Chapter 2
‘A sign is enough for the alert, but a thousand counsels are not enough for the negligent.’
Ancient saying
In the years ahead we are going to see great change sweeping through our diverse human societies. It will be change not only brought about by intentional minds and willing hearts, but also by necessity, by coercion and from an evolutionary imperative. The 21st century will be equivalent to the dramatic ‘flat Earth to round Earth’ shift that was thrust upon humanity centuries before. Yet with great social shifts also come paradigm changes in human perceptions and thinking patterns. This is because significant change permanently alters the way we view our role in life, as well as how we perceive our structures of ‘reality’.
Yet it is difficult to have a vision of the future if we base our thinking solely around current trends. The upcoming decades are more likely to be based around potentials rather than linear trends and forecasts. One limiting aspect of our current situation is the lack of vocabulary we have to describe these ‘potentials’, since our human vocabulary is mostly structured towards describing what is and what can be, rather than that which could be beyond our current frames of reference. This illustrates one of the fundamental issues we now generally face: a lack of vocabulary and vision – irrespective of culture – to comprehend beyond our current models. What our modern mindset often ends up doing is projecting, or rather extending, from present ‘knowns’, since we often lack the tools to conceptualize the ‘unknowns’. It can be far too tempting to fall back onto the familiar, the known and the comfortable. The end result is a projection that is an expanded/extended version of current models rather than a new model. The extended-view model is thus a continuation upon current models that are themselves based upon, or are appropriated forms of, more ancient patterns of thinking. If we wish for real human development during these critical years ahead then we must leave behind our old-model comfort-zones. We must be prepared not only to think ‘out-of-the-box’ but rather ‘without-a-box’.
Furthermore, in dealing with present incumbent systems our genuine response should not be one of anger, protest or conflict, as these typical old-mind responses will be playing directly into the hands of the very systems we oppose. The new way of doing things is through a non-conflict yet innovative path-building direction. Rather than entering into conflict with existing systems we need to engage in gradually replacing them with emerging innovations and creative new models. This gradual form of replacement (or takeover) is actually a better model for social transition. It avoids a head-on conflict with existing power structures – it out-does the old rather than out-fights the old.
This is an extraordinary passage of change we are living through, whereby what we do in the years ahead, will create the template for the future. How we are able to perceive and act upon the emerging changes will depend very much upon the patterns of human consciousness: that is, our dominant mythologies. Many of our current ways of thinking lack the ability to discern the uncertain, the unpredictable and the unexpected. Yet it is likely that the future will show different dynamics of development, not linear but rather through states of flux where new, often unexpected, arrangements come into being. However, since the ‘modern’ human mindset has a bias for dealing with linear patterns and perspectives, there is the danger that establishment thinkers will perceive and/or conceive of a future that is likely to be an altered or adapted variation upon the current model. That is why, I feel, real change will be seen emerging from the periphery rather than the centre, from emerging ‘new thinkers’ rather than from establishment figures. Also, such emerging thinkers will be from the younger genera tions to come, manifesting innate new patterns of thinking. In the meantime we of the present generation need to do our work in saying goodbye to the old mythologies, if we are to serve as the bridge generation.
Previous shifts in ‘cultural mythology-narrative’ have occurred at various important stages in human socio-cultural evolution. I feel the times ahead are similarly of deep significance to us all and will provide a shift in perspective that will not only influence our physical socio-cultural evolution but the conscious future of humanity. It is likely we are reaching a milestone marking a great change in how we view the way ahead as a collective species.
