Heroes Not Zombies

We all love a beautiful sunset don’t we? When the sky turns pink or golden I go to the window, or out into the garden for a better look. Tourists flock to the places where you get the best view of the setting sun.

Yet doesn’t the sunset mark the end of a day? I suppose it does, but it doesn’t feel like loss to me. It feels satisfying, uplifting and delightful.

So perhaps it’s understandable that my mind connected the experience of a sunset to the thoughts I’ve been having recently about the world entering the end of an era.

Is it? Are we really transitioning now from one world to another? From one way of living to another?

You could argue that evolution and development show us that change is a permanent feature but it feels that in this time of pandemic and climate change we are really seeing the sun setting on one era and the Earth rising into a new one.

So here’s my hope. A sea change. Or, more precisely, a “C” change.

I hope we are seeing a major shift from Control to Curiosity and from Consumption to Care.

I could go on – there are several other values and principles beginning with “C” which I hope will emerge but that’s for a larger piece of writing.

Let me just say today that I hope we are indeed entering a new era and that we will start to emphasise curiosity over control. This pandemic and the recent extreme weather events have shown us we can’t control the environment we live in. We need to promote curiosity so we can better understand how to live in a rapidly changing world, how to adapt, and how to thrive in the natural world. I hope we will start to emphasise care over consumption. Getting people to buy more stuff, consume ever more, ever more quickly, seems a rubbish idea to me. But there are millions of people who need more and better care.

I’ll leave you with that thought. Take it, play with it, consider it, debate it. I’d be interested to know what you think.