In an era of extreme connectivity, feelings of isolation drive rising rates of depression and suicide. The pathological impact of digital technologies and modern culture on self-worth and happiness are apparent. This pattern isn’t specific to the digital world, however. Our agricultural and industrial technologies, systems, and stories have long exhibited a fracture of self and unskillful understanding of interdependence in favor of the personal gains or economic and political power of a ruling few. We see this in the horrific state of factory farming, the rape of land to accommodate homogenous urban sprawl and monoculture, the exploitation of the poor and working class, the passivity with which we accept inevitable toxic leaching and murders of people clearly less valuable than others. If we were outraged by these practices, they wouldn’t be allowed because they’d be outrageous and unthinkable. What does this show about who we are?
Our beliefs and values dictate how we design. Our lived environment – our physical spaces – create possibilities for certain types of relationships to form as patterns are determined through the systems and structures we design. American cities and suburbs require long commutes into densely populated areas of commerce and culture. This pull to the center, away from homes and communities, reflects the way we reach out through digital technologies and move away from the stable core of the self. Segregation of the “haves” and “have-nots” through physical and social structures cement our cultural roles. Ecosystems become obsolete to our sense of survival. Food and resources come from some far-off land-out-of-mind. The spaces we develop are devoid of connection to place and we move through our streets and buildings without creating community with those we live among. Innovations are driven by productivity and profit, seldom incentivized by the wellbeing of people and planet. Certainly, never funded by altruistic naivete.
We are sedated by a myth: Work hard and succeed, independently, without the need to rely on any other except yourself. Be self-efficient. If you’re not, you fail. Jump through every hoop as you navigate the American Dream and at best you may achieve a precarious status and material lifestyle stance. The exceptional stories of fame and fortune are just that, exceptions. Power and resource control tend to stay at the top, where any trickle of resources is captured and cycled back through the stratosphere of affluence. We are weakened through our fracture, disassociating from our bodies and feelings in order to survive, competing for our share, unaware of our need to connect, our need to be seen by one another, to be touched, loved, to relate. Underneath the distractions of manufactured urgency, we wonder what’s wrong. What is this emptiness inside? Why is everything stale? Does this life have meaning?
We joke about the existential void with internet memes and cynical wit. Yet the void within serves a purpose for the maintenance of a capitalistic and unjust culture of consumption. The traumas we are imprinted with throughout childhood are unhealed, leaving an emptiness to be exploited by advertising and social pressures of unattainable ideals with little meaningful value. Biologically and energetically connected creatures caught in the attention trap of mass psychology and the marketing that it progenates, we are sold ideas of identities when we in fact do not take the opportunity to become aware of our true selves and desires. We remain open to the lure of addictions, reaching further outside of ourselves to fill the hungry void within. Our relationships are superficial and produced through online presence and curated images. We create an avatar to buffer against the pain of our internal trauma and fear of vulnerability. We are sold a false story of self-reliance devoid of true relating. After all, if we are deeply relating, we are whole, for we exist in relationships.
Perhaps the anxiety we collectively experience is simply a response to a clearly overwhelming situation. Maybe this is our biology functioning at an optimal level, and it is our societal structures that are pathological and in need of healing. We disassociate from the self in order to cope. The work to design a sustainable existence is the responsibility of all humanity. The rules of nature are clearly here for us to see. If there is a universal law, it is found in the parameters of living systems – system parameters we’ve designed our economies and societies outside of, unsustainably. Through studying the parameters that create life, we can design our own selves and systems in intelligent ways. This requires a fundamental shift in how our motivations and values are constructed. The design of better systems and technologies begins with the integrity of our relationships and the wholeness of the self.
We exist in relationship. We heal in relationship. Through the work of integrated self-knowing and embodied relating, we live in our center. In this knowing and interdependence, we move from the core of ourselves to connect instead of going outside of ourselves to fill the void a lack of self leaves behind. It is now that the technology of the future is being born. We are both the womb and the midwife. We are the system creating life itself. We are in the midst of the revolution; The mechanisms of change are the very habits and ways we design our lives.
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