To be an elder, in other words. That’s the condition of elderhood: to be gathered into wakefulness. — Stephen Jenkinson, Come of Age: A Case of Elderhood in a Time of Trouble
Don’t be fooled by the marketplace.
Worse still, if you’re drawn in, subsumed by it, you’ll miss the great, gaping hole that’s opening up.
What do I mean?
I mean, as I’ve said a number of times, that the dominant cultural narrative is driving us to the cliff edge of extinction.
I know, it’s positively yawn-worthy but at what stage will we recognise that the airwaves, replete with the exegesis of growth, prosperity and living up to our potential, is in large part the reason for our anthropocentric extinction?
Of course, we won’t be able to arrest our terminal decline in one fell swoop but, at the very least, (surely) we should all do our best to change the narrative or at least hold it up to the misanthropic light and ask ourselves if it’s a sustainable way to see and live in the world.
Take something like work. Something that we all need apparently to survive. I wonder what would happen if we asked a more important question than how can I climb the greasy pole of success, or get a pay rise or better benefits, or how to get along with my colleagues, or not rupture or bring about a dislocation with my well-being?
What do I mean?
Well, I wonder how many of us, at whatever level in an organisation, are prepared to ask the question:
What does it mean?
I know, hardly the most promising of questions but what does it mean to exist inside a business for its own sake, and not question the bigger picture?
I’ve been there.
My last company was an old slumbering beast of a thing that was assured of its own supremacy in the marketplace of industrial machines, but as soon as I questioned its carbon-neutral credentials, well, let’s just say that everyone, or at least those supposedly in charge, ran for the hills and hid behind the rubric of ESG, which, frankly, is meaningless to me. It’s a bit like saying we’re ISO-compliant but still emitting a gigatonne of CO2 in a legally compliant way.
But I’m going off-topic.
The point I’m making, as ham-fisted as it might seem, is it behoves all of us to question the dominant cultural narrative, and to be weighed down by it without crumbling under the axis of despair, if we want to stand any chance of being ancestors worth claiming.
Or at least that’s my take on trying to level up to my better, more spiritually inclined self.
Photo by Akshar Dave🌻 on Unsplash