Let’s change
the way we think
As a species I believe we don’t have a future if we don’t change the way we think.
Since the rise of the modern humans ‘Homo Sapiens’ about 200.000 years ago, we have successfully survived not just by adapting to change but also by violently dominating. We’re actually so good at it, our environment just can’t keep up. As a result, we have driven dozens of species, from the Wooly Mammoth back then to the Black Rhino right now, into extinction.
Such is nature; to dominate is to survive.
Through the agricultural revolution we learned to harvest nature. We stopped migrating and founded the first societies, and with them human-made constructs such as money and religion. Fast forward several 1000 years and we have innumerable amazing inventions of human creativity such as the written word, mathematics, computers and the internet. We have come a long way, but is there a limit to this growth?
The underlying characteristic that has made us so successful is greed - a selfish and excessive desire for more of something than is needed. The more you take, the longer you and your tribe will survive. In our closed system that is Earth, resources are finite. By greedily hoarding large quantities of these resources for only a select, small group of people, less fortunate others die - with the final ultimate outcome that the system itself collapses. Pollute enough and nature will die and animals go extinct, capitalise enough and the economy will crash and people will suffer.
What we need now is not a technological revolution, but a spiritual one. Can we move on from tribal thinking? Can we stop separating ourselves from others and acknowledge that we can only survive if Earth and all its inhabitants thrive?
Every human being, animal, plant has a part to play and is essential for our unified journey into the future.
Let’s start by recognising past mistakes, righting wrongs and healing collective wounds. Let’s be vulnerable and rely on each other, not to survive, but to thrive. Let’s change the way we think.
