Author: admin

Markets, and what they might mean

If everything in life now exists as a marketplace – whether it’s ideas, perspectives, products, lifestyles or paths – what does that mean? Are all our options now simply something to compare, weigh up and piece together into the kind of person we want to be? As if “life” is now choices and our role is to freely decide, between them all, which things matter most to us.

Sometimes it seems as if the world’s been taken apart and put back together upside down – as if our values and reasons for living are, somehow, inverted. Isn’t there a circularity between our needs and motivations? Those needs, particularly the psychological ones, seeming almost limitless, perhaps we’ll be peddling forever, churning through these finite resources, in the hope of somehow feeling satisfied and worthwhile. (Notes One)

If markets are “there” to meet our needs, yet, to justify and expand their own existence, they begin manufacturing shortages we never knew we had, might we not be chasing those imaginary targets forever? Never quite reaching the goalposts, as they inevitably inch further and further down the path in front of us. Led, like the Pied Piper, into some sort of prison of our own making.

Because, what are we really seeking? How much of the “choice” laid before us is truly necessary, or are we dealing here with the relative merits of various forms of luxury? It just seems there’s always something else – some new item, development, standard we should be chasing. As if, in our desire to belong, fit in or be admired by our peers, we’ll forever be seeking the next thing in an endless race to nowhere.

Isn’t it all rather meaningless? As if we’re just churning through “things”, saying they give our lives meaning, when all we’re actually doing is exchanging our time for money, and money for things. Are we really just trading in the hours of our existence? Maybe I’m reading it wrong.

Of course, there’s meaning behind many things: behind expressing who we are and showing we care enough to maintain our appearance; behind taking part in the long human conversation of forms, colours, trends and the significance assigned to them; behind sharing experiences, be they meals or events, and discussing afterwards what we made of them (Notes Two). Life perhaps “is” all these activities we partake in.

Maybe, then, it’s more a question of where our focus is? Whether we’re focussed on “the thing”, “what we’re told it means” or “what it really means.” If we’re believing things will give us something they never can – worth, acceptance, value, purpose, meaning – we may be engaged in a fruitless pursuit. If we know our worth and understand the true cost of what we’re doing, maybe there’s no problem. (Notes Three)

As long as we’re not looking for something markets can never give – as long as we know the true value of everything involved – maybe it’s true they’re an incredible opportunity to meet all our needs and solve all our problems.

Notes and References:

Note 1: The value we’re giving to things
Note 1: Goods & the wisdom in scarcity
Note 1: The beauty in home economics
Note 1: Cycles of mind & matter
Note 1: What’s not essential
Note 2: Involvement in modern culture
Note 2: The stories that we hear
Note 2: Meaning in a world of novelty
Note 3: Ethics, money & social creativity
Note 3: Points of sale as powerful moments
Note 3: Losing the sense of meaning
Note 3: What we create by our presence

Ways to share this:

Things we give voice to

In life, what are we giving voice to? Of all we hear, think or witness, which sentiments are we wrapping up with our words and sending out there to form part of it all? Given we’re perhaps completely free to respond however we see fit, it’s interesting to consider how we’re choosing to use our voice within whatever situations we’re finding ourselves. Doesn’t it, potentially, make a huge difference? (Notes One)

Sometimes I wonder why we’d ever choose rudeness – what we imagine that adds or achieves. This gesture of throwing punches; putting people down; pushing them off balance. What purpose does it serve between us? Maybe it’s simply a form of idealistic attack or defence, this intellectual or personal sparring that’s seeming so commonplace now.

There must be a fine line between “people” and “ideas”, though: a subtle distinction between who someone is, the ideas their experience has led them to accept, and the life of those ideas themselves (Notes Two). It’s just seeming an increasingly blurry line. The lives we lead and ways of thinking that run alongside them – the theories, conclusions, beliefs, reactions – perhaps merging too closely for us to confidently split them apart.

Almost as if “our life” within any given society dictates our ideas, our concerns, our words and conversations. As if the circumstances of birth and opportunities of environment inevitably “shape” the thoughts that will appeal to us and attitudes we’ll have toward things. As if it’s all “there” and we simply step into our role, play our part, defend what we have or fight for what we don’t.

