Becoming a citizen of a world that does not yet exist

What does it mean to live amid emergence?

There is an inescapable sense today that humanity is on the brink, that we are fast approaching some critical inflection point. As Tom Atlee said:

Things are getting better and better and worse and worse, faster and faster, simultaneously.

The dominant feature of the world today is rapid change, at a literally incomprehensible rate of speed: technological, demographic, climatic, etc. I see three major human responses to the same essential set of conditions:

1) Turning inward. This is what most of us are doing. Duck and cover, a flight or freeze response: everything is too overwhelming, I’ll just focus on me and mine and the small part of the world that I can control. This response is anchored in confusion, a lack of agency, or despair.

2) Turning away. I believe this is a small minority, but it’s currently prevailing globally: this is a fight response. Take up arms, protect “us” from “them,” build a wall, etc. This is Trump, Putin, Modi, Bolsonaro, Duterte, Erdogan, Orban, Johnson, etc. It is a more stereotypically “masculine” response, anchored in a perception of scarcity, competition, zero-sum thinking, and threat. It is driven by fear.

3) Turning toward. I believe this group is far more numerous, but not yet a majority. This is a “tend and befriend” response. It recognizes that the only way out of this mess is together, through finding new ways to collaborate. This is Jacinda Ardern, Sanna Marin, Zuzana Caputova, Katrín Jakobsdóttir. It is a more stereotypically “feminine” response, anchored in a belief in abundance, positive-sum possibilities, cooperation, and solidarity. It is driven by hope (dare I say love?).

I want to focus this post on exploring what it means to “turn toward” in this moment.

TL;DR: For the first time in human history, we have the resources necessary to reach a higher stage of consciousness, to move from violence and competition to peace and collaboration. Nurture becomes nature: what we practice is who we become.

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Something is emerging

…Something as-yet unnamed, among those of us who are “turning toward.” We see it in the global popular uprisings, from Hong Kong to Lebanon to Chile. We see it in movements within almost every discipline to re-examine core premises, to expand our conception of what we think we know and what might be possible. There is a growing sense that we are on the cusp of the next stage of human evolution, toward a higher form of consciousness. Initiatives are proliferating around this notion: Humanity 2.0, (Re)Humans, the Evolution Institute, etc.

One of the most brilliant descriptions of this moment of emergence comes from Daniel Schmachtenberger, describing what he calls humanity’s moment of “phase-shift.” There’s a lot in here that’s mind-bending, but I am struck in particular by his notion that we had to go through the bad in order to get to the good: the very technologies and capacities that now threaten to destroy us and the planet paradoxically also hold the key to our possible salvation… in a way that would never have been possible at any other time in history.

I’ve cued this clip so it’s only 7 minutes long; I guarantee if you watch it you’ll go back and want to watch the whole thing. Just incredible stuff.

Crossing the threshold

John O’Donohue has a beautiful meditation on navigating this moment (hat-tip to Lawrence Barriner for introducing me to it). The whole thing is gorgeous and quotable, but I’ll offer this:

Within the grip of winter, it is almost impossible to imagine the spring… Yet beneath the surface of winter, the miracle of spring is already in preparation; the cold is relenting; seeds are wakening up… Change arrives in nature when time has ripened…

A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotions comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope…

To acknowledge and cross a new threshold is always a challenge. It demands courage and also a sense of trust in whatever is emerging.

What the hands do, the heart learns

The other idea I’m finding really radical and exciting right now (per my last post) is about the nature/nurture debate. New science around neuroplasticity and epigenetics is confirming a powerful conclusion that inverts longstanding scientific consensus. As Peggy Orenstein said:

Nurture becomes nature… there’s lots of evidence now that what we practice is who we become.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés does the best job I’ve found at weaving these concepts together, on what this moment calls for. Again both inspirational and exquisitely written:

Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able crafts in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind… we are definitely the leaders we have been waiting for… we were made for these times…

One of the most important steps you can take to help calm the storm is to not allow yourself to be taken in a flurry of overwrought emotion or despair – thereby accidentally contributing to the swale and the swirl. Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.

Becoming a citizen of the world that does not yet exist

In “Is America Possible?” civil rights pioneer Vincent Harding famously pondered the question of how to best live as a citizen of a country whose aspirations had not yet been fulfilled: how to be a citizen of a country that does not yet exist?

Schmachtenberger reframes that question in our interconnected global moment:

How do I start becoming a citizen of the future world myself?

That is the question that occupies most of my waking moments: how do I live into the world as I want it to be, while surviving (and hopefully thriving, but not at someone else’s expense…) in the world as it is? I’ll close with the words of fania e. davis (sister to Angela Davis), with thanks again to Lawrence for the inspiration. I’ll say more in a future post about what this might look like practically in your life right now, inspired by emergent thinking around how we work in small groups. Meg Wheatley wrote a book that starts with this premise: small groups of people gathering together can change the world. But for now, this is the invitation.

Today, I believe there is nothing more subversive than helping to midwife a new evolutionary shift of the human species into an era where we will no longer be entranced with socioeconomic formations and ways of being and thinking that produce disconnection, domination, and devastation. Instead, we can be present upon the Earth in ways that bring healing, wholeness, and a sense of the sacred in our connection with one another and with all of creation.