Big Change

Whenever there is a big change, it often seems impossible until it actually happens.

This seems to be true for changes on all levels - personal, social, ecological and cosmic.

If there was an observer, how could they predict that the universe went from nothingness to energy, from energy to particles, from particles to galaxy clouds, from galaxy clouds to solar systems, suns and planets, from non-living planets to living planets, and from living planets to consciousness - bringing all this into awareness. Each of these transitions would seem completely unrealistic (or unthinkable) in advance.

This is also true for many social transitions. There are innumerable examples of norms and systems taken for granted over a long period of time. Then, then there is a sudden shift into something often diametrically different, soon to be taken for granted in the same way. Slavery was accepted and largely unquestioned for thousands of years, then suddenly abolished and outlawed (there is still slavery in various forms, such as sweatshops, but it is difficult to justify in our culture). Voting rights for women is another example. For a long time, it seemed that the work was futile, and many did not live to see the transition, but it did take place.

Today, it seems almost impossible to imagine a culture that is life-centered - one that is ecologically sustainable in the way it sets up economic systems and uses technology. It seems even more impossible to imagine a culture that has an Earth-centered view, where "we" includes all living being and future generations. But history teaches us that this can happen, and it can happen quickly.

A system stays in an attractor state for a while, then - when there is the right combination of changes in control variables and possibly other perturbations - there is a sudden shift and reorganization. And all our work in creating a more life-centered culture creates the circumstances which makes just such a transition into a life-centered culture a little more likely.

To take this a little further, it seems even more unlikely that a Big Mind awareness unfolds so that a significant number of humans become vehicles for a cosmic consciousness - so Existence becomes aware of itself through these awareness organs. But this is also possible, at least if we survive the ecological bottleneck in sufficient numbers.