Do we just pick up what we find around us and give voice to that? Whatever ideas, prejudices or trains of thought surrounded us, taking up those threads and continuing the conversation on from whatever side we happen to choose. Attitudes about gender, assumptions around justice, beliefs as to life’s meaning or worth all becoming part of “our” conversation as we lend our voice to those time-worn ideas. (Notes Three)

Maybe we have no choice? Maybe all we can do is accept the ideas society hands to us and make them our own, somehow. Seeing life through the lens they offer us, casting everything in their light, and drawing somewhat similar conclusions. Ideas themselves existing within a certain set of theories on life, though, isn’t there almost an inevitability to where they’ll lead us? Potentially, into the same battles, divisions and gridlock.

So, while “saying what we think” may be an inalienable human right, the question of how we’re using it seems important. It’s amazing to think we have such freedom: that, of all we meet in life, we can choose to give voice to any number of beautiful ideals, values or sentiments. We can serve to defuse negativity or add to it; speak for the powerless or drown them out; shine light on hope or on despair.

As humans, isn’t the choice over how we’ll respond on the level of words an incredibly powerful opportunity?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Questions around choice
Note 1: What we create by our presence
Note 1: The difference humanity makes
Note 2: Joining the dots
Note 2: Frameworks of how we relate
Note 2: The thought surrounding us
Note 2: Going towards the unknown
Note 3: On whose terms?
Note 3: Where do we get our ideas from?
Note 3: All we want to do passes through community

Ways to share this:

Understanding & staying informed

How much in life depends on our ability to understand what’s really going on? Sometimes it seems that, in a way, the sense we make of the world around us and decisions we make in light of that knowledge is “effectively” where the realities of life are being upheld. Almost as if the ideas we have in our heads – these reflections of the world outside – are what we’re acting on and bringing to life through our choices (Notes One).

Isn’t it fundamental to the tasks of education and the media that we come to a reasonably full understanding of “life”? Building up a picture that’s as much made up of “where we came from” as it is “where we hope to be heading” and “how well we’re doing on our path to getting there”. This sense in which, if we’re not grasping all those elements rightly, we’re not perhaps in the position to correct our course.

Maybe that’s the reason “being informed” is held up as one of the essential tasks of responsible citizens? Not just to bolster newspaper sales or give us all something to talk about or argue over, but that we need to be engaged – with our hearts and minds as much as our active participation – in ensuring everything’s going in the best directions (Notes Two).

As if, as the humans making it up, society needs us to walk alongside it with the full capacity of our being: following things with our heads; feeling empathy for all those impacted by or involved in events; adjusting our behaviour to support, rather than pull against, what’s needed. Everyone purposefully involving themselves in working towards the ideals of a community seems quite beautiful, in many ways.

But is that what’s actually going on? How thorough an understanding of all the issues affecting society do we actually have? And, given the increasingly global nature of our lives, activities and conversations, how well-informed are we about the complexities of other communities and all they’ve been trying to bring about through their lives?

If every society’s working on its own version of “life” – dealing with its own struggles, heritage and vision – and we’re all attempting to cooperate within this new global space, surely it matters that we understand where we’re each coming from? Communities must have their own wounds, issues, preoccupations and internal forces at play, just as each person does at the individual level. (Notes Three)

Within it all – the personal dramas and collective problems – how are we to find a productive balance where the task of “understanding” isn’t too overwhelming and the paths to constructive engagement are clear? And, considering we probably have limited capacity to take things in and care deeply about them, how are we navigate this strangely distracting, volatile, emotive world of “information” we’re living within? (Notes Four)

Developing a thorough yet flexible enough understanding of this world – where things fit, why they matter, how best to respond – seems an incredible task for the future to rest upon.

Notes and References:

Note 1: What we create by our presence
Note 1: Connecting truthfully with life
Note 1: The philosopher stance
Note 2: Value in being informed
Note 2: Being trusted to use our discernment…
Note 2: In the deep end…
Note 3: Living as an open wound
Note 3: Conversation as revelation
Note 4: Attention as a resource
Note 4: What is the public conversation?
Note 4: Effect, if everything’s a drama

Thinking further about the value of understanding what we are doing, was one aspect of Cutting corners.

