Category: Change

What if, despite all our finest efforts and ideas, we don’t yet have the answers? If, looking to either past or present, the plans we dreamt up and systems we’ve set in motion simply don’t lead where we thought they would? Perhaps they even create further problems or unintentionally compound the ones we’ve been struggling to resolve. Isn’t it possible that our understanding might’ve gone off-track in deeply significant ways?

If so, we might throw all our energy at things and never achieve what we hope; forever frustrated at the constant re-emergence of new, old or simply different problems. It could be we’ll spend years unpicking and redressing our problematic solutions. Because, if we’re not on the right path or looking at situations the right way, how can we expect our answers to be the right ones?

Could it be that we’ve taken a few left turns and shifted the conversation to places we won’t ever find truly suitable solutions? Drifted into looking at “how things are” slightly askew – from the wrong sort of angle to see where they fit or the path out of it all to something better. Don’t we need to see and interpret things correctly if we’re to be in the position to find answers? (Notes One)

But then, is it worth thinking that way or is this the kind of existential doubt that’s best left alone? Isn’t it better to “know” than plough on with subtle or dramatic misconceptions of reality? Isn’t our understanding always worth pulling into question, just to be sure we’re not digging holes we’d rather be getting out of?

Maybe it’s a depressing thought; but it might also be inspiring. It’s almost a relief to think that none of the ideas we’ve been throwing around are actually capable of containing the human spirit – bringing out the best in us, discouraging the worst, letting everyone contribute all they’re able and no one hoard more than they personally “need”.

If everything on the table’s still imperfect, then seeing our thinking as potentially flawed or incomplete could perhaps help awaken more open-mindedness. It’s the kind of realisation that could serve as a prelude to more deliberate re-engagement in forging the kind of life we’re all looking for (Notes Two).

Might we not choose to live forever delving deeper into the nature of the human and the world? In a state of seeking greater understanding and constant improvement; of things being flexible and responsive, rather than set in stone; society shifting around us in a beautifully choreographed dance of “life” as we all play our active role in making it “work”.

We so often look at “problems” and propose confident solutions, but what if they’re not? What if anything logically carved out and imposed, instead of intrinsically lived, is destined to fall short? We might seek clear, conclusive, lasting outcomes from relatively short-term projects – hoping to resolve everything once and for all – but maybe life’s more of an ongoing game of insistent awareness and creativity.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Caught in these thoughts
Note 1: Is this the ultimate test?
Note 1: On whose terms?
Note 1: Which voice can we trust?
Note 1: Ideals & the pursuit of them
Note 2: What it is to be human
Note 2: Authenticity & writing our own story
Note 2: True relationship within society?
Note 2: The idea of think globally, act locally
Note 2: Losing the sense of meaning

Finding honest, constructive ways to address life’s many powerful contradictions was also the focus of “Minding the Earth, Mending the World”.

How often are we told things that aren’t entirely “true”? Say, for example, that women are equal to men. Theoretically I believe it’s absolutely true; but, in practice? In reality so much is set up within society, culture, relationships and economic structures that it’s not “really” true even if it should be. Does it make life more difficult if we’re told such hopeful lies?

It’s something I think about a lot (Notes One), as finding a powerfully honest understanding of reality that helps formulate useful responses to it is probably what matters most to me in life. If we’re not truly grasping what’s actually going on, how are we supposed to interact wisely and constructively with all that’s crossing our path?

And, coming back to the hopeful lies train of thought, might it not be true that believing things that haven’t yet found their way into the realities of life potentially makes things more difficult? If we’re all head-in-the-clouds believing theories are the same as facts won’t “reality” come as a bit of a shock? It seems to risk us becoming angry, disappointed, depressed, frustrated, and vengeful. Haven’t we been betrayed, on some level?

On the level of thought, perhaps – having believed a conceptual fact to be a reality, taken what we were told and expected life to fit those perspectives (Notes Two). Telling people something we hope will become true or believe should be true just doesn’t seem entirely realistic to me; and it seems to set us all up for some kind of fall.

