Our world has gotten to the point where the problems we are facing cannot be solved in the same manner as they were created. What started as simple isolated changes has become large-scale issues creating systemic disasters. Modernity has brought us not only an abundance of opportunities, but also an abundance of small errors which together are creating a complexity almost impossible to manage. Against such problems, we often feel helpless.
By living in big cities, but not only, we can easily notice a wide range of people, from very rich to very poor, not only financially, but also from many other aspects such as health, education, opportunities, etc. In extreme cases, we see ill or old street beggars that are struggling to survive. We might wonder how such instances appeared and why they persist. If we consider every human life to be precious, such things are not supposed to happen, and yet, they do.
First, lets try to understand the problem we are facing, because otherwise, we might be wasting our time fighting with the wind. Why do ill and poor people remain ill and poor? Are they not aware of their situation? Or are they unable to change it, and if so, why?
First, we must understand that the situation in which we happen to be born has a huge influence on how our life develops. We might like being optimists and say that every person can decide her destiny, but for most of us, this isn’t the case. This is not because we are weak or we lack commitment, but because we actually are fighting the wind. And the wind takes many forms.
So what exactly is this wind we struggle with? Is it the people around us? Is it our psychology? Is it our culture? Is it our social and economic environment? Or is it all of them, together?
If we understand our world, then we must be aware of loops, of many kinds, in many areas of our lives, both negative and positive. Moreover, we need to understand survival, not just physically, but on various dimensions. When we see this, we realize how all of us are busy surviving.
If we can grasp the complexity of our problems and we still want to change the world around us, then we should look for new ways to solve these issues, both as one by one and with a holistic approach. The tools we have available are as broad and complex as the problems we are facing. We can take small individual steps and together reach a significant mass. We can fix one issue and make the benefits propagate in other areas. We can grow and develop ourselves as human beings so we can handle larger tasks. Or we can transform ourselves radically and influence those around us. Whatever we choose to do, it is not worthless, since we need all these solutions together if we want to create a world in which we can feel the grace of being human.
No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
— Albert Einstein
