We live in a badly self-regulated disconnected time. Basically we’re lonely toddlers in tantrum land. And yeah, me included many days.
People buy shit they don’t need and do shit that hurts them to fill a void that can only be filled by meaning and community. We are cut off from ourselves, others and the planet – and as a result we hurt all three.
At a conference I attended at the weekend the speakers near universally agreed on this despite coming from very different backgrounds professionally and culturally. What did differ between the speakers is that the proposed solutions were more or less individual. Is the answer to this endemic disease of disconnection an individual one – an expensive therapy most can’t afford, a technique you practice on one’s own, another technology… or something more social, more systemic and more fundamental?
What people are waking up to is that the disease we have isn’t an accident, it’s a set of conditioned that maintains the status quo. We are not just feeling “stressed” we’re stressed as in pressure is applied to us. Stress is a verb. We don’t just need yoga and meditation, we need social change. Applying band aids while someone continues to stick knives in us is unhelpful. Yeah, we stick the knives in ourselves often, but make no mistake who benefits from the blood.
Personal growth and politics are finally colliding. YES.
by Mark Walsh