But I also see that changing how people think is an important step in changing how things are. So, if we’re hoping to change how things are then changing how people think is presumably a logical strategy: we can get in there and plant seeds of change so these people, at least, will start to expect something more from society. I’d imagine that’s the thinking behind telling children, particularly, hopeful lies.

Perhaps it’s this idealistic mask we place over realities? The “how things should be” approach to perceiving what’s actually around us. As if the dissonance and discomfort that’s bound to create will awaken the indignation needed to bring those ideals to life. It seems such an intriguing, convoluted and potentially risky path to change – won’t it create a lot of anger?

Paths to change, though, are probably never going to be easy (Notes Three). Changing all the systems, thinking and assumptions that underpin our social structures and cultural ideas is such an incredibly ambitious and important project. Isn’t working towards a time when reality will reflect our finest ideals a sort of projecting ourselves into the future? Casting our minds forward with this picture of how things could be.

Change probably always needs such a vision – a conceptual sense of how things could work and why it’s so essential they do. In that light, perhaps it’s really the case that “hopeful lies” might be serving a valuable function as we walk that path.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Frameworks of how we relate
Note 1: Thoughts of idealism and intolerance
Note 1: Do we need meaning?
Note 1: This thing called love
Note 2: Caught in these thoughts
Note 2: Which voice can we trust?
Note 2: How ideas find their place in the world
Note 2: Culture as a conversation across time
Note 3: The world we’re living in
Note 3: All we want to do passes through community
Note 3: Making adjustments
Note 3: Patience with the pace of change

Walking another path, somewhere alongside this, there’s Is honesty actually the best policy?

Fairly often, here, I find myself musing over how pursuing something in the world of thought often seems to come at the expense of real-world realities (Notes One). How it’s apparently so easy to attach ourselves to the thought of perfection in any given direction, then berate everyone for not having yet achieved it

Idealism clearly gives us something to work towards: a sense of what’s possible, the value of pursuing it, and how life, eventually, could be. It’s perhaps providing us with the goals, priorities or beliefs that motivate and guide our behaviour – the stars that light our path, the vision of all that could be, the hope of somehow getting everything and everyone aligned so the dream can become a reality.

But how much can get folded into a desire for perfection or steps in its direction? What kind of actions and attitudes can we justify toward others in walking that path? “Can” we be intolerant, judgemental and force others to accept our conclusions simply because we believe we’re “right”? What happens if, in pursuing our ideals, we’re behaving poorly?

It just seems that reality is so flawed, so jumbled up with commercial interests, inherited patterns of behaviour, and the simple reality of human nature (Notes Two). We’re all nestled into these systems that’ve been shaping us since the day we were born; telling us what to think and how to act with heavy doses of moralising, fear and expectation.

Unearthing, from that, the reasons we do the things we do, why things are this way, and what alternatives there might be isn’t easy. It’s bringing all our personal lives plus our collective life to full awareness (Notes Three). It’s also, often, asking that we extend ourselves beyond the national and international to the systemic and planetary perspective – the heights of idealism.

And that’s great. There’s real value in idealism; but it’s not without problems (Notes Four). Sometimes it just seems we’re all getting beaten round the head with how things should be; how we should be; all the ways we’re wrong and need improvement. It’s the conversation of advertising, of news, of social media, and, increasingly, of everyday life. We might argue it’s for the best, but at what cost?

I just wonder whether it’s the best path: all this criticism, blame, insistence. Rather than pushing our thoughts into another’s space, could we not take time to understand them, their perspective and how life brought them to it? We’re seeming so intolerant lately; telling but never asking, assuming we know where people stand, why they’re simply wrong, and what they should think or do instead.

