HOW CAN WE CRAFT A NEW WORLD OF TOMORROW?

Benn Abdy-Collins

“The choice to be different is often unpopular as it challenges the Status Quo.”

Watching the Tomorrow’s World on the BBC each Wednesday night was our family tradition. I was glued to the screen to witness the new and clever inventions built to fulfil [perceived] necessity through ingenuity. Whether the live science demonstrations worked or not it provided good TV entertainment.

Today inventors and inventions continue to abound. The exponential leaps and bounds of resources, computer-modelling, artificial intelligence, design, and manufacture, underpin much of this drive, to develop the next great product. The one that supposedly everyone desires, or thinks they need. Where, if one is ‘good’ then two or more of said item, is much [much] better.

This current personal wealth and power paradigm believes that having stuff and fulfilling personal gratification is good, while attaining even more is seen as a worthy goal. That wealth accumulation is seen as the ‘reason’ of envisioning a future. Such a mindset is about competition and fulfilling personal desire above all else to combatively create [perceived] exclusivity, and that “stuff” brings class, elegance, and happiness, because one has X, Y, Z. There are many other paradigms available. These are thinly disguised as more stuff/more power is good. Others appear at least to have another integrity all together.

Born a curious Baby Boomer, I’ve witnessed a broad diversity of views. The ending of the British Empire, and the Cold War; the 60s, 70s, 80s and all; the rapid rise of materialism and goods availability as wealth symbols, juxtaposed to strikes, poverty, and civil unrest. Plus, global warming concerns, through poor planetary resource management (money first) and a massive surge in population growth. Add to this the constant belief that if we market our messages just right, we’ll find the right way out of the chaos, to leave a planet worthy of future generations. All this because they said what we’re doing is right, and so there is no poison chalice to pass on... That’s the background.

Native Americans have proven pithy, profound social commentators; much of their wisdom holds as true today as when first shared centuries ago, when they observed the connections between humans and planet - nature management. That, one relates to the other, and the importance of integrity and relationships are to be in collaboration. Without which, ecosystems collapse, and resources vanish. The Cree Indian philosophy points to such: “When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten and the last stream poisoned, you will realize that you cannot eat money.” Yet do we realise this?

Other non-Western or aboriginal cultures also share ecological awareness as a core element to culture and tradition. That, and the need to work collaboratively to bring change both locally – in the self and community first, are key to changes in the greater world. I’ve considered the issues of groupdetermination and dynamics and social awareness and cooperation for decades, in my own way. Where there’s a genuine desire and intention to make a difference to what is, then change appears to hold a chance in its fingers. If it is but words, a new lip service; a new PR campaign, with no intent for true readjustment, then nothing is really achieved beyond yet more rah, rah! noise.

Going forwards, I witness people continuing to keep on keeping on with telling each other how things should be done according to this view or that with messages that contain no real change in their foundations, just more of the same. They focus on the external, no rigorous actual choice to be different from what patently doesn’t work: the, ‘I’m in it for me’ approach that destroys resources, habitats, people, - life. Leaving our societies reeling between yet more calamities, and seemingly surprised by this lack of conscientious underpinning structure of morals, values, and fibre upon which change can be brought about.

The choice to be different is often unpopular as it challenges the Status Quo, and the egos of those invested in the stories they tell to keep up their power and appearances. Yet, without the fundamental changes we require to save our planet for the future, there will be no future for humans or the planet. The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl is a fascinating case in point. Severe human error destroyed and laid waste to a massive amount of nature. Nature however, in the absence of humans, and in the presence of impossible radiation levels has never thrived better in the region with the return of rare species, healthy flora and fauna. Adaptation with no obvious adverse results.

so called, civilisations have grown and failed to be reclaimed by natural forces. It is only humans that think we are important. If we behave with the wisdom we claim to have and work [collaborate] WITH nature, then we can achieve much. Build a future, a tomorrow of wealth, abundance and possibility. Our choice. But where do we start?

So where do we need to face to bring about a sustainable change in our world, to make it fit for [purpose] tomorrow? We live in a world focussed on the accumulating and or manipulating of the external, rather than any observation of the inner workings of ourselves, and therefore of our society and the direction(s) it faces, we need pithy comments from observers who see “other” than the norm. Here, I believe their words are useful to remind us that all we experience, and therefore what we both make of the world, and remaking the world starts with us, as the individuals we are.

Nature survived Chernobyl; humans have not. Nature always survives.

Success grows from the inside out. That’s why you’ll never be fulfilled by merely acquiring the tokens of success.

These quotes resonated with me and I felt were worth sharing:

There is a life you want to live. To experience that life, become the person who will live it.

If the circumstances of your life are not yet what you desire, there is a reason. It is because you have not yet become the person you desire to become. The outer circumstances of your life will change for the better precisely to the extent that you change for the better inside. Become the person who can live your dream, and that dream will become real. You cannot directly control everything in the world around you, but there is no need for that anyway. By controlling your own thoughts, feelings and actions, you can bring about anything you truly desire.

Become successful on the inside, to the point where the superficial tokens of success do not matter. And you will surely have more than you could ever desire. – Ralph Marston

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. – Howard Thurman

The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it. – David W. Orr

Author Glennon Doyle took her life and COMPLETELY re-wrote all the scripts that drove her self-distraction and self-destruction. In doing so, she challenged the roles she as a woman, a mother, a wife, a person in society and the expectations each imposed on her. She came up with her own brutally honest way through, that she determined for herself. First. Her choice was simple: build a robust, deep, honest, and truth-filled relationship of understanding by asking herself what her needs and responses to any situation she faced were. Then follow what she found was the truth for her at that time.

Glennon’s [simplified] routine was to face each uncertainty by sinking her awareness deep inside to find the knowing that knew, and then following whatever direction it nudged her towards. In doing such, she repaired her life, her sanity and re-built from the very foundations upwards utilising what she had all along; herself. The wisdom she already held within and when ready, was just requiring the chance to express.

To conclude: Often, we as individuals, organisations, communities and cultures, know there are other or better solutions, if we deign to gather our still small voices beneath the noise of scripts that we use to determine what is truth, or right (according to an agenda or two). But we don’t. At the peril of our planet, and the future of humanity.

To break this cycle of abusing ourselves as a species, and the species that support our world, we can choose to collaborate. Together, when we as individuals tap into our innate wisdom, and share the outcomes, we can, will, and do have influence on the world of tomorrow. For we will be the poets and leaders from within, that the world truly requires.

The truth can be found, not in the lies of the scripts and memos of humans seeking power, it lies in the wisdom within the essence that truly makes us who we are. We just need to be honest about this and the world will BE different. Full stop.

Benn Abdy-Collins E-mail benn@bennabdy-collins.com Contact Number 07957 658 890 Website Address bennabdy-collins.com