What Is Going On?

The carefree era of global economic development and perceived financial stability is finally coming to an end. We were told that the world was bountiful and that there was enough opportunity for us all. We were told to be grateful, as we are living in the safest and most prosperous period of human history.

While historical evidence certainly seems to support these claims, something doesn’t quite feel right. Collectively, we can sense some kind of threat of impending doom. Could it be the threat of nuclear war? What about the long list of individually uncontrollable factors accelerating climate change? How about the blatant corruption and shortsightedness displayed by those we thought we elected to represent us? Maybe it’s the overwhelming onslaught of polarizing information that excels at amplifying fear and tribalism by sharing extremist views and attributing them to an entire group? Or it could be the combination of these issues that are making us feel completely hopeless. Unfortunately, by addressing these points I’m only making it worse. So, how do we deal with this hot garbage of a hand we’ve been dealt? Who is to blame and how do we fight it?       

If the past has taught us anything, it’s that fighting only shares the pain around like a hot potato. The best we can do is pass the burden and blame onto somebody else, but eventually that potato will unexpectedly come right back at us. In saying that, we also can’t keep sweeping our problems under the rug until the rug becomes a little hat on the head of an anthropomorphized potato shaped monster that represents inequality, ignorance, and self-destruction. 

In order to address the real problem, we need to get our heads straight first. We tried “seizing the day”, but all that was good for was momentary freedom from our responsibilities. It’s about time we got our shit together, learned how to look after ourselves, started critically thinking on a societal level, and then maybe we’ll be able to utilize the very superpower that allowed us to dominate the world.

Instead of being taken for a ride by marketing tactics and misinformation, or sent in a fit of rage because our tribal neighbor has more scraps than us, we need to access the full extent of our consciousness to wake up. Not the definition of “wake up” that upset people use to weaponize their opinions against those they perceive as the “other”. The waking up that involves seeing the world through a neutral filter. This can be achieved by reducing detrimentally high stress levels, acknowledging the similarities between us all rather than the differences, and integrating sustainable and antifragile systems to see us through the information war.

Fear has been a crucial component for our survival as a species. It was amazing at helping us to detect direct threats and getting us out of immediate danger. However, the danger of the new world is in the periphery and we are still looking in front of us. So, we better get working on ourselves, our local and global communities, and honing our power of foresight before the rug is removed and we are stuck dealing with the anthropomorphic hot potato monster.