Keeping Faith In A Time Of Planetary And Emotional Turmoil

The following article has been inspired by my reading of Ervin Laszlo’s latest book “Reconnecting to the source”. Everywhere we look today is uncertainty, division and chaos. It confirms the general theory that essentially the universe follows a path towards entropy. Or is there another road, a road to holotropism? We definitely live in the midst of profound change where climate disruption has become the dominant challenge for our survival. And I often find myself doubting whether we will achieve the understanding and wisdom to survive this challenge. What needs to happen in order we can? Laszlo says this is not the first time in history that a period of global-level transformation has dawned on humankind. Our “big history” has already lived through three such transformations – veritable “big bangs”. The first was the physical big bank about 13.8 billion years ago when our universe and planet came into existence. The second fundamental transformation was the emergence of living organisms on earth about 3.8 billion years ago. The “third big bang” is dated to have occurred about 120,000 years ago when the consciousness of our species evolved and we moved from bring just “homo” to become “sapiens”. The evolution of communication was fundamental to that transformation.

This third big bang produced an explosion of the human population, but it did not produce the wisdom that would ensure that the expanded population could maintain the balances essential for the flourishing of life on our planet, Laszlo writes. The shortsighted use of technology and the disregard of natural checks and balances brought humanity to where it is today: to a “chaos point,” where the choice is stark: it is between breakdown and breakthrough. Now, as Laszlo continues, another global transformation has become inevitable: a fourth big bang. Of the more than one hundred million species in the biosphere we humans are in a privileged position: we have a highly developed brain and associated consciousness. We can ask who we are, what the world is, and how we can and should live in the world. However, we are not making good use of this unique resource. We are not asking the right questions and seeking the right answers, we just move forward trusting to good fortune. We have become a danger to all life in the biosphere. How did this come that far?

We know that big bangs can lead to breakthroughs as well as to breakdowns… However, no outcome is inscribed in our genes. We are perfectly capable of living on this planet without destroying the balances and resources needed for life for ourselves and for other species.

The great majority of the people who inhabit the planet are not the creators of today’s problems, but their victims. The question is, can this small segment of people that created this now critical situation on our planet change and transform in time to avoid a major catastrophe? The technologies of the modern age we developed with their shortsighted and short-term benefits have set us up for ending all life in the biosphere as we know it. So, where do we go from here? And so much can be disclosed already. It won’t be technology alone that will bail us out of this mess. I like the analogy of Laszlo’s request to updating the ancient Greece hero myth of strident individualism to the idea of a collective hero as in the mythology of the Ubuntu (idea of a common humanity). We have created a world where the planetary problems have become such an existential threat to humanity that our only chance for survival is to come together, to create a shared vision and to implement collective action. Having said that, looking at our current world, it seems that we have never been further away from such a common humanity… In order to create a critical mass that can regain its natural holotropism, and that can create a higher common consciousness, we all need to mobilize, become the change we want to see in the world in our own little space, within ourself, our family, our network, our community, and so forth. But we also need to raise our voice and need to engage in as many conversations about this topic as possible. We need to bring it into our conversations, to social media and all other outlets we have and most importantly to our children and into our education system. We need to bring our respect, our interconnectedness, and our love and awe for our planet into our classrooms and into our school curricula, and make it a tangible, sensual and non-intellectual experience. And we have to re-write our books about economy and end the lies about economic models that praise infinite growth and exploitation of resources of any kind as the main objective of our contribution in life.

(Serge Brignoni - Metamorphosis)

Laszlo ends his book with some simple words: “The way forward is open. The task is clear. Wake up and become the change we need. The future of a remarkable species on a precious planet is in your hands."