The present era with its push for corporate globalization – for inter national structures of power, regulation and knowledge-control – is but the latest world system that is being pressed upon the majority of minds by the actions of the influential few. Below are other sets of mythologies, as put forth by cultural historian William Irwin Thompson, which help us grasp the nature of perspective:
Analogy One:
Imagine insects with a life span of two weeks, and then imagine further that they are trying to build up a science about the nature of time and history. Clearly, they cannot build a model on the basis of a few days in summer. So let us endow them with a language and a culture through which they can pass on their knowledge to future genera tions. Summer passes, then autumn; finally it is winter. The winter insects are a whole new breed, and they perfect a new and revolutionary science on the basis of the ‘hard facts’ of their perceptions of snow. As for the myths and legends of summer: certainly the intelligent insects are not going to believe the superstitions of their primitive ancestors.
Analogy Two:
Imagine a vehicle as large as a planet that began a voyage an aeon ago. After generations of voyaging, the mechanics lose all sense of who they are and where they are going. They begin to grow unhappy with their condition and say that the notion that they are on a journey in an enormous vehicle is a myth put forth by the ruling class to disguise its oppression of the mechanical class. There is a revolution and the captain is killed. Elated by their triumph, the mechanics proclaim the dictatorship of the proletariat and destroy the captain’s log, which contains, they claim, nothing but the lies of the old ruling class.
Analogy Three:
Imagine that you have just discovered a civilization as small as a DNA molecule. You want to establish contact, but since your dimensions prevent you from entering the same space–time envelope, you must search for other means of communication. From observing the civilization closely, you find that there is an informational class that seems to carry messages back and forth among parts of the society, and you observe further that these messengers are actually enzymes of a structure that is isomorphic to one of your own patterns of information. Since you cannot talk directly to the members of the civilization, you decide to talk through a patterning of the bits of information the enzymes carry back and forth. Unfortunately, the very act of trying to pattern an enzyme alters its structure so that a part of your own message is always shifted. It seems that the only time the enzymes are able to carry a high proportion of your own message is when their civilizational structure is either breaking apart or just about to come together again. Fascinated by the problem, you choose your opening and closing epochs carefully and begin to carry on an extended conversation with the civilization.1
We may wish to consider carefully the type of mythologies we choose to live by. We can possibly see a corres pondence between this process and Walter Miller Jr’s acclaimed novel A Canticle for Leibowitz. The book begins at a time 600 years after a global nuclear war has destroyed 20th-century civilization. In the aftermath, those who survived were vehemently opposed to the ‘modern culture’ of knowledge and technology which they consider to have been responsible for the weaponry and war. Irradiated tribal mutants, wandering survivors and a few communities and religious institutions (abbeys) remain scattered over the wasteland. One day a monk retrieves, with the help of a wandering beggar, an old scrap of paper which proves to be the remains of a blueprint from a 20th-century engineer. The text is delivered to a local abbey where it becomes venerated as sacred and is copied, worshipped, blessed by the then Pope and exalted to the status of divine relic. The engineer (Leibowitz) is canonized, and the new mythology becomes the guiding manuscript. Finally, one of the monks manages to make a dynamo from Leibowitz’s blueprint . . . skip 600 years into the future and the abbey has been completely modernized during The Age of Light, and space has been colonized. Yet soon war breaks out again, despite the religious guidance of St Leibowitz, patron saint of electricians.
What can be gained from this insightful story is that, in any age, institutionalized mythology might very well be perpetuated by outworn dogmas that are no longer understood and no longer of any developmental value. Also, if old ideas maintain a fossilized religious/spiritual impulse, alongside an overly materialistic, technological civilization, then the consequences for humanity are potentially disastrous and destructive.
In order to shift toward a more positive paradigm – one that is more appropriate for our planetary future – we need to move beyond the pull of contrary impulses. We require a sense of responsibility to establish a developmental path towards betterment (‘progress’) alongside a collective feeling of incompleteness and unconscious longing (‘the fall’). As the cultural historian Richard Tarnas reminds us:
What individuals and psychologists have long been doing has now become the collective responsibility of our culture: to make the unconscious conscious. And for a civilization, to a crucial extent, history is the great unconscious – history not so much as the external chronology of political and military milestones, but as the interior history of a civiliz ation: that unfolding drama evidenced in a culture’s evolving cosmology, its philosophy and science, its religious consciousness, its art, its myths.2
It is the interior history that maps out our potential futures – an internal drama that shifts amongst the myths, cosmology and religious/spiritual impulses. Human life on planet Earth now finds itself within a psycho-physical transmutation, physically adapting to a changing world whilst simultaneously adopting new ideas that correspond to our developmental needs.