Ways to share this:

Learning from the past, looking to the future

Thinking broadly as much as specifically about our life on this planet, isn’t culture what helps us find our place and chart our path? All those ways people over the years found to convey, pass down and illustrate their concerns about life, its meaning and how we might best respond to the challenges it presents. This beautiful, ongoing human conversation of which we’re all part.

It’s incredible to think how long meaning’s been passed on this way: how many fires people have gathered around to hear the tales of their culture, the characters and events those before felt wisest to reiterate to the point they were etched firmly in the consciousness of those carrying forward any given way of being. Stories that, hopefully, help guide us safely and remember our journey. (Notes One)

Out of all the communities, cultures or places people have ever lived there emerges this amazing repertoire of all that’s been dreamt up or written down over the many, many centuries of human existence. All those times people sought to convey what they’d been through or struggled with as they sought to move forward, individually or collectively. All these warnings and ideals that’ve been shared.

Any story has something to teach: some configuration of society or aspect of relationships we might learn from, honing our sense for all it means to be human and how best we might let that come to light. Some might emerge from people living under experiences of oppression, scrutiny or control. Some from imaginary worlds where such experiences live within different forms.

As humans, maybe we need stories to remind us who we are, where we’ve come from, and where we hoped to be heading? This sense in which our lives are part of a long, long line of people trying to make the best of the world as they found it. This notion that “culture” can keep us on track by way of focussing our minds and emotions. The past, perhaps, helping us make sense of the present and look clearly to the future.

It must matter? This almost timeless journey so many humans formed part of – upholding things and carrying them forward in big and little ways over the vast panorama of history (Notes Two). Sometimes we might look back with too much nostalgia, but the idea of honouring our path to the place we now stand seems significant.

Finding that balance between remembering while looking ahead is perhaps “always” challenging: what to let go of; what to hold firmly; what to aspire towards. This sense in which humanity is forever walking forwards, perhaps needing to leave some things behind in order to take the next step, but also needing to retain the vision of where we’re going and all we must take with us.

Writing this in the context of ancient cultural sites having recently been destroyed for the sake of mining, it’s hard not to question how well we’re handling the heritage that was placed in our hands.

Notes and References:

Guardian article “Rio Tinto blasts 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site to expand iron ore mine” by Calla Wahlquist, 26 May 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/26/rio-tinto-blasts-46000-year-old-aboriginal-site-to-expand-iron-ore-mine

Note 1: The stories that we hear
Note 1: Culture as a conversation across time
Note 1: Navigation, steering & direction
Note 1: Do we know what we’re doing?
Note 2: History’s role in modern culture
Note 2: “Quest for a Moral Compass”
Note 2: Truth, illusion & cultural life
Note 2: Things change, over time

Exploring slightly similar notions of culture and the passing of time was also part of Visual language and spaces.

Ways to share this:

Integrity and integration

Are we better off looking at life in terms of “being true to ourselves” or “valuable members of society”? Perhaps there’s simply a balance to be struck between them, as pursuing one at the cost of the other seems far from perfect: prioritising self without regard for social realities must be questionable, while playing our part seems fruitless if we’re never truly who we are.

If we were just to “fit in” – assuming whatever roles or obligations are asked of us in any given situation – aren’t we little different from machines? Fulfilling whatever programming those who designed us had in mind. All our actions being dictated by the needs of “society” seems a strangely top-down way of imagining the purpose of a human being: dreaming up systems, then assigning the parts we have to play. (Notes One)

Yet, if we don’t think at all of the collective nature of our lives, it seems unlikely we’d act wisely from that perspective. Aren’t we “naturally” quite self-centred? Our first priority, perhaps rightly, being our own survival or enhancement – whether that’s “us” as a person or as the community of family, friends or peers we’re feeling identified with. Our circle of interests, especially when under pressure, generally seems quite limited.