There may not be much time for conversation these days, but without it I’m unsure how well idealism is going to play out. Presumably, all these battle lines are effectively our ideals and how we’re attempting to bring them to life? And, if that’s the case, what’s really the best attitude to take toward anyone on the other side of those lines?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Would we be right to insist?
Note 1: Humans, judgement & shutting down
Note 1: The value & cost of our words
Note 2: Life’s never been simpler…
Note 2: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 2: Dystopia as a powerful ideal
Note 3: All we want to do passes through community
Note 3: The idea of think globally, act locally
Note 3: Can we manage all-inclusive honesty?
Note 3: Economy as a battleground
Note 4: Ideals & the pursuit of them
Note 4: Imperfection as perfection?

In life, we often like feedback. To know that something we’ve done has gone well, worked, made things better. Whether that’s a natural instinct or something inculcated in us by education, psychology or other theories of human motivation is perhaps impossible to answer – once we’re used to receiving confirmation, its absence can easily make us anxious or insecure.

Apparently, it’s neurochemicals: when we receive praise or condemnation it creates reactions in the brain that filter on through the body to make us feel either good or bad, shaping our next response by way of that “message”. This carrot and stick approach to behaviour change through reward and punishment, acceptance or rejection, happiness or fear (Notes One).

It’s clearly pretty effective, much as I’m not convinced using such techniques to achieve “our” outcomes is particularly respectful or, ultimately, wise. Thinking about it, my concern seems to be that it’s making us externally motivated: we’re trained to use social cues from our environment in order to evaluate ourselves. Society’s standing around us, clapping or frowning in this big show of approval.

And it’s strange, because who are we trying to impress? Is society’s approval worth gaining? It is if we want to belong to it, obviously; but, beyond that, are its “standards” truly valuable? Are these simply “tribes”, formed around any given principle, for the sake of creating belonging and motivation within a world left slightly desolate by the fading of tradition and community?

Thoughts have pulled me a little off track. My point, really, is how we’re so conditioned to look for feedback: parenting, education, social life, all largely work off this use of punishment and reward. We shame, coerce, praise, smile, withdraw affection, hint at perilous danger, make people face consequences. This subtle form of communication whereby some hope to shape others’ behaviour “for the better”.

How much of life is spent talking about consequences? Thanking people, admiring their work, fretting about mistakes, strategizing over how choices might play out. Life, in many ways, is simply thought and action as a feedback loop: we decide what to do, see how it goes, reflect on the experience, and repeat or change our behaviour (Notes Two).

But, is our judgement of what’s “right” determined by that crowd expressing approval or some other means? Often, the right path is one that avoids causing problems: knowing enough to get ahead of ourselves and set everything up to work smoothly (Notes Three). Understanding how to act to preserve and enrich life for the future is, presumably, the path of wisdom? A kind of thinking that imagines, sees fully, acts accordingly.

When that happens, though, we’re erasing the consequences that previously alerted us to something being wrong. Once you understand, you lose feedback – the environment sends no messages. You might stand alone; hopefully, confident in the knowledge you did the right thing. It’s almost as if wisdom creates silence: no ripples, no dramas, no reassuring feedback, only the quiet sense of having known what to do.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Fear or coercion as motivators
Note 1: Need to suffer in order to change?
Note 1: Tell me why I should
Note 2: Imperfection as perfection?
Note 2: Problems & the thought that created them
Note 3: The beauty in home economics
Note 3: Passivity, or responsibility
Note 3: Making adjustments

Broadening this out to the more systemic perspective, there’s Can we solve our own problems?

The idea that we can’t solve problems using the same thinking we used in creating them is a strange thought. Generally attributed to Albert Einstein, it’s perhaps a thought that arises when you start contemplating the idea of achieving progress by way of thinking: how can we get beyond the situations we’re in?

Because if we’re in any kind of situation we presumably didn’t know not to enter into it? If situations are like agreements or, more tangibly, spaces, those who knew more might simply have refused to go there – walked on by without engaging with what was on offer. Wherever we are, it’s perhaps because, at some point, we didn’t know better. (Notes One)

If all our encounters are choice points, suggestions we either accept or challenge, then our lives are conceivably the outplaying of our agreements (Notes Two). In accepting a premise about our worth, that of others, or the value of life itself we’re surely then building our lives around that step we’ve taken? Even if we did so unknowingly, trustingly or while distracted by other things.

