Shift

Gassho,

We are living in a time of radical change.  The dominant paradigm regarding societal structures no longer seem viable. We are faced with technological changes that are effectively changing how we think, what we perceive, and how we perceive. The shift from analog to digital thinking has a profound effect on this. It’s an evolutionary outcome of our cognitive and technological growth, as well as our moral development. 

Traditional conflict theory has lost its ground.  People are more interested in collaboration than dominance. We want all of us to grow and thrive with no one left behind. Cooperative models seem the most viable and, I believe the so-called “information highway “ is one of the major vehicles enabling or perhaps even driving this change.  Knowledge is gained and shared, different social models are out there to be examined and experimented with, and we each can access this knowledge with a few clicks on our various devices. 

People respond to these changes in differing ways. Conservatives wish to hold on to past models, progressives accept and often wish to enable this change.

The evolutionary model of social change has its appeal. It can absorb the conflict model as the energy for change, yet remain in the larger context as a flowing stream. The water engages the rock and subtly changes it giving rise to sand. Different from water; different from rock.

We are at a point where the rock is becoming sand.

Lots of rocks resist the water. Some rocks look forward to being sand. Others are along for the process, swept up in it and passively witnessing it.

Our nature is change. Like it or not, it’s what we do. The evolution of our planet demands compliance to change. Resistance is futile.  Acceptance is life. 

When we talk about happiness we should be talking about our relationship to change.  The species that lives with the flow is happy. Those who resist the flow are not. This doesn’t mean we are to be victims in the process, far from it. What it means is we are awake in the process, engaging the process and doing what we can to go in the direction of our survival .  

There’s a phrase I like but rarely use: being in  concert. When we are in concert there’s a synthesis, a collaboration. It is this collaboration that I believe is our salvation as a species, as nations and as communities.

An evolutionary model asks us to look at the largest picture possible. As we do that our small issues recede and we can find ways to be together in reasonable harmony.

Be well, Daiho Hilbert