Having a sense for what each individual brings to life seems important, though: that we’re all filled with our own experiences, viewpoints, traits, concerns, and talents. Everyone being this completely irreplaceable version of “human” through having lived their lives their own unique way and brought out of that their own insights and capacities. The lived faces of all these systems we share.

If “to be human” is to stand in this world and make choices within it, finding the workable balance between personal integrity and collective integration seems the mystery we’re each presented with. Won’t there be countless “lines” where those interests are conflicting and, potentially, mutually incompatible? All these points where we have to let go of “self” for the sake of “others” or “cohesion.” (Notes Two)

Maybe “our role” is always to stand in that place between the individual and the collective? This sense in which we’re all unique, all human, yet all need to make space for everyone else if our ideals are to become a reality. Understanding where we stand – what our actions and interactions play into – then responding in ways that bring our vision of “what matters” to life seems one interpretation of human existence. (Notes Three)

Who’s to say, really? Maybe our role is whatever we choose to make it? We can stand within the collective realities that enrich and sustain our own mindfully or carelessly. We can let society define our lives so completely that we lose the sense of who “we” actually are. We can rail against the impertinence of anyone, individually or systemically, asking anything of us, or recognise the value in cooperation. (Notes Four)

While, by our nature, we exist in number, finding this balance between “us” and “everyone else” seems strangely elusive.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Treating people like sims?
Note 1: The difference humanity makes
Note 1: Value and meaning in our lives
Note 2: Society as an imposition?
Note 2: Authenticity & writing our own story
Note 2: What holds it all together
Note 3: The self within society
Note 3: What we create by our presence
Note 3: In the deep end…
Note 4: The incredible responsibility of freedom
Note 4: Common sense as a rare and essential quality
Note 4: Being trusted to use our discernment…

Ways to share this:

Desire to retreat, need to engage

In so many aspects of life, the desire to retreat can easily seem as strong as the need to engage. Almost as if all the problems of the past and difficulties of the present engulf us within complex situations we can perhaps only hope to resolve: time, flowing into our lives, presenting us with a picture of all we need to fix if the future’s not to be worse or, even, the same.

On the personal as much as the collective or systemic levels, so much is deeply flawed (Notes One). And, in ways we cannot – as human beings – resign ourselves to simply letting be part of our lives. Don’t we have a responsibility, as thinking beings, to ensure that the world we’re upholding makes sense and bears up to scrutiny? To make sure our reasoning holds water.

Sometimes it seems the whole of our history can be seen as the paths from ignorance to enlightenment: all that we didn’t know, understand or appreciate gradually being brought to light through the extremely valid resistance to practices or ways of being that don’t live up to the ideals we’ve placed at the helm of modern Western society.

Almost as if the path of civilisation is this outworking of thought, as reality itself tests our commitment to the principles we rightly hold dear – equality, freedom, togetherness. All the time we get it wrong, isn’t it vitally important that’s challenged? Individually or collectively, letting people know when values aren’t yet being successfully brought to life seems essential to the realisation of any ideals.

If, though, life is lived somewhere between ideas and realities, how are we to stand within it when both our thinking and our systems may be mistaken? Are we to cling to things, refusing to budge or re-evaluate where our thoughts may’ve come from? Holding dearly to the psychological or material security that past may have furnished us with. Or, throw it away from us in disgusted betrayal?

Unpicking the formative ideas which shaped our thinking as much as they did the realities that we’re trying to understand seems an incredibly complicated, confronting task (Notes Two). Aren’t our thoughts deeply nested within our environment and the beliefs – worthy or otherwise – of those who sought to help us find our feet within it? Isn’t “all this” a strangely tangled, intensely lived blend of various people’s intentions?

