Crafting a new myth.
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[Music]
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so
how does one begin to
remain optimistic in the face
of so much
hitting the fan right there is so
much
reason for fatalistic doom and gloom
these days it feels like if it bleeds it
leads it feels like our
frontal cortex is being hijacked by this
constant stream
of anxiety and fear and
fatalism and the collapse of
civilization just feels
imminent this this is a an existential
bummer like no other to feel the weight
of the world on your shoulders each of
us
being sort of intravenously fed social
media
frenetically parsed social news
like like information drowning in an
impossible
array of vitriol and negativity it is no
wonder why so many of us are are
suffering are
agitated it is no wonder why depression
and anxiety is running
rampant and it is no wonder why it feels
like there is no hope
in sight but something has to be done
about this situation it is an untenable
situation and so we need to turn to our
to the story that we tell ourselves
about ourselves right a friend of mine
once told me that a personal crisis
begins
when the story you tell yourself about
yourself is no longer convincing
this is happening collectively you know
the story society tells itself about
itself is no longer
convincing in fact the only narratives
that are that are making the
five o’clock news these days are the
ones that that say that the end is near
and so we need i think a new story
we need a story about human resilience
we need a story about human possibility
and the story about human imagination
what stephen johnson refers to as the
adjacent possible he wrote about this in
his book where good ideas
come from he said the adjacent possible
is like a shadow from the future
that hovers over the present and
provides a map of all the ways in which
the present
can reinvent itself so what we need is
to probe the perimeters
of possibility what we need is to move
beyond what michael pollan refers to as
the bin bears and seeing that of the
adult mind with our
brooding resignation and our nihilism no
you know what we need to instead is is
is
craft heroic narratives in which we
overcome in which we
sing the songs that orchestrate the
universe we need to exercise what my
friend
my friend jun yoon describes this
homeostatic capacity right
how quickly we can get back to center
you know how quickly we can
recover from all these existential side
linings you know and get
back to center right instead of thinking
of ourselves as creatures in a do or die
world or in a zero-sum game right
homeostatic capacity is about recovering
from the punches we didn’t see
coming right it’s not how many punches
you give as rocky said it’s how many
punches you receive and get back up
again but remember it’s not a zero-sum
game it’s not a win
or lose game it’s it’s it’s so much more
guys it’s
it’s what james p cars wrote about when
he talked about finite and infinite
games he said
finite games are played to win or lose
but infinite games
they’re played to keep the game going
how do we keep the game going how do we
come together to address the grand
challenges of humanity how do we
extend our hands towards one another
right how do we
incarnate the south africans saying
ubuntu i am because you are how do we
expand our compassion and empathy right
because it is said that empathy rarely
extends beyond our
line of sight so how do we increase
expand
our line of sight of empathy how do we
grow our hearts how do we
open our hearts right how do we make
empathy go
viral how do we make kindness go viral
how do we make
possibility go viral how do we make
tolerance
go viral how do we make these things be
the ethos
uh by which we live right how do we turn
our passing illuminations into
abiding light as that wonderful quote
talks about and so that’s
what is needed some kind of scaled
globalized version of the astronaut
overview effect you know when astronauts
go to space
they see the earth from space they have
a a massive re
shifting in who they are from that
change in perspective and then they’re
more
compassionate empathetic and they want
to make more meaningful contribution in
the world so we all need
to be like the astronauts we all need to
see the big picture we all need
to go into orbit we all need an
ontological
awakening we all need a force with what
is we all need to contemplate space and
time on a scale
just shy of the infant we need to go
beyond
our sounds beyond our tribe beyond our
ethnicity beyond our skin color beyond
our
religion beyond all the
and instead see the big picture the pale
blue the only home
we’ve ever known
so do we have it
in us to meet this moment to rise to the
occasion
to drop into our training
to show up to grow up
get to work
you