This post lists technical/material/institutional adaptations, which do indeed seem to be happening faster.
But the quote from Toffler is primarily concerned with our impending psychological breakdown in the face of rapid change, evidence of which I see everywhere.
I am a yoga teacher, so I work intimately with many actual humans. I mostly teach upper-middle class educated folks, and they’re not doing great, mental health-wise. Too much information, too much stimulation, too much choice. We have yet to develop adequate “mental hygiene” practices for dealing with the god-like powers that our smartphones give us.
Thus, I think that alongside calls for more investment in techno-scientific progress, we desperately need to prioritize the development of better mental health practices and cultural values—some of which may look a lot like older ways of living (like Jason hints at in Learning With My Hands). Just giving everyone a meditation app to help them feel better about their desperate loneliness isn’t going to cut it.
I am contemplating applying for the writing fellowship program to follow this line of argument further. Interested to hear if others resonate with it.
This post lists technical/material/institutional adaptations, which do indeed seem to be happening faster.
But the quote from Toffler is primarily concerned with our impending psychological breakdown in the face of rapid change, evidence of which I see everywhere.
I am a yoga teacher, so I work intimately with many actual humans. I mostly teach upper-middle class educated folks, and they’re not doing great, mental health-wise. Too much information, too much stimulation, too much choice. We have yet to develop adequate “mental hygiene” practices for dealing with the god-like powers that our smartphones give us.
Thus, I think that alongside calls for more investment in techno-scientific progress, we desperately need to prioritize the development of better mental health practices and cultural values—some of which may look a lot like older ways of living (like Jason hints at in Learning With My Hands). Just giving everyone a meditation app to help them feel better about their desperate loneliness isn’t going to cut it.
I am contemplating applying for the writing fellowship program to follow this line of argument further. Interested to hear if others resonate with it.