Looking Back, Moving Forward
Was 2022 an anomaly or the beginning of a trend that is an exception that becomes the norm?
“Indian Post Office” Lolo Trail, Montana
The Transition To A New Year
Looking back three years, and we may feel that loss and trauma are ways to understand this period of time.
Or, we can see it for what it is. A transition point that most people were not expected or prepared to go through.
The question is “What kind of transition is it?”
A few weeks ago, I published a reworking of an older post called The End and The Beginning. There I wrote the following.
What if our past experience instead of illuminating the future, obscures it? What if the way we have always approached a problem, the conduct of a single day, or the organization of our work makes it more likely that we end up not accomplishing what we envision?
Working in planning processes over the years, I've concluded that people can see what they want, but fail to reach it because of how they go about it. We can imagine the future, but not see the path that will take us there. This gap in our abilities is becoming more acute as the ways we have worked are becoming less effective.
From another perspective, we rarely see the end of something coming or the beginning of the next thing. We tend to see in retrospect. Our aversion to change, I believe, is largely because we don't like surprises. We defend the past hoping that it is sustainable into the future, even if we see a better, different one. The past, even less than ideal, at least seems known and more certain, more secure, more stable, more predictable, and more comfortable, at one level. It does not mean that it is satisfying or fulfilling, but it seems safer.
As a result, instead of providing us with a sound basis for change, the past can inhibit us from achieving the vision that we see. Instead, we live by a set of cultural forms that must be defended against change. In other words, the form of the way we live and work remains the same even after its vitality has gone.
This is a good place to begin a new year.
What concerns me is that we have transitioned from a society that looks to the future with hope and aspiration to one filled with disappointment and fear. Those last two feelings were told to me by a group of university students in Switzerland. I feel like they have absorbed a nihilism that has sprung from the upper classes of societies across the world. Fear of disease, climate change, and nuclear war are reasons for concern. But are they reasons to give up hope in the future? I don’t think so.
Realistic Optimism
This transition is really bizarre. Within my lifetime, we have transitioned from a utopian belief in the perfection of society, the end of war, and the triumph of prosperity on a global scale to a dystopian belief in the end of life on our planet. I’ve never been utopian. Nor, I have I ever accepted the notion that we are on the verge of an apocalyptic end.
Instead, I am a realistic optimist.
I believe that through hard work, collaboration, and the willingness to delay gratification we can create a better world.
To do this we must be aware of what is going on around us. This call this Situational Awareness. We also must be aware of what each of us has to contribute to make our world a better place.
Do you know what it is that if you were to contribute something from your gifts and talents, not only what that contribution would be, but what its impact would be?
I find many people missing these kinds of awareness. What they are aware of are their fears and their consumer likes. Both of these fill up our waking hours. As a result, we can’t see the needs of our loved ones or our neighbors. We can’t see the future.
My Future
I am very grateful for my life over the past year. A year ago, I was learning how to do deal with the loss of hearing in one ear and a persistent case of Vertigo. Both are still with me. I accept the limitations that come with these complications by learning how to adapt. One way was to begin to write here on Substack.
I have recorded a video that introduces my upcoming podcast and the writing that I will be doing this year. It is short and will give you some sense of what is to come.
Thank you for your support and kindness during the past year. Let’s stay in touch.
Oh, Yes! Tech is a central factor in all of this. I see that the Central Powers mistimed their advance to total control. The smart phone, even with its problem with Social Media, is the game changer. It places into the hands of people the capacity to acquire knowledge that leads to great individual empowerment.
Three years ago, i worked in Kenya with rural economic development group. I was doing leadership training. When the pandemic hit, they asked me to do produce some short videos that parallel my training. Here are the six - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkQEriztmeU&list=PL5tpYsAxrmMc7lxAM0wZko_4Rs9qH4TSF
The people who will benefit from this training are the trainers who work with people like these women who I interviewed. They were in program called the One Chicken Farm. That is where they begin. They spoke to me about their desire to be "self-sufficient" and "interdependent." This is what I see the "decentralization through networks of relationships" looking like. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkQEriztmeU&list=PL5tpYsAxrmMc7lxAM0wZko_4Rs9qH4TSF
There in Kenya, they already have a digital financial system. The Mpesa is a joint effort of the federal government and the phone company there. While I was there, I had to establish an Mpesa account because it was the only way to buy a ticket on the new standard gauge railway between Nairobi and Mombassa.
So, tech at this level becomes a force multiplier. We see it already here at Stubstack. I see it in my interactions with people around the world. There are a lot of questions that go into this. Nothing is certain. However, I see the only the Central Powers can ultimately win is by destroying the digital system that is now eroding their power.
Thank you for this, Ed. I have also been reflecting on the future a lot over the last year and one of the things that I'm often reminded of is my time, some years back, running a YT channel on cryptocurrency. I became exposed to the concept of decentralisation and the possibility that, actually, we may no longer need to have a clear vision of the future in order for it to be good. Rather we need easily accessible, geopolitically neutral substrates in fields like finance, social media, news, messaging etc. These allow novel forms to emerge, without planning, rather in the way that Airbnb or Uber have done. We may be entering a kind of post-egoic-control phase.