we have and action we take becomes part of the collective energy of the planet…
…Remember the next time you witness an action of another that they are of the same earth as you but simply on a different conscious level at this point in their life. Find compassion, bless them, and move along your day in grace.
John Robb’s links alone would suffice in connecting you to the myriad future world. Here’s a recent link to predictions for the decade ahead by Kazys Varnelis. Reading it in entirety is worthwhile but draining. I left feeling potentially optimistic and assuredly pessimistic. Lots of “ifs”. Here are the highlights:
China will start slowing. The United States, EU, the Mideast and East Asia will all make up a low growth block, a slowly decaying imperium. India, together with parts of Africa and South America, will be on the rise. To be clear: the very worst thing that could happen is that we would see otherwise.
I disagree on most counts here. China’s manufacturing of inelastic goods is too entrenched for it to slow. East Asia is lower growth post-recession but they are also more recession-proof due to their “immateriality” (as mentioned in the post) and service good production. India and Africa are too rife with corruption and dependent on non-resident financial funding to thrive on their own. The reverse brain drain is helping them out, but for how long?
A greater divide will open up between three classes. At the top, the super-rich will continue controlling national policies and will have the luxury of living in late Roman splendor. A new “upper middle” class will emerge among those who were lucky enough to accumulate some serious cash during the glory days. Below that will come the masses, impossibly in debt from credit cards, college educations, medical bills and nursing home bills for their parents but unable to find jobs that can do anything to pull them out of the mire.
So much of this is self-created. The party of the 1990s and 2000s (again, credit goes to the author) and even the “progressive” consumer spending of the baby boomers has brought us to this point. Many went into debt willingly expecting a positive ROI in the end, unaware of the champagne glass tower their investments were built on. While trust in financial structures is all but gone, the mental shift from consumption to value still hasn’t occurred, primarily due to the “upper middle” class continuing with business as usual.
Some cities are simply doomed, but if we’re lucky, some leaders will turn to intelligent ways of dealing with this condition. To me, the idea of building the world’s largest urban farm in Detroit sounds smart. Look for some of these cities—Buffalo maybe?—to follow Berlin’s path and become some of the most interesting places to live in the country…
…These cities will not see real estate values increase greatly. The new classes populating them will not be rich, but rather will turn to a of new DIY bohemianism, cultivating gardens, joining with neighbors communally and building vibrant cultural scenes.
What struck me was the mention of Buffalo, where I lived for the past few years. Cost of living is certainly an attraction and if you’re not into global arbitrage, it’s a great option on the national scale (same language, same culture, no need to adopt/adapt). With dilapidated storefronts ready to be revamped, a large elderly AND student population and shoestring entrepreneurship on the rise, there’s a lot of promise. Fresh blood needs to pour in waves though because of the conservative, revisionist mentality that still holds these kinds of cities back.
The divisions in politics will grow. By the end of the decade, the polarization within countries will drive toward hyper-localism. Nonpartisan commissions will study the devolution of power to local governments in areas of education, individual rights (abortion will be illegal in many states, guns in many others), the environment, and so on. In many states gay rights will become accepted, in others, homosexuality may become illegal again.
Hyper-localism is happening right now in “green” communities, spa-like baby-boomer villages, and open-source networks (think small; journalism to blogosphere for example). In Gladwell terms, it’s 10-15 years away from achieving critical mass, and when it “tips”, the trending will drive away those who began it to either accumulate wealth quickly and estrange themselves from the crowds or go back to creating mini oligopoly-like systems of government to hold onto power. Early adoption will become a skill.
As Varnelis iterates several times cautiously, this is a fun exercise blogs like to get into. It does shape bias mindsets of readers to a certain degree so being involved signals the belief that your voice is your vote. The U.S., being beat up so often based on Rome-downfall analogies, trumps Rome on the spectrum of freedom of speech. The internet only enhances that freedom. Take a bath in information and you don’t know what you’ll come out with. Join the fun.
If I had to put my finger on the one thing I like most about Erratum sheets, it would have to be this; it is a tangible piece of evidence that proves that famous Alexander Pope quote to be true, to err really is human. And thank goodness for that. In this world, that is increasingly becoming mistake free, it’s nice to see an honest up-front admission of human error. Not that I want people to screw up, I don’t. But when you can clear up every blemish with Photoshop, spell check every misspelling, and delete and re-post a drunken status update, it’s a breath of fresh air to hear three little words… I. Screwed. Up. But if you want to sound fancy, you can say Erratum.
Thanks to Delayed Echoes, a very random find of great depth.
