Forever Learning; Forever Changing

As each and every day goes by, we learn something new about ourselves and as we do, we change the way we think; paradigm shifts of the mind I dare name them.

Over the last year writing these blogs, as I've accumulated more and more knowledge on these all sorts of topics (mostly through TEDTalks; I'm not ashamed to say!), I've gained wider perspectives and understanding of the revolutionary ideas that have changed human civilisations throughout history. From Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Allegory of Good and Bad Government to Socrates' realisation that no-one actually knows what they talk about and to Darwin's recognition that we are all part of Earth's natural cycle; a faint mark in evolutionary history. The works of these people are heroic to our society's thinking but, they are just that. Let's not forget, these people are people. Born and raised like us.

"It's ordinary people who do heroic deeds." - Philip Zimbardo, 2008 TEDTalk

The first evolutionary tree sketched by Darwin in 1837 beneath the words ‘I think’.
The first ever evolutionary tree sketched by Darwin in 1837
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/galleries/galleries-home/treasures/specimens/darwin-origins/
Throughout the ages, civilisations have loved to fantasise about superheroes. Those morphed beings who look familiar, yet have unnatural capabilities to shoot webs from their fingers or time travel with the TARDIS. Despite knowing that these 'heroes' won't be here in a real humanitarian crisis, there's no need to fear because, just take a look around you: not every superhero is superhuman.

- Quick side note, I'd like to mention how appreciative I am for the response I received about last week's blog. It reminded me that, even though it may seem small and insignificant, (a mere 24/7.5bn people chose to read last week's post) for me, there is a purpose to all of this. It reminded me that amongst all this mess, there is still hope for us & our planet's future. It reminded me that there are so many brilliant people in this world. It reminded me that the will of the people is there and it's a force that's growing in strength, day by day and with an unstoppable force. We face overpopulation, water scarcity, extreme weather, super intelligent AI, growing inequalities and more epidemics to name a few but, if we act now, together, we will overcome our 21st century crisis'. - 

Now though, we come to a dilemma. As Mark Maslin explained in Geography of the Future, a presentation with Danny Dorling at the Royal Geographical Society, humans, in the last 10 years, have been recognised as a geological force. That is to say we humans, as a collective, have the power to influence the climate dramatically and cause mass extinctions. Many scientists today strongly argue that we are in the Anthropocene epoch - a new geological era. However if this is the case, doesn't this contradict what we learned over a century ago with Darwin?


http://www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public
_journal_individual.asp?blog_id=4593868
Since 1859 we’ve been told we’re insignificant on this planet. All species alive today are related to each other and therefore we have no special place in this world. Now we’re being told humans have the power to radically alter the state of the planet. Heck, we’re even told we have no special place in the universe and the Sun does not revolve around us – how special can we be! Nonetheless, isn’t this the beauty of education? As our own minds yearn to discover new truths, learn and go through paradigm shifts, so does the collective knowledge of society and from this sparks another load of ideas and quests for truths. I myself am changing how I think. Now it’s even clearer to see that we are just one of the trillions of species on this earth, yet our brain’s capacity & dominant influence is unimaginably greater than any other creature. Thus, we have no excuse. We are the only ones with the power to safeguard our planet; to change the forces of nature; to control who lives and who dies.

It’s quite intimidating. For many years we seem to have trudged along with the times accepting what our ancestors taught us and what our emotions told us. However we are now burdened with a multitude of issues that must be fixed or else we face unimaginable catastrophes of suffering, malnourishment and bleakness. And with our society entangled in its own conflicts, polar ideologies and filled with weapons and intentions of possible destruction of all that has taken 4.5 billion years to appear, how do we face the task at hand?

It’s quite exciting too! Never before have we realised our species’ capabilities and with the high level of technology and creativity around us, surely we possess the capability of securing our home?

Perhaps we are too focused on the now. On today’s shareholdings. On today’s dinner. On the next 4 years of politics. Who here has a plan for the next 5 years? The next 20 years? 50, 60, 70?

Perhaps we have been too focused on the negatives. Too focused on the harm we have done. This is what Nic Marks had to say at his TEDTalk in 2010:

“For too long… we have focused on the worst-case scenario. We have focused on the problems. And we have not thought enough about the solutions. We've used fear…to grab people's attention. And any psychologist will tell you that fear in the organism is linked to flight mechanism. It's part of the fight and flight mechanism, that when an animal is frightened -- think of a deer. A deer freezes very, very still, poised to run away. And I think that's what we're doing when we're asking people to engage with our agenda around environmental degradation and climate change. People are freezing and running away because we're using fear.”

If so, then now we know! So let’s add a bit of hope. Let’s add a bit of truth. Let’s tell people about the negatives and the positives. What you can do to help the Earth. What we can do to help ourselves and make sure that the glimmer of hope we still have does not get forgotten and left to fade away. We can channel the fight mechanism within each and every-one of us and make our future a little less bleak.
No, not that. A little more – glorious!


“The Chinese expression for "crisis" consists of two characters side by side. The first is the symbol for "danger," the second the symbol for "opportunity."” -  Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It.

crisis-940x626
In Chinese, the term 'crisis' consists of the
characters for danger and opportunity.
http://www.acting-man.com/?p=38602
Society is ever-changing and we must listen to what it says if we are going to make it through this century. I am in no doubt the will of the people is there, ready to prosper. We just need a superhero to unleash it.

Could it be you?

Maybe we still don’t hold the answer. Maybe we’ll always be conflicted. But we’ll always learn and we can learn to not dwell on the past. Let's learn more. Let's give the world a chance. Let’s be the superhero we desire.



H _ M

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