The new millennium has been quite a ride so far. Nineteen years in, we have covered a lot of territory. Back in 2000, the Internet was still in its comparative infancy. It would be a few more years before social media would go mainstream and connect humanity in ways never before imagined. Since the beginning of the 21st century, Internet users have increased from 5% to 55% of the world’s population. That number grows exponentially. The Internet has democratized human communication forever.
We are always being faced with making a decision of one kind or another. But the decisions we end up with are the result of all the things to which we have been exposed. In the past 20 years, that list has increased by orders of magnitude. We see our neighbor more clearly now. Our enhanced social media use has turned the whole world upside down.
We’ve been somewhat cornered by the dilemma of either becoming accustomed to this shift or being afraid of it. But change is occurring all the time now in every sphere of human interaction. We have arrived at the age of the global society. Like it or not.
The challenge is that we are being forced to shed some of our most trusted preconceived ideas about other people. It’s been both difficult as well as illuminating. Even if we look at it anecdotally, greater numbers of individual civil rights have been gained in these recent decades than ever before in known history. Social change is occurring at a record pace ever since we started learning about other people from the actual people themselves.
Suddenly, our so-called “enemies” are seen to have faces, families, wants, desires and needs identical to our own. The love of a parent for their child is universal. Much of what we wish to now change about our world is because of that one, deep, shared empathy we have about our children. We understand what that kind of love is. When we see it destroyed, we feel it on the primordial level of our psyches. We universally move to stop it. The children are the unseen connecting thread to what we are facing right now as a global society. It affects every strata of human interaction because we are powerless to forget we are a procreative species with love at the core of our beings.
In only a few generations, much of humanity has become multi-national. When a single child can claim as many as eight or more different nationalities where are the borders between them? This battle shall not go on forever. It’s days are numbered.
The combined realities of global communication and our innate human empathy have combined to form a new paradigm in our society that many are afraid of. They deeply fear the “browning” of America. They see a great cultural shift occurring and resist it. They want things as they were before, when we were mostly ignorant of the realities of other human groups. They were more comfortable when they could choose to believe that the other groups weren’t really human. Or that they are criminals and bringers of disease. Much like we prefer to believe the lobster doesn’t feel it when it’s submerged in boiling water. But now we know. And some are trying very hard to avert their eyes and shelter their children from ever seeing it for themselves. They won’t have much luck with that for long.
In the past ten years we have begun to dig up our racial history a bit more bravely. We have, in fact, elected two extremely contrasting Presidents back-to-back which highlight this very sensitive examination of who we are as a country and planet. The debates we are holding right now are all about who should “belong” and who shouldn’t. The reason the debate continues is because there are those who steadfastly cling to the idea there’s a choice in this and that they should hold the power to make it.
Our job as compassionate global citizens is to embrace change rather than resist it; to pray for and do our best to comfort the afflicted on both sides. For both are terrified and rightfully so. Follow the the teachings of the masters. They will show us the way. The dust and debris of this time will settle. Do your best to relax about any changes which might not be as bad as you once feared. Let the talking heads on the news limit their talking to one another. Listen to your heart.
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