Contrary to what our controlling political class would like us to believe, it is actually very healthy for us to be exposed to a wide range of different sources of information and views every day. The only caveat being that we either need to be taught to think critically as we read or listen, or need to accept that the only alternative to making an effort in choosing the information that we feed ourselves with, is to have accumulated enough life experience to filter it by default – with all that inevitably involves.
Being open to everything that is going on around us, and what it is that other people think – and therefore what makes them tick, should normally give anyone a very good grounding to get on with their own life. We are, after all, not the only person who exists.
Whatever your background may be, the one thing that we probably have in common today, is that in terms of the life that we are experiencing, the things that are going on in the world around us cannot continue to go on as they are.
Logical people simply see it as the system being dysfunctional and under unsustainable strain. For some people its just an ominous feeling that things aren’t adding up and cannot continue the same. For those who see themselves on a spiritual path, they believe that it is a time of awakening, when understanding and energy will rise up to a new level. But what they all have in common is the knowing that things as they are cannot remain the same.
Whether you are your own thought leader, or you listen or follow the words of others in the hope of bringing order to your life and the world, the trap that each and every one of us can all too easily fall into, is the idea that change of the kind that we now need, will just drop into our laps without us doing anything at all.
Change of the kind that is coming – that will follow what will ultimately be recognised as a systemic collapse – will only be possible because the people who have led us to this place do not understand the forces that they have unleashed and cannot control the process of change that will inevitably follow.
Each and every one of us will be required to accept a very different kind of lifestyle to what we have become accustomed to.
One that does not revolve around wealth, attainment or making money. But is based around values, appreciation, community and kindness to all.
No matter who it is that steps into the breach to lead us, once this self-serving political system that we have in place has met its fall, the solutions that work for everyone that they will then deliver, will be dependent for their success upon us all.
We all must change the way that we see our own world if we want the world around us to change too. And that is when the real change that we all know that we need will happen.
It is just the case that for it to succeed and be meaningful for us all, we all must uncover the meaning and meet it half way.
Adam Tugwell 