As humans – often, identified mostly with thought – changing our minds about anything seems understandably challenging. Where are we to stand as we unpick these threads we’d been given and lived our lives around? Are we to doubt everything, if we come to see our own judgement or understanding as having been flawed? Does the ground beneath us simply crumble? (Notes Three)

That we stand in the flow of time, picking up what’s handed to us, seems strange; even if it’s the only way we can really go about things. Hopefully, in shoring up our foundations, we’re better prepared to find the right paths from here.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Is this the ultimate test?
Note 1: Making adjustments
Note 1: Finding flaws
Note 2: Where do we get our ideas from?
Note 2: “The Measure of a Man”
Note 2: Power in what we believe
Note 3: The world we’re living in
Note 3: The value of a questioning attitude?
Note 3: How things change

How we might know when we’re on the right track was also part of Doing the right thing, we erase consequences.

Ways to share this:

Connecting truthfully with life

Isn’t life a case of needing to know who we are and where we stand? Not just in the sense of our own personality or background, important as those are, but also the larger sense of our place within the ongoing flow of humans calling this their home. Maybe our heritage, our responsibility, is as much “human” as it is systemic or personal? “To live” being to stand within it all.

Understanding this world we’re stepping into – what we’ve been aiming for; how well it’s going; which parts our lives play in the success of any particular aspect of it – seems important if we’re to have any ability to correct things as they drift off track (Notes One). This sense of needing to line ourselves, our thoughts, up truthfully with “reality” in order to fill our roles wisely and responsibly.

And it’s interesting, in that light, to think how much of all we’re told sits within theories other people have about life: political, economic, social, spiritual, psychological beliefs others hold now or held in the past. In a way, aren’t almost all the thoughts we have about reality simply theories we’ve accepted and built our lives around? The best, most convincing or pragmatic solutions we’ve been offered so far.

If we had the “perfect” theory – one that encompassed absolutely everything and guided it all towards total harmony, eradicating every problem on the way – life would, presumably, line up with our thinking and all our actions fit perfectly within it. Its compelling logic having been something our minds could not deny, we might’ve happily taken our place within such a beautiful theoretical system.

As it is, it often seems we’re living jumbled up alongside all kinds of ideas about life – all the many and various interpretations people have made, conclusions they’ve reached, and plans they’ve set in motion. Each action, each word constantly spilling over into this shared space we all people by our presence. Each person, conceivably, having quite different ideas in mind about what’s going on and what it all means.

Surely though, somewhere, truth comes into it? This idea that there’s truth behind our intentions, our understanding, our capacity, that we could, somehow, manage to communicate between us. Creating common knowledge, if you will, over what we meant – however imperfectly we might have executed our vision. This “truth” that’s somehow split among each one of us; until we succeed in bringing it to life. (Notes Two)

Learning what everything means – behaviours, systems, expressions, artefacts – seems the essential task of education (Notes Three). This sense in which we’re forever trying to pass on an understanding of what matters, so people know enough to take their place in this world. As if, by learning the “code” for reading reality and speaking into it, we’ll eventually appreciate what it all means and act well on that knowledge.

With the world now being so blended and fast-moving, though, how can we ever be completely sure of whatever “truth” we have in mind?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Navigation, steering & direction
Note 1: Understanding what we’re all part of
Note 1: One thing leads to another
Note 1: The power of understanding
Note 2: Joining the dots
Note 2: Modern challenges to relationship
Note 2: How much do intentions matter?
Note 2: Diplomacy and knowing where we stand
Note 2: Is honesty actually the best policy?
Note 3: Where education stands within society
Note 3: Passing on what’s important
Note 3: Common knowledge

Ways to share this:

The incredible responsibility of freedom

Imagining freedom as this network of fine lines between us – all the choices we’re free to enjoy within society’s invisible contract, up to the point where those actions might infringe upon others – how much faith is being placed in our willingness and ability to use it wisely?

And how often, instead, are we conceiving of it more in terms of “I’m free to do as I please”, “you can’t stop me” or “what are they going to do about it?” This strange way we have of stretching limits, testing boundaries, and seeing if anyone cares enough to stop us. As an attitude, it seems present from childhood and perhaps it never leaves us – maybe it’s natural we test invisible walls to check if they’re real? (Notes One)

Isn’t freedom essentially this invisible construct of thought we’re attempting to bring into reality? This grand project of declaring people free then sketching out the conditions needed for that to work – figuring out all the lines where one person meets another and their freedoms risk being mutually incompatible (Notes Two). This pre-emptive defence of each person’s freedom through laying out everyone’s responsibilities.