So, in a way, problems seem to be those things we didn’t yet know. Maybe we didn’t see where they might lead, how one thing leads to another until circumstances close in. Maybe we didn’t grasp what things might mean, the picture we were agreeing to paint, until, stepping back, we began wishing it were different.

Which, I suppose, is simply a new level of insight? After the fact. With the perspective of time, we’ve learnt more and would do things a little differently. We’ve perhaps gained some wisdom from having lived through things, watched how they played out, reflected on issues at stake and that which exacerbates or heals them.

It’s almost as if life is “learning the hard way”: learning those things we didn’t know; finding paths from ignorance to enlightenment; uncovering greater knowledge than we previously possessed. Hopefully, rather than repeating the same dramas of a stuck way of thinking, we’re able to rise above and compassionately see where our ideas are causing problems.

On the personal level, it’s presumably where therapy steps in – someone attempting to help you unearth your thinking then rework it into more healthy or productive patterns. Collectively, I’m unsure there’s a therapeutic equivalent – where within the life of society do comparable conversations happen? Politics? Marketing? Spirituality?

Back to the point, to avoid problems it seems that someone, somehow, needs a new level of insight. If problems exist, it’s arguably due to something we didn’t fully understand or appreciate: facts, relationships, consequences. Rather than placing blame, could we perhaps deepen our understanding and find another way? (Notes Three)

In this light, change seems this vast interpersonal journey of struggles, growth, and constant re-evaluation. This ongoing path toward greater awareness, clearer intentions, a more thorough sense of all that goes into making life work. Then, the challenge of sharing our insights and the sobering realisation that even these solutions might not be the endpoint.

Notes and References:

Note 1: The dignity & power of a human life
Note 1: Working through mind & society
Note 1: The power of understanding
Note 2: One thing leads to another
Note 2: Caught in these thoughts
Note 2: Ideas that tie things together
Note 2: Do we need meaning?
Note 3: Convergence and divergence
Note 3: The value of a questioning attitude?
Note 3: Making adjustments
Note 3: Would we be right to insist?

Related to all this, there’s Ways thought adds spin to life which looked further at the role of the mind.

What is the course of life? One step, one decision – be it in action, word or interpretation – effectively becoming the new foundation of where we stand and all we’ve accepted as true, right or real up to that point? Ultimately, a journey. And, generally, a journey from ignorance or limitation toward growth and understanding.

We build, putting one thing on top of another, taking some things as given and adding others by way of our choices. There’s perhaps always a set of assumptions at the base of whatever we’re constructing? Some beliefs or ideas we don’t think to question or don’t even “see” as questionable; proceeding, instead, to build on them as if they had the solidity of truth (Note One).

Whether we look to society, civilisation or the individual, there seems to be this cumulative path of all those things we’ve accepted as true or conceded to structure our lives around. Suggestions accepted, as hypnotists or improvisers might say (Note Two). We construct these things that all rest upon one another, coming together as something that resembles a whole.

It’s perhaps a slightly precarious thing to pick at – a house of cards or pillar of sticks that might simply collapse if we inadvertently damage its integrity or doubt its coherence. What is it that keeps things together? Participation? Obligation? Understanding? Faith? Interestingly, things like self or society do seem to be held together as much through our involvement as through our belief (Notes Three).

I might’ve gone a little off track there, as really my point is around how things accumulate to become “the way things are.” Once a few steps have been taken, a few ideas accepted and built upon, we have something to lose: the structure, the progress, the unerring narrative, the sense of security, the pride or value we’ve assigned to our product. We’re invested and want to defend the thing we’ve built, preserve it somehow.

And what if some things were mistaken? What if we’ve made a few moves but now think it might be wiser to go back? Is that allowed or do we have to plough on regardless, twisting our storyline to justify this path we’re on?

