Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Across cultures, practices that limit ego and hierarchy help sustain cooperation and trust. In an era of cascading crises, rediscovering these “social technologies” could strengthen community resilience and collective action.
In the first instalment of a new series on thinking about the future, Nate Hagens argues that most debates about what lies ahead are shaped by a single competing narrative. He introduces “scenario thinking” as a way to hold multiple possible futures at once, and explores why this is psychologically and culturally difficult in practice.
As references to rivers, trees, and wildlife fade from books, songs, and everyday speech, our connection to the natural world also diminishes. Reclaiming these words can help us recognize, appreciate, and ultimately, preserve the environment.
Indeed, our negative emotions are used to divide and exploit us, to confuse us from seeing who (or what) is behind the curtain pulling the levers. You can stop that cycle, at least with your own life and your own consciousness.
The Shadow is everything about yourself you hate so much that you’re not willing to admit that it’s part of yourself.
Whether we manage to find our way through depends primarily on what goes on inside our minds – on whether we’re able to manage our mental and emotional states at a time of extraordinary turbulence; whether we reach for the right stories to explain what’s happening at this moment in history; and above all, whether enough of us can see ourselves as part of a larger ‘Us’ instead of a ‘them-and-us,’ or just an atomised ‘I.’
Is there a way out of the magic lantern show? Schopenhauer and Jung both argued that yes, there is—not, to be sure, a way to turn off the magic lantern, but a way to stop mistaking the projections for realities.
One could argue that those who are very close to the reality of climate change are particularly prone to a need to split their identity. The knowledge they have, and the images they have seen, might unconsciously lead them to the above-mentioned counter-balancing and coping behaviours.
For years my father–who is a really great guy–has been telling me that I’d be a happier person if I didn’t write about all the converging threats bearing down on the human race. Turns out he’s right!
Stress, anxiety, PTSD among likely impacts to overall well-being,
During the Pleistocene evolution favored those humans who left the most descendants so our evolved instincts encourage us to procreate, seek status and consume resources. Now sustainability is an existential issue and these instincts and our invention of technology are threatening our future.
If you visit John Michael Greer’s Amazon Page you are likely to be incredulous when you discover how many books he has written, and you’ll soon discover that collecting all of his articles online is nearly an impossible task. A voracious reader, a prolific writer, a brilliant thinker whose work is intermittently sprinkled with delightful humor, Greer has become one of the most prominent and credible voices among those articulating the collapse of industrial civilization.
