Do you feel as though the pace of modern life is accelerating as the demands that are made on us continue to staple up?
Were we not promised a brave new world, where our technologies helped improve the quality of our lives? Is the quality of our lives improving?
In some ways we are told we have never had it so good, and it would be unfair to ignore the many benefits and privilages that come with modern life. But there is a real price that is being paid and it is good to be aware of it.
As our lives seem to become ever more compressed and pressurised, it is easy to miss the eroson of one of our most priceless assets. Time.
Time waits for no man they say. It seems to be running out for OUR HOME, the natural world too.
In the modern world, the increasing layers of complexity that we build into our lives as we try to adapt to this new age, is becoming part of the problem.
The stresses that arise from trying to cope with a societal life that prioritizes effeciency, are mounting. The machines, the technology, sometimes have a negative impact on our quality of life.
They seem to do more harm than good.
We are after all, when all is said and done, children of the natural world, living in a rapidly evolving star trek reality.
Our new realities are too often hallmarked by hurry and haste. Stress, pressure, illness, depression and fractured families and communities are the result of this.
The gravitational pull of modern life is pulling us away from our natural roots to an increasingly sterile, dead place. Too many of us have become slaves to the persuit of an ideal that we dont really understand.
We are enslaving ourselves voluntarily in persuit of an illusion. A mirage.
Your time is perhaps your most valuable commodity, but you (and me) we give it away while we support and persue a lifesyle based on societal expectations and norms, which often lie unexamined.
Perhaps its time we started to ask a few more questions.
At the moment we are, (whether we realise it or not) following a track, a route. It could be compared to what we see in the natural world, for example with the journey of the caribou.
Only with us it has long ceased to be a natural track.
It started off as one but somewhere along the route, it deviated, became tarmacked over time, and dotted with petrol stations and cheap hotels.
Who knows why we continue to use this route? Because it is there? Because it is easy?
It feels more like the journey of the fabled lemmings.
Over a cliff.
This modern utopia, the destination, is likely to be a very dissapointing place for so many us. We may experience fleeting moments of clarity, but these are often found in moments of personal crisis when we cannot deny the truth of our existence.
That is the place of regrets, and those are generally nasty things.
If the modern world is a hard and unsatisfactory place for us, we can become so busy trying to survive in it that we loose track of the bigger picture.
While we are personally trying to stay afloat, our natural world is sinking, being overwhelmed by us as we persue the dream. This process is accelerating dangerously.
Our erosion and degrading of our biosphere is I believe the greatest act of vandalism in our history. Simply put we no longer value these natural assets. Too often they are regarded as a natural price to be paid in the persuit of our modern dream.
I believe that the core of the problem is that we are increasingly living OUT of harmony with our world.
Our modern society is pulling us to a place where we are dissconnected from what is real, relevant and meaningfull.
Disharmony is dangerous for you personally, for our society, and most importantly for our home, the natural world we depend on.
Reaching for more harmonious lives, more balance, more personal integrity, is the key to unlocking many of our personal problems...and those of the world around us.
The key seems to be harmony, and my pilgrimmage is the search for it.
I say lets ask some questions. If necessary lets change track.
I believe thats where real Joy is to be found.