Mythologies are collections of stories that we tell ourselves to explain the world and our place in it. Our perspective – the way we think – has been based on a long heritage, or concoction, of such stories. In other words, we are our own myth. And the old-mind mythology that we have been living within for so long strives to promote those perspectives that best serve to maintain a status quo of dependence upon authority structures – what can be called the ‘scarcity model’. As Richard Heinberg notes:
As civilization has provided more and more for us, it’s made us more and more infantile, so that we are less and less able to think for ourselves, less and less able to provide for ourselves, and this makes us more like a herd – we develop more of a herd mentality – where we take our cues from the people around us, the authority figures around us.3
This ‘infantile/herd mentality’ that Heinberg refers to is an aspect of the old mythology that we need to break away from. A new mythology – what can be referred to as the ‘abundance model’ – recognizes that abundance does not necessarily imply only material quantity, but that it also reflects an abundance of spirit, vision, creativity, intention and empowerment. This perspective celebrates the fact that we are now living in an inherently interconnected world. Diverse minds around the world are connecting and seeing problems and issues in new ways. Innovation is a state of mind made exponential by our connectivity. We have to change the global conversation from complaining about problems to solving them. We have to be a part of the growing global conversation.
Seeking the Subtlety
In a data-rich world we are in danger of becoming increasingly meaning-poor. Those times when we may experience an elevated, ecstatic or euphoric state of inter connectedness and wholeness have been termed by psychologists as ‘peak experiences’. Unfortunately, the potential for engaging intimately with the world has chiefly been replaced by a conditioning that comes with strict cultural parameters and consensus thinking. It is little wonder that there are people who indulge in adrenalin-rich extremes – sport, intoxication, brutality, risk-taking – in order to gain a lost sense of vibrancy and alive ness. There is the danger that many of our modern cultures cultivate a taste – or rather need – for cruder impacts, as if finer experiences are not enough. There is an analogy here in the short tale of the two small boys who were discussing their sweets:
‘I wonder’ said the first, ‘why it is that we always buy the jaw-breaking candy, when that soft stuff is so much sweeter?’
‘I buy it because I like to KNOW that I’m eating something!’4
It is frequently the finer impacts – the more subtle experiences – which have the greater developmental potential. Nowadays it is often only through experiencing such ‘euphoric’ moments that we come to realize that our lives are so much more interesting and interconnected than we credit. Unfortunately, many of these epiphanies come from shocks, such as health issues or a tragic sense of loss. It is essential that those of us participating consciously in this bridging generation feel nourished by the finer contacts rather than the cruder impacts offered by the old mythologies (aka propaganda).
We only have to turn on the television and watch the mainstream news to become disheartened by the way the world is going. If we ‘believe’ this type of news then we likely question if there is any hope on the horizon. As an ancient Eastern saying goes, ‘If you insist on buying poor food, you must be prepared to dislike it at the serving.’ This could also be paraphrased as, ‘If you insist on listening to mainstream propaganda, you must be prepared to receive a bad aftertaste.’ We often have to dig deeper to find the uplifting, positive stories: of people coming together despite their warring nations at loggerheads; of people dedicating their lives in service to others in order to make a difference; of old enemies forgiving and forgetting, and forging a new life. We need to recognize that at this time we are all living in a world undergoing transition.