And it’s amazing to think just how much the world’s changed since that project began: how far we’ve shifted from the fairly simple, reality-based communities of last century to the fast-paced, virtual reality of today (Notes Three). So much has been deconstructed, threaded back together and placed in our hands by way of technology – almost every area of life having been reworked by that way of thinking.

Aren’t our freedoms now feeding into countless inscrutable systems? Everything we do rippling out as an example or impact on others. Especially given the contagious nature of social behaviour and the “trends” of thought or action it quickly sets in motion. Sometimes it seems completely conceivable that freedom – at the extreme, careless greed and self-insistence – might be a force capable of destabilising the whole world.

If we’re free to do as we please with the options placed freely before us, what will we make of that opportunity? How much of the world’s resources will be pulled into meeting our seemingly insatiable desire for “more”? How many troublesome forces will we let run amok through communities, landscapes or lives? (Notes Four)

Maybe there’s no end to it, if no one stops us? “The law” might sketch in the boundaries where we’re at risk of doing harm to ourselves, others or society itself, but if freedom’s largely being seen as “doing whatever we like, as long as it’s profitable” then perhaps that overrules any concern we might have for the environment, social cohesion or human suffering.

But if, as citizens as much as consumers, everything we choose to do “matters” – our social, personal, political, economic, environmental, cultural choices deeply impacting the world we all share – then maybe freedom “must” come hand-in-hand with a weighty responsibility of understanding, compassion and self-discipline (Notes Five). Otherwise, aren’t we at risk of having it taken away for our own safety?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Invisible ties
Note 1: What keeps us in check
Note 1: Picking up after one another
Note 2: Authenticity & writing our own story
Note 2: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 2: Having confidence in complex systems
Note 2: Trust within modern society
Note 3: Pace of change & getting nowhere fast
Note 3: How quickly things can change
Note 3: Social starting points for modern ways
Note 4: Freedom, responsibility & choice
Note 4: The insatiable desire for more
Note 4: At what cost, for humans & for nature
Note 5: What we create by our presence
Note 5: Freedom, what to lean on & who to believe
Note 5: Being trusted to use our discernment…
Note 5: Too much responsibility?

Ideas around preparing people for the responsibility of freedom – and, the things that might cause us to lose it – were one aspect of “Brave New World Revisited” back in 2017.

Ways to share this:

Knowing the value of what you have

How much do we value what we have in life? Sometimes it seems a lot more time is spent drawing up lists of wishes or things we’d like to change than is spent appreciating all we actually have. It’s probably where gratitude practices have slipped in – techniques people are using to pull focus out of the past or the future and place it more firmly into the present moment. Because, isn’t it important that we do?

If we’re not valuing things rightly, how will we know to preserve them? Understanding the importance, significance or worth of something seems an essential step toward insuring we protect and carry forward everything that truly matters (Notes One). If we’re forgetting – or, never being told – what matters and why, don’t we risk leaving behind things we and others may wish we hadn’t?

At various times here I’ve mused over all the past places in our hands: the heritage of history with all its artefacts and forms of wisdom; the systems we’re living within; the responsibility of maintaining and, hopefully, enriching it all (Notes Two). This sense in which the passing of time forever hands the treasures of the past and possibility of refining them into the care of subsequent generations.

It seems such an important task to convey the meaning of all that’s gone before; the vision people had in mind; the work still in hand. This momentous passing down of “all it is to be human” alongside an appreciative grasp of all the everyday activities and attitudes that help keep everything running smoothly (Notes Three). Don’t we need both the bigger picture and the practical details in order to carry on that work?

When it comes to Western society, then, how much do we value what it offers? What was this strange intellectual activity that set about arguing for and enshrining in law the principles of universal human freedom? This attempt to delineate every aspect of our lives then create a framework of mutually beneficial boundaries within which individuals can live as they please. (Notes Four)

Perhaps it’s simply this notion of us all being free to pursue our interests, chart our course, and clamber to the top of whatever mountains we’ve been inspired to climb. This sense of everyone making their own way – making the most of what nature gave them – in the economic and cultural environment of any given society. Of taking the ideal of freedom and working it into the fabric of society.

