An evolutionary version of this narrative sees our precarious global predicament as an important transition but a temporary bottleneck in our upward evolutionary trajectory. It sees a powerful creative drive, native to every morsel of reality, driving our evolution. This dominant creative factor will be key to ensuring our continued survival and progress in ecology, science, culture, ethics, technology, politics, economics, and consciousness.
In the version of this narrative that inspires me, humankind will eventually establish a metacommunity, or metasangha, of "communities of practice," expressing our highest ethics and values. And this future civilization will eventually manifest a new stage in the evolution of the human race--a new adulthood for the species--perhaps even a united and transcendent super-organism that some see as the next Buddha, or as the true meaning of the second coming of Christ.
The second, equally influential metanarrative is pessimistic and socio-ecological. It sees a more primitive and instinctual power as the dominant force driving both our development and our degeneration, and ultimately determining our fate. This darker side of that raw evolutionary energy or Eros manifests as an unquenchable and compulsive drive for survival, dominance, adventure, acquisition, conquest, consumption, and control. We have long been in the grip of this power-Eros, and look at what has happened. We've nearly exhausted Earth's resources, enormously overshot its carrying capacity, and are now on the verge of an age of contraction, scarcity, environmental degradation, social upheaval, and economic collapse--and these dangers appear more likely with every passing year.
In this narrative, humankind's unbridled drives will inexorably lead to the collapse of civilization and the planetary biosphere, resulting in mass species extinctions--and, in time, scenarios that may well lead to a dystopian, nearly uninhabitable planet and perhaps the end of the human race. Many deep ecologists say we have already entered the early stages of the collapse of human civilization.
My life and work have been fueled and inspired by the optimistic evolutionary metanarrative. But I've been shaken, sobered, and educated by my intensive study of the science and journalism supporting the pessimistic metanarrative, which more realistically accounts for the latest current data. The history and evolution of humankind, and even of each individual life, reveals a struggle between the forces and effects of the evolutionary-creative Eros and the instinctual-power Eros. And while we may place our hopes in the first narrative, we cannot dismiss the mounting evidence that supports the second. No one can know for sure which of these metanarratives will shape our future. We are suspended between two antithetical possibilities, as well as a spectrum of possibilities between the two extremes. I believe that even though certainty is beyond our grasp, we are the prime actors in the drama. And even without any certainty, we can greatly influence the outcomes.
I take this to heart, and I suggest we all do, because we're each partially in charge. The locus of control of human civilization--this vast and hypercomplex system--is distributed, nonlinear, and unpredictable. It is no more conscious, no more able to choose its direction, anywhere else than it is right here, right now. That implicates me, and you, at least in some small but potentially significant way. If humanity is to wake up to its predicament and choose a sustainable future, millions of people will necessarily participate. And where might that awakening and participation begin? When? I can't expect it to be the exclusive responsibility of someone else--of some political or spiritual leader or expert or philanthropist or celebrity. It must also depend on me, if I am aware enough to sense and feel that I can make some small difference--and the same goes for you.
That means that I must remain "in conversation with" the leading edges of the dark ecological narrative, and with the leading edges of the humanistic technological narrative of progress. At the same time, I do well to stay close to the insight that even though I care deeply about the future of life, I can trust reality itself (however much death and loss it may contain) never to really be a "problem." Regardless of its nature, the future is not a dilemma, and it doesn't need to be solved. And this does not change another truth: I want to pay attention when what I love is threatened.
I am honor-bound to remember that I don't know what will happen, and that no one else knows either. Wisdom requires being epistemically humble enough ("knowing that you don't know," rather than epistemically closed, or "thinking you know") to learn what is revealed by a wide range of perspectives. The interaction between us and these perspectives and the scenarios they imply will create the future into which we all will live. I can hold the question much better if I don't close myself off to any part of what human intelligence sees. And so I become a multiperspectival participant in the affair of our common life, fully aware that we must act decisively and effectively in the midst of great uncertainties. After all, we do know the dire consequences of not acting.
WHAT WE CAN DO
We know that both the worst and the best in human beings, and our potential for rapid radical change, all emerge in times of crisis.
This crisis will require very different tools than anything we've relied on in the past to dig ourselves out of holes and harrowing emergencies. This is a new kind of challenge. Technological and scientific breakthroughs will create openings for fundamental change. They will be a necessary part of the path forward, but they are not sufficient. The same is true of the wisdom born of high states of consciousness. And it is true of enlightened organizational practices. Leadership in any of the ways we have understood it until now will be crucial, but it too will not be enough.
What will be required is "whole system change"--a broad transformation of all human civilization. That's enormous and unprecedented, so of course it will take a while. It implies constant transformation and aliveness, inner and outer. To take this seriously on a personal level is to confront an impossibly grand imperative. In effect, our predicament is calling on us to simultaneously volunteer for the supreme commando raid behind enemy lines and to join a metaphorical monastery and give up our lives to the wholeness that sustains us. And we are asked to renew these commitments again and again, in every new moment. We are called to a robust and dynamic new form of spiritual activism--or activist spirituality--that fuses the "inner work" of personal transformation and awakening with the "outer work" of service, social entrepreneurship, and activism.
Our relationships, our communities, our connectedness to others, our ability to be resourceful and resilient--these are likely to be our most meaningful security under the extreme circumstances that are increasingly likely. And our psychological and spiritual resilience will become our most essential capital. Our thriving may depend most of all on our courage and generosity, our ability to defy our fear, to be happy for no reason at all, to cooperate with others locally in our community, and to bounce back creatively after traumatic setbacks. These are the kinds of virtues--and the kinds of bonds--that will probably really matter.
The balance could quite possibly tip toward survival and evolution. A large part of me--the greater part--still believes it will. But no one knows the future. In the process of writing this book I have faced the futures I feared facing, and it took me through a disorienting, months-long plunge into a "dark night of the soul." I wouldn't have been true to myself if I had refused to consider the darker possibilities--and their transformative gift of a different kind of hope, and gravitas, on the far side of despair. Even if global catastrophes and planetary extinction are our inescapable fate, how our souls respond, transform, and reveal their character are matters of utmost significance. And besides, every day is a gift.
No matter what lies ahead, it is tremendously important that we participate in ways that express our highest character and values. We can choose to act on the basis of what is best in ourselves. We can try to engineer and serve a comparatively "soft landing" to our overheated, turbulent trajectory, a benign transition from gross unsustainability to a sustainable human presence on our planet. And we can care for one another, even under the worst-case scenarios. In any event, we can wake up together into responsibility instead of sleepwalking into apocalypse.
LET'S TALK
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