What, Me Worry?

The current global turmoil has me turning to that sage oracle, Alfred E. Neumann, for advice and solace.

Like anyone else who is even remotely tuned into current events. I find myself frequently experiencing feeling akin to panic - like those one feels when a roller coaster drops and the laws of physics that applied an instant before suddenly seem to be invalidated.

Two thoughts snap me back out of this. The first is the wonderous opportunities that times of confusion and chaos present to all of us. When rules and paradigms no longer apply, when what came before is no longer a reliable indicator of what lies ahead - these are the times in which radical change can happen. These are the times in which fortunes are made. These are the times that history records as the turning points in the arc of humankind.

The other thought that breaks the coherence of panic is that it only feels like it does because what came before was different. In other words, if that which we currently perceive as challenge and uncertainty were commonplace, if we were used to it, if the past had been like this, it wouldn't feel so weird. The roller coaster sensation comes from the descent, and the descent comes from the starting place. But that starting place is in the past - it's history, gone, a quaint artifact of a bygone era. If we stay in the present, we stay in the land of wonderous opportunity. It is only our attachment to the past that creates anxiety.

I can't help imagining what an alien landing on our planet at this time might think. Here's a biosphere of abundance, a world dominated by a species that has self-organized to create great things - great structures, great art, great science and medicine, great societies. But for some reason, everyone is running around with their hair on fire. I imagine that the alien, with no connection to the past, would have a hard time figuring out what everyone's so upset about.

That alien would also likely perceive a bounteous world laden with opportunities - opportunities that are only the richer for the current disorder. And we could all see the world that way, right now, if we simply chose to.

Thanks Alfred.