As much as I hate cliché throwaway lines about change, this is no doubt the world we live in is changing and putting new pressure on my Way of Being from many angles at once.1
My personal experience with change is its ever-present nature. I don’t know how the rate of change could be measured and if it is accelerating but the impact of change feels constant to me. Life is a feeling of never being able to rest, catch up and consolidate the last intrusive assault. Future shock(waves) are expected to break over me just like the waves on a beach.
I have to consider how much change I am actively creating? My job is very much to be a change agent and I am a scholar of life.
When the world is changing too fast for me to be certain of my future, efforts to take care of my concerns are always uncertain and risky. What if I am are doing the wrong thing? What if when I get there, the world has changed again to invalidate my solutions — to invalidate me? Yet, remaining still means I am not accepting the Facticity of the change that has occurred. I don’t personally want a return to “the good old days” (though many do) as these are mostly mis-recollections anyway and ignore the world as it is now and what positive change has gained.
In Future Shock Toffler cited eminent physicists, technology experts and philosophers as support for the following claim. “A growing body of reputable opinion asserts that the present moment represents nothing less than the second great divide in human history, comparable in magnitude only with that first break in historic continuity, the shift from barbarism to civilisation.”1
This is a huge claim, with big consequences. No wonder I am seeing people in power fight to retain control. It may be the case there is a different mindset to the logical, rational thinking and control, but that is yet to develop and settle. I observe people take power by attacking scientific thinking’s prevalence since the Renaissance, offering nothing but their control through fear to replace it.
All the social problems I see: Anxiety, Depression, Anger, disconnection, etc., come from humanity being deep within a global cultural change that we cannot see precisely because we are within it and have not external frame of reference over time.
“I should be able to cope, but I’m not. Others are coping. What’s wrong with me there must be something wrong with me because all the others are coping. Maybe I need fixing – something to make me right so that I can cope. If I could cope I would be okay, but I’m not coping.”1
It is hard to be certain of who I am with so much change. The idea of trying to live means coping by just hanging on. I are vey likely measuring myself to the wrong standards, and it’s a vicious cycle because if I assess one person getting ahead and seemingly solving the problem the gap between myself and “the standard” widens.
How do I return to feeling “ontologically secure” and safe in my soul?
- Firstly, remember feelings like this are socially normal. It’s not a pathological disease or disability. Machines need fixing or replacement but I am biological, so need to heal, learn, evolve, grow and adapt. Adapting to change means changing myself and that is often overlooked.
- Secondly, remember I can’t do it all alone. I am part of a system consisting of other humans, animals, and ecosystems. Although It’s hard to play a different game when others stick to the old rules I must shift my position in the game.
- Finally, I adapt through Ontological learning to get to ontological security. Learning is a social practice and I require social constructs for that to occur. Meaningful, respectful conversation is one way to do that. Conversations that focus on First-order and Second-order learning will open up the possibility as we start to think differently.