What Do We Need Right Now? By Joe Martino
Thinking about our current zeitgeist and the need to embrace a new story of being.
I’ve taken a step back for a while now. Primarily, I have gone through a major change in my personal life over the last 4 months that has required me to put almost all of my attention on that. At the same time, I have taken some time to reassess the current cultural zeitgeist to ask the questions once again: what is the best way I can show up? The best way I can serve what feels like a moment of great chaos and yet great change?
For some further context, (some of you know this, so I’m sorry for the repeat) when I started Collective Evolution in 2009, it was based on the premise that I felt we were already in an unfolding quantum leap in the way humanity thinks and lives – a shift in consciousness.
Leading up to 2009, I thought a lot about why our world was the way it was, what was driving humans and the way we think, and whether it was possible to create a better world. In my heart, I knew we could, but how? What would need to happen? How do we even talk about these questions? Is there anything different about revolutions now vs. the past?
It’s no secret that now, our world seems to be coming apart. Not only are challenges with mental health, loneliness and meaning greatly increasing (caused perhaps by our system designs), but deep fractures in how we speak about, trust, make sense of, and respond to what’s fracturing in society are occurring.
A common line I hear from everyday people is “I just don’t even know what’s true anymore. I don’t know what to believe. People seem so polarized, and I don’t know where things are headed with any predictability.”
This is not necessarily a new thing in history, but I do believe something else is at play here too.
Today, like back in 2009, when I think about our current human value systems, our worldviews, the way we choose to design society, relate to each other, and make meaning, I see much of it as having a flavor of being stale. I talk to many others who feel this same thing. There is a sense of “Why are we doing this?” “Something doesn’t feel right.” “Why do I feel disoriented about the state of the world?” “The old ways of understanding our world don’t make sense.”
To me, this stale feeling is a profound evolutionary pressure. And the coming apart of society sets the stage for us to ask deeper questions because we can’t ignore how obvious things are.
I’m suggesting that we can’t blame our current meaning crisis, loneliness crisis, polarization, division, and path toward self-termination as just the fault of social media, the economy, the elite, or even mainstream media, but also of a quiet call of a new consciousness.
I feel we are starting to lose a sense of meaning in our current world because we are also outgrowing it. It’s time to re-ask big questions and discover whether they invite us to move beyond old paradigms. And like any birth, the moments just before are rather intense.
This quiet call of a new consciousness is being heard and felt by millions more now than when I started in 2009 – that is clear to me.
But still, our old systems are strongly resisting change. As people are feeling disoriented and confused, and our society is fracturing deeply, many are looking to old stories to make sense of and solve this moment. But I don’t feel the old ways are sufficient in explaining or navigating our moment, and it seems neither do many others.
So how do we explore new ways of understanding ourselves and our world without simply going back to old stories? How do we navigate the stress of it all when the world seems so chaotic? Said another way, how do we make space for and hold the calls of a new paradigm?
All I can offer is what I feel was helpful for me, what I notice works for others, and what feels right in my heart.
So, below I’ve offered a few thoughts on what may be some important elements of what our world needs right now. I’m happy to be wrong here and certainly don’t feel this is an all-encompassing list. Also, I would love to hear your thoughts about what you think is needed right now. […]
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