The journey we take in thought alongside those we take in reality is fascinating to me. What are we doing here? Western society – any society – seems built on a set of premises, ideals, values, suggestions, policies. Year on year, generation by generation, we’re adding to that as we look at it with fresh eyes and make some new moves.

Might we not end up with some contorted interpretation of where we once began? Living in a strange reality but feeling unable to question, unpick, re-evaluate or alter the steps that have brought us here. Any journey, hopefully, changes us: our views at the end of it may make us wish some things could be different (Notes Four).

If that’s the case, personally or collectively, how we might go about changing such things seems so, incredibly, important.

Notes and References:

Note 1: The value of a questioning attitude?
Note 2: Spiritually committed literature
Note 3: The philosopher stance
Note 3: If society’s straining apart, what do we do?
Note 3: Power in what we believe
Note 4: All that’s going on around us
Note 4: Things change, over time

On a more personal note, Starting over in life very much runs parallel to these thoughts.

Talking about anything, we open up a conversation that welcomes or excludes others: by the terms we use and attitude with which we approach a subject, we’re establishing terrain people might feel comfortable approaching or defensively in need of self-protection.

In many ways, communication can seem easy: we have words and sentences, ideas of what things mean, how thoughts should flow and people should feel. Isn’t it just a case of ‘getting our views across’? Superimposing our vision to ‘correct’ another’s? Pushing our thinking into other heads using every tool at our disposal (see Notes One).

It’s often what seems to be happening. But don’t ideas generally come from experiences? Understanding having arisen in us as a result of all we’ve been through, whether that’s formal education or life’s more haphazard paths (Notes Two). Conceivably, every thought, belief, attitude and assumption has been handed down to us somehow or another.

And, of course, we can be mistaken. Events can be strung together any number of ways to reach different, sometimes flawed, conclusions. Our chain of reasoning, the meaning or causality we assign each link, can easily go awry.

Beyond our personal understanding, then, ‘is’ there a shared landscape where collective, all-encompassing interpretations might be found? It’s quite a philosophical question: whether there’s an objective view of reality, and the extent to which human minds can grasp it. Thought – ideals, values, principles, intentions – clearly plays an important part in our lives; much as its practical application might often be flawed (Notes Three).

Which, I suppose, is where communicating enters the territory of activism as people seek to improve their world through words and actions: raising awareness; giving voices to seemingly remote realities; articulating how much something matters to them and others. How else will things change?

People standing behind their values can be beautiful – that calm insistence on the importance of a given principle, the resounding power of such self-assurance as the human heart attempts to bring ideals down into reality. But it’s also tough drawing a moral line, because, almost inevitably, you’re placing people on the other side of it.

Managing that may well be the hardest social challenge (Notes Four). Is it possible without just labelling others ‘wrong’? Can we avoid either/or over-simplifications to allow for nuanced complexities, personal and social biographies, convergent and divergent threads; yet still insist on the highest ethical standards?

Lately I’ve admired a few people for striking such a tone. One was this Ellen Page article on using our lives for the good of others, and how growing awareness of society’s shortcomings can lead us to re-evaluate established ways while still remembering “times when I didn’t know all this”. Then, Jedidiah Jenkins on Instagram describing his inner and outer journeys, struggles and revelations in remarkably inclusive, compassionate ways.

Navigating the many challenges of modern life, perhaps we must each find the paths of change for ourselves? But it’s undeniably also a journey we’re taking together, so finding ways to share ideas seems fairly essential.

Notes and References:

Guardian article “Ellen Page: “I’m not afraid to say the truth” by Eva Wiseman, 20 January 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/jan/20/ellen-page-im-not-afraid-to-say-the-truth-interview-coming-out

Jedidiah Jenkins on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jedidiahjenkins/?hl=en

Note 1: Pick a side, any side
Note 1: Attempts to influence
Note 2: Seeing, knowing and loving
Note 2: Is anything obvious to someone who doesn’t know?
Note 2: What we know to pass on
Note 3: The philosopher stance
Note 3: Ideas that tie things together
Note 4: Dealing with imperfection
Note 4: Making adjustments

For more ideas around life, identity and change, there’s The idea of self reliance, Krishnamurti’s “Inward Revolution” & “The Measure of a Man”.