Perhaps we may be having doubts about our own role in these uncertain times. As we increasingly witness so many of the negative aspects of the world it will be ever easier for us to lose our focus, often without realizing it. The creep of negativity can be imperceptible at first. Negative energy thus acts to disturb harmonious and developmental states and to discourage us. There is an apocryphal tale that highlights this:
Once the word spread that the Devil was pulling out of his business and was arranging to sell off all the tools of his trade to the highest bidder. On the night of the sale all the tools were arranged for the bidders to view. What a motley selection it was! There were sinister tools of hatred, jealousy, envy, malice and treachery, plus all the other elements of evil. Yet, beside these, there also was an instrument that seemed harmless, a wedge-shaped implement that appeared worn out, shabby, and yet was priced so much higher than all others. Someone asked the Devil what was the name of such a poor-looking instrument.
‘Discouragement,’ answered the Devil.
‘And why is the price so high for such an un-malicious sounding instrument?’ asked the bidder.
‘Because’, said the Devil, ‘this instrument is more useful to me than any other. I can enter the consciousness of a human being when all other ways fail me and once inside through the discourage ment of that person I can do whatever I please. The instrument is worn out because I use it almost every where and as very few people know about this I can continue to achieve my goals successfully.’
And as the price of discouragement was so very, very high, even today this tool remains the property of the Devil.
This analogy is fitting for how despondency and doubt operate. We feel that they are overwhelming, when in fact this is their weakness. The truth is that no matter our state of bitterness, anger, frustration or depression, it can be overcome by only the slightest presence of positive focus.
It is under standable that during these years of transition those who are part of the Bridge Generation may feel frustration when it appears that real change is emerging too slowly within a world that paradoxically appears to be speeding up. On one hand the world around us is shifting fast; yet the real change we wish to see in our lives is arriving too slowly for some of us. It can be like the sensation of running in a dream – our mind is running, or telling us to run, whilst our legs are moving in slow motion. The sensation of change, and of passing time, is rapid; but the physical reality of change requires real work at ground level. Yet we have the potential for real and lasting change – let me illustrate this with the analogy of a ‘colour revolution’. Imagine a sheet of blotting paper, with our actions as ink drops. One drop of ink on the blotting paper does almost nothing; nor do two drops or three drops of ink. But over time these ink drops gradually begin to spread, and join up, and then we have an ‘aha’ moment when we suddenly realize that all the drops of ink have merged and the blotting paper is now another colour – the colour of the new ‘ink-thinking’. We are those drops of new colour ink. We are each doing our own thing, our personal actions, and yet contributing to the whole. Change is coming, and it has the potential to quietly overwhelm.
Our responsibility during this Bridge Generation is to be ambassadors for the change we wish to see. This means not being afraid of what ‘consensus society’ may say about our perspectives. We are living through an era in which we are called upon to be responsible for bringing these new models of thought, behaviour and integrity to the world. It will be important to speak our own understanding – not only to share where we are each at, but also to validate and give strength to our self, family, friends and community. In order not to sell ourselves short it is important we normalize the new mythology. If we become sucked into conspiracy – into paranoid or angry behaviour – then we do a disservice to our ideals and give our detractors excuses to use against us. In our every day life we are the ‘door-to-door salespeople’ for the ideals and change we represent and wish to see in the world. After all, we wouldn’t buy any products from a frantic, frenetic and frustrated salesperson – would we? So in order to overwhelm quietly the current models/ mythologies we need to become the best we can be, and to normalize the future into being. We are no longer dealing with alternative theories. We are representing the ‘New Normal’ – not the ‘New Age’.
Those individuals and groups aware and consciously awake during these times should be searching for resources for development and empowerment, such as reaching out for like-minded individuals and groups, organ izing support networks, and strengthening a sense of purpose, meaning and value. And then, of course, going out and meeting with new connections and communities whenever and wherever possible. In order to be a part of the crucible of change that is in-forming the years ahead many of us will need to awaken from our passive slumber and to grab hold of a new sense of reality.
Yet the change will not occur overnight. We will need to live, experience and respond to the challenges ahead in order to bring forth new solutions and new ways of being and behaving. In other words, we need to change the rules of the game.