It seems such an admirable step within the history of humanity – to have applied our minds to working out the conditions for us all to exercise our freedom without stepping on one another’s toes. The very idea of creating a system able to contain and carry all people forward toward a better, more harmonious, less problematic future seems a beautiful thing for the past to have thrown its energy behind.

As those on the receiving end, isn’t this a weighty treasure to have placed in our hands?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Seeing, knowing and loving
Note 1: Value and meaning in our lives
Note 1: Appreciating other ways of being
Note 2: Cutting corners
Note 2: Trust in technology?
Note 2: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 2: Life’s never been simpler…
Note 2: On whose terms?
Note 3: Passing on what’s important
Note 3: Understanding what we’re all part of
Note 3: If society’s straining apart, what do we do?
Note 3: Society as an imposition?
Note 4: Mutual awareness and accommodation?
Note 4: “Quest for a Moral Compass”
Note 4: Plato & “The Republic”

Ways to share this:

Where’s the reset button & can we press it?

If the world were a system we could somehow reset, which point would we choose to return to? Beyond that, could we actually be confident we’d do much better at things than we have done? While it might be tempting to imagine things having taken a different course – this collective process of “what if” – it’s perhaps hard to see exactly where, why or how things drifted off in all these questionable directions.

Then there’s the fact that with any “what if” – be it individual or collective – we clearly risk losing the good with the bad: those being the paths that brought us to exactly this moment with these thoughts, experiences, connections and relationships, would we ever truly choose to “delete” those gains in the hope of some hypothetical, idealised alternative? Maybe there’s a truth to our paths; a wisdom gained through walking them.

The “what if” seems a natural process of thought, though: this re-running to pinpoint exactly where something went wrong and how we might’ve acted differently for another outcome. The mind as a sort of memory-detective seeking insight through analysing, deconstructing and re-imagining things. At its most extreme, perhaps we’d end up trapped in our own past, paralysed by our mistakes.

Of course, there may be value to be gained in understanding and learning from events – seeing our agency in them and how our mistaken beliefs or interpretations might’ve influenced things in ways we now know to avoid. The past, in many ways, being the teacher of all we didn’t yet know or fully appreciate the significance of (Notes One).

There seems a certain tangled wisdom to the fact that, looking back, we’re always judging with the eyes experience has honed for us: having been through things, we now know to see them differently. As if life itself is revealing our shortcomings to us by highlighting all those things we didn’t quite understand as we should.

If the systems of the West are struggling, then, is it because we didn’t quite understand how to create a society that actually “worked”? This sense in which the past’s finest, most influential thinkers put together this “thing” we now live within: this interlocking, mutually reinforcing set of ideas, assumptions, principles, theories and practices that, over time, have evolved and developed into all we now find around us (Notes Two).

Imagining that, in all likelihood, one or many of those ideas could’ve been flawed, mightn’t we now find ourselves within rather a large, complex “machine” weighed down by the cumbersome inertia of tradition but carried along by its own momentum? How are we to manoeuvre within such a system to correct any mistakes and redress all the many problems they’ve caused? (Notes Three)

Maybe this is “always” the case with any kind of history? That, having learnt from the paths it placed us on, we can see the need for change. Being sure we know enough to avoid creating further problems ourselves, though, seems an equally important thing to be grappling with.

Notes and References:

Note 1: The philosopher stance
Note 1: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 1: On whose terms?
Note 1: Imperfection as perfection?
Note 2: One thing leads to another
Note 2: Humans, tangled in these systems
Note 2: Shaping the buildings that shape us
Note 2: “Quest for a Moral Compass”
Note 2: The self within society
Note 3: Pace of change & getting nowhere fast
Note 3: Knowledge, capacity & understanding
Note 3: Having confidence in complex systems
Note 3: What if solutions aren’t solutions?
Note 3: “The Obstacle is the Way”

Imagining where we are headed and how we might get there was also the focus of Navigation, steering & direction.

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