It’s such an intriguing thought to think that graphite and diamond are made of essentially the same substance, simply arranged differently, having a different backstory. How it’s only their differences at a structural level that create their divergent forms and qualities: one of the softest minerals or one of the hardest and most prized. It’s quite beautiful really, that the basic stuff of life can take such different paths.

The way that fundamental choices such as the bonds we make might make all the difference to outcomes. That time, heat and pressure can paradoxically produce something immensely strong, beautiful and valuable. There seems a lot of meaning there – many lessons we could take away from the wisdom nature offers us (see Notes One).

Carbon being one of these essential building blocks of life, it’s quite amazing to think how versatile it is and all the ways it sustains and enriches our existence. Science can seem a little complex and pedantic sometimes, but at its core there’s almost this beautiful poetry around the truths of matter, time, and relationships formed.

In many ways, existence can seem strangely beautiful on that level: how we’re all, inexplicably, here and alive and made of these substances in near-constant flux. The materials that make up life shifting in and out of different forms as they take this dance between night and day, summer and winter, warmth and cold; building up the changes over the years, the centuries, the eons of time.

We can get so caught up in all the differences, all the labels and divisions we, as humans, have created and sustained over the lifetimes; the accumulated history, meaning, cause and consequence of our time here on earth. The civilisations that’ve risen and fallen, the things we’ve learnt and passed on, building on the shoulders of what’s gone before. We carry a lot of weight, it seems, from that past (Notes Two).

And it’s incredible to think, really, the lives we’ve built for ourselves: all the advancement in knowledge and complexity of understanding; all the richness of human institutions in their pursuit of justice, wisdom, progress. It’s amazing to think of all that’s gone into the leaps that’ve been made in recent centuries, and the relative security and cooperation that’s been prioritised and brokered between us all.

Of course, none of that’s perfect. In all these areas, we might try our best; but agreeing over what’s best or what’s acceptable is never going to be easy (Notes Three). People have different agendas, different priorities, different views on life. We all have our history, standing on different sides of different battles over the years, impacted in different ways. Agreeing on one thing can be hard; agreeing on everything might seem impossible.

But it’s intriguing to wonder what is possible, what we might be able to pull together from the building blocks of matter and humanity. What we’re doing here, how we’re relating to what’s around us? All that can seem to hold great potential sometimes.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Aesthetic value of nature
Note 1: Nature speaks in many ways, do we listen?
Note 2: Does anything exist in isolation?
Note 2: Freedom, what to lean on & who to believe
Note 3: The philosopher stance
Note 3: Dealing with imperfection
Note 3: Starting over in life

Having talked at times here about how thought lines up with realities (Notes One), I’m still finding it interesting to contemplate how exactly our ideas might find their way to changing how things are.

The topic of affecting change, of bringing improvement to our lives together, seems such a huge preoccupation of our times (Notes Two). And rightly so. Modern life’s bringing new awareness to all the ways we’ve impacted one another over the years; alongside which, new ways of living are simultaneously creating further impacts we’re still getting our heads around.

Understanding what’s happening and why, grasping both the intentions behind things and the realities being created, seeing the bigger picture then somehow making sense of it, all of this becomes incredibly hard once dialled up to a frenetic global pace. If you manage it, the question of how best to respond takes things to another level yet again (Notes Three).

And, with all that, it just seems to me that we live in a flawed reality that’s arisen from originally quite fine intentions. Perhaps any society tends to arise from its best understanding? Those central principles and values that are working themselves out within our common space of agreement, history, commitment, and coordinated activity.

Following that thread, where do we end up? Once ideas have become social forms, once they’ve been peopled by our lives, once that’s picked up speed and scope with the aid of technological advancement, where do we find ourselves? If the ideas were perfect, presumably they’d be able to withstand the challenges that came through those global advancements and the forces they’ve unleashed. But whose ideas are that perfect?

