Become a Virtual Activist
The Virtual Activist is a daily provocation, a meditative practice, a library, and a community intent on developing new 'ways of knowing' about issues of concern to the entire human family. The Virtual Activist takes activism to new levels, offering members the chance to engage with a community set on collective activism for conscious structural change.
Suddenly, without much warning, humanity finds itself poised on the edge of a future stamped with uncertainty, ambiguity and volatility. Human civilization is caught in a perfect storm of disruptive elements. The speed of their convergence, and the manner in which we choose to respond, will determine the future of Homo sapiens. The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed shocking cracks in the social, political, and economic fabric of our most life-critical systems. Relentless economic growth and the cult of competition, once so beneficial, have become the toxic drivers of environmental and civilizational collapse.
Yet incumbent power, driven by fear
and a crisis of imagination, is determined to take us back to a manufactured
normalcy that was the cause of this disorientating upheaval. Equally hazardous
is the lack of a viable strategy for changing course. Young people around the
world see no future for them. They know there is no escape plan. That is why a
large section of the community are confused and angry, with many taking to the
streets in an effort to have their voices heard.
Historically, public outrage was
expressed through rioting, civil disobedience and street activism - sometimes
leading to revolutionary changes to the status quo, but always with a massive
loss of life. Today that kind of activism has been neutralized by propaganda,
disinformation, social fracturing, and increasingly authoritarian reactions
from the state - positing the maintenance of law and order as the legitimate
reason for turning on their own citizens.
But what can we do when the law is
wrong? How can we demonstrate our dissatisfaction when confronting tanks,
bullets and tear gas? What recourse do we have when faced with brute force from
those whose job it is to protect us? What actions can "we the
people" take when our systems no longer work as intended and our leaders
don’t know what to do - other than to repeat the past? Is collapse inevitable?
Do we need to await catastrophe before deciding to change? Or are there ways of
seeing and acting that could heal the conditions we ourselves unknowingly
created?
For the sake of our children, and
their successors, I believe we are being called to be the architects of a
future that will transform our relations with each other and with the Earth. A
future that is as yet unknown and unknowable. This is scary but not
uncommon. In nature, metamorphosis does not occur in the full comprehension of
what must be done, or what the result will be. As Buckminster Fuller wisely
noted, there is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a
butterfly. Living with this uncertainty, while seeding the
imaginal cells in our society with an impulse for renewal, is a wiser form
of activism than taking to the streets with banners and megaphones.
Please join me in developing “conversations for renewal"
that can infuse themselves into the mind of society. Let us escape the shackles
of neoliberalism and other retrogressive ideologies, by developing ideas that
matter into peaceful actions that make a difference. Without bloodshed and
physical violence - but accessing a more mindful sense of hope and possibility.
Subscribe to The Virtual
Activist today and become a
pioneer in contributing to the amplification of a new wisdom on Earth.
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