In 2023, I wrote a reflection on current events which I found abhorrent, distressing, and/or nerve-wracking. Then, as today, there was a convergence of catastrophic sociopolitical and environmental conditions which posed challenges to the habitability of the planet for human beings as well as many other species. I entitled that essay “Sleepwalking To Extinction” as a way of expressing the sense of overwhelm and despair I felt about humanity’s apparent inability to respond constructively to its problems, especially climate change.
At the same time, I recognized that disasters are normative rather than aberrational in the wide arc of human history. Consider, for example, that war is ubiquitous; that social inequity, oppression, and the corrupt exercise of power are pervasive; and that genocide is a uniquely human and not infrequent occurrence. For many complex reasons, civilizations rise and fall. Perhaps where we find ourselves, then, is nothing less than the human predicament.
I find it useful to realize that human history has taken place against a backdrop of vast epochs of time which have included five major extinctions. Currently, human activity is driving profound changes in ecosystems and loss of species— a biodiversity crisis which some scientists characterize as the probable beginning of a sixth mass extinction. And, on top of these already-existent existential threats, something new has now been added: the possibility that AI could become a force whose consequences we cannot foresee or control.
Though undoubtedly there are people who may indeed be sleepwalking— in denial or otherwise blind to the gravity of the situations we are facing— a good many others (myself included) are not oblivious but rather stymied by the complexity of the problems. The problem isn’t necessarily denial. It can be awareness without knowing what to do with what we know.
How, then, can we best respond to problems which are so much larger than our individual capacity to affect them? How do we live in the presence of what we cannot control? And, given the human predicament of living in a relentlessly troubled and uncertain world, what is a wise way to meet the realities?
In what follows, I offer four reflections that have helped me think about how we might meet the human predicament.
Reflection #1: Serenity Prayer.
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.”
…..Reinhold Niebuhr
The causes and conditions of the human predicament identified in the opening section of this Newsletter are complex. I think the first step in addressing what’s so is being able to discern what we can change and what we cannot.
This reflection rests on the recognition that none of us has the power to control the world, much less the power to save it. Truth be told, there is no single “the world” that we all experience; each of us lives in a somewhat different one. The only power we have is our power within our own sphere of influence; within our own world of lived experience. What will unfold in the future depends upon how we relate to what is happening now and to the creative intelligence we bring to our experience.
Although we may not be able to control what happens, what we can take responsibility for is how we relate to what is happening. We can look for ways to lean more heavily into what we can change. We can cultivate a ground of being of acceptance, equanimity and compassion. We can focus on our subjective reality and endeavor to be the change we want to see in the world.
Reflection #2: Our assumptions and beliefs shape the reality we experience.
There is transformational power in what we believe. I do not mean this in the magical sense in which Tinkerbell was able to keep Peter Pan alive through her sincere belief in the clapping of hands. Rather, beliefs are important because they form the foundation upon which our life experience is constructed. [i]
Our beliefs define for us what sort of a universe we live in; what makes sense, or doesn’t; where meaning is to be found. Our beliefs determine what we find plausible and what course of action we choose to follow. Self-fulfilling prophecies are a familiar and important example: expectations guide perception, behavior, and interpretation in ways that often bring about their own confirmation.
When we ask, “Is this idea I have a truth or a belief?” or “How do I know this is true?” we find that the boundary between belief and reality is anything but clear. Consciousness participates in constructing the world we experience. Becoming more discerning about what we experience, what we believe, and what we know to be true requires careful, ongoing attention.
Reflection #3: “We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.” [ii]
As I ponder our current day predicaments, my thoughts center around the importance of negativity, both conscious and unconscious, and the need to transform it. As a psychologist, I have had abundant opportunities to see how the world of lived human experience is shaped by our tendencies, individually and collectively, to project and/or act out our pain. This is perhaps most abundantly clear in the example of war, in which disowned aspects of ourselves get assigned to external enemies: “others” whom we then attempt to vanquish. This is one of the enduring patterns of human life: truly a theater of the mind.
It is also true that war has not only psychological but also political, economic, historical, territorial, and institutional causes. Nonetheless, psychological processes are enacted in collective life, and for this reason, it is essential to be as aware as possible of the psychological “shadow” of what is unconscious in us and how it gets expressed. Transforming negativity is a meaningful action each of us can aspire to.
Reflection #4: It hasn’t happened yet.
When I feel depressed about the news I hear on TV or on-line, I try to remind myself (and others) that however bleak things may look—however bleak things may be— this is not “the way it turned out” but rather a perception at a particular point in time and from a particular point of view.
For me, personally, responding to the complex predicaments in our world comes down to finding a way to make hope real for myself. This involves the search to find and articulate a point of view that acknowledges the truth of what is without imposing prematurely pessimistic conclusions.
I am heartened by the words of the Czech playwright Václav Havel, who said that “Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” [iii] The opposite of sleepwalking isn’t necessarily activism or optimism. It may simply be waking up enough to keep inquiring deeply about what we believe and how we are meeting the reality in front of us. For me, this means to refrain from drawing premature conclusions about how the story ends and, instead, to cultivate the willingness to remain present, curious, and engaged with the life and death questions that confront us.
ENDNOTES
[i]This, in essence, is the Buddhist teaching that “all experience is preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind.” Fronsdal, G. (Trans.). (2005). The Dhammapada: A translation of the Buddhist classic with annotations. Shambhala Publications.
[ii]Nin, Anaïs (1961) Seduction of the Minotaur. Swallow Press.
[iii] Václav Havel, Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvížďala, trans. Paul Wilson (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), pp. 181–182.