In that light, it seems life must almost become a place of constant adjustment as we bring the unknown to light and offer it release. I mean, life’s surely a process of misunderstandings or imperfections being brought to light? A path of growth or progress. A journey toward greater understanding of what it is to be human and how we might best accommodate that personally, socially or environmentally.

If we’re not open to changing our views as our understanding expands, presumably we’ll be forever fighting against reality? In terms of our attitudes toward others or with regard to impacts our actions are having systemically on humans or within nature, at times it seems we’re pretty slow to change our minds. As if we’re passing on rigid rules and expectations rather than a living understanding that can bend or grow over time.

Why is it we’re reluctant to re-evaluate inherited patterns of behaviour? It doesn’t seem we really have an evolving model of thought; one that can adjust along with the revelations of reality to correct its course in achieving or reworking those original principles of society. This sense in which we need to know what we’re doing, so that we can work with it in a living way and bring it into our understanding of others (Notes Four).

Perhaps greater understanding would bring greater flexibility?

Notes and References:

Note 1: Thoughts on art & on life
Note 1: What is real?
Note 1: David Bohm, thoughts on life
Note 2: How things change
Note 2: Dealing with imperfection
Note 3: Common knowledge
Note 3: All that’s going on around us
Note 3: Dystopia as a powerful ideal
Note 3: Does anything exist in isolation?
Note 3: What holds it all together
Note 4: Conversation as revelation
Note 4: Seeing, knowing and loving

Looking at these questions in different ways, there’s Things change, over time and “Women who run with the wolves”.

If we don’t like how things are, can we just change them? It seems, individually and collectively, we’re habitual creatures and also look for ideas we can “lock in”. But life flows and changes: growing, shifting direction, adapting to conditions or opportunities. If life’s responsive but we aren’t, how does that work?

Because human society’s this growing, evolving thing (see Notes One). Ideas emerge, some drifting into policy or strongly taking hold of culture, and how we live changes. People adapt, taking advantage of all they’re entitled to, and the fabric of society is altered.

One thing leads to another and ideas make their way into our lives, shifting relationships and maybe affecting the values that are placed at the forefront of our social systems. That must be this evolving reality too: the balance of what we’re “saying” through attitudes and policies. Over time the original impetus for society must drift, small changes adding up to paint quite different pictures.

Times change too: the world we live in now’s significantly altered from a hundred years ago, even twenty years ago; the pace and weight of change seem to really be shifting fast. How can habitual creatures keep up? Should we just let go, go with the flow, see where we end up, trusting in the wisdom of change or the wisdom of those “in charge” of it? Is the only alternative to dig in our heels?

Change is fascinating to contemplate, because it happens even if we do nothing. We might do the same as we’ve ever done, but if the situation’s different that may no longer be the best action. We might like how things were and try to cling to them, but holding onto something doesn’t change the fact its time might’ve passed. Changes can be incremental or dramatic, and they can happen without us realising.

Personally or socially, in every area of life time marches on and changes must catch up with us eventually. We might not have noticed; some might have happened while we were looking elsewhere; seemingly unrelated changes might suddenly converge into a pattern that holds greater significance; we might have trusted in certain things, not realising we shouldn’t.

In the face of all that, what can we do? We can’t go back. Most things cannot be undone, much as we might’ve learnt from them and now wish we could do differently. We might have been sorely mistaken, but we can only go forwards. We could beat ourselves up, hold ourselves hostage for not having seen things clearly or blame others for not telling us, but that would incapacitate us now.

As thinking beings, keeping track of all that’s going on and understanding what matters is a massive undertaking (Notes Two). Keeping pace with modern life without getting swept up or overwhelmed by it is an incredible challenge. Being responsive in our actions, admitting mistakes, trying to all get on the same page about where things stand? None of it’s easy; but it’s life.

Notes and References:

Note 1: Complexity of life
Note 1: The conversation of society
Note 2: The philosopher stance
Note 2: Dealing with imperfection
Note 2: Right to question and decide