Walking the dog, through our lovely Bluebell Woods, with the driest of autumn days — dried leaves underfoot on the woodland path just adding to the pleasure of it all. It is the ideal place to let your mind wander.
The worries are there for sure, bills a job, health worries for family, relationship concerns — you know the usual stuff that can steal attention in our heads. Maybe, sometimes, our minds are better than our worries and work deeper to give us a sense of what is going on around us in the world.
Today — my mind tells me it is the “Age of the Individual” (copyright to me of course). Like all my ideas I think it is new and novel — I like to kid myself — so this one is no different and it is the most important thing I have realised for a long time.
We are living in the Age of the Individual (copyright remember — especially when I put it in italics) and the future is incredible bright. Let me take you on my little wondering logic and paint a future — or at least my view of what the future may look like.
Looking back the way we had things like the Agricultural Revolution, quickly moving into the industrial era (just checking on wikipedia and it appears there were two — anyway you get the idea factories not farms, global not local), which quickly merged into the age of technology (moore’s law/home PCs/dishwashers), then raging into the digital era (social media, “friends”, populism, 24/7 on-line lives) with the froth of that still billowing around us.
The mix of these powerful forces means more than I can pen but the small snippet of logic I found is this.
- Digital era connects the lone voices — allows connectivity across the globe, you do not need to be defined by the village, the religion, the family, the culture you are reered in — nope. You can now each out across the globe to connect to the other twenty people who love hopping during the solstice will singing Abba (you get the idea — and nothing against solstice lovers or fans of Abba).
- Lone voices are given volume — think of the attention of the fake news — 5G causes corona virus (I mean come on) and peoples fears are farmed on a global scale by those with passion whether malicious or benign.
- Democracies follow the loudest digital voice — a bad thing in many eyes though look at the wonderful impact of a caring UK footballer ensuring millions of kids hunger, in a developed economy, have a voice and resultant action. Even if not all from government — there is positive action created from this loud lone (though famous) digital voice. This does look like chaos to many — US elections the best example- but bear with me.
- Human Rights wake up to data rights — from the EU, to California, Brazil, India and, perhaps with different motivations, China there is a rush for our law makers to protect the essence of your online persona.
- Quite evolution of the “best” life — more and more people are being lifted out of poverty, the threat of violence recedes, more home owners and, if we are honest, healthier and longer living societies.
Now — that is just the back drop — come with me now to the future and see if you join up the dots with the same hope I felt this morning on that dog walk.
- Population Falls — with many a prediction, assuming no catestrophic war, pointing towards ever safer, more benign, healthier lives we start to live longer and see less, biological, need for large families. Many countries populations will fall — some drastically over the next century. Perhaps this gives us a fighting chance to address the destruction of our planet before we blow each other to pieces fighting over the scraps.
- A safe and bonded existence — we are learning, in the halls of leading scientists for now, that our bodies, our chemistry, our complex minds, our very existence works best when started in a safe, loving, caring environment and how critical our bodies, our relationships, our communities are to our very experience of being alive. I mean we all know it but the science is rapidly catching up — then follows policy for our communities, schools and health systems. After all — it appears we can get far better bang for our buck as a society but addresssing the causes of chronic ill health and non-communicable diseases — and know precisely how to apply that funding — than by treating the ravages of chronic ill mental (mental and physical) such as obesity and loneliness. I am being hopeful here but hope you can follow that line — after all we DO LEARN as a society to adopt what works even if it takes a while.
Now going to press the gas here and go faster so stay with me.
- People based industry , and society — Largest companies harvesting curiosity and “fearless organisations” to drive the best in innovation and productivity. It is not our physical bodies but our ideas that are becoming the gold of tomorrow. This will find a rich stream of success I imagine and as it does — again our wider societies will follow our leading companies to drive social policy with thinking that gets the best from society for least cost — I mean why would you not.
- Maslow’s top tier — of self actualization (ok and if you want transcendence) becomes easier to reach for many. After all wars receed, people feel valued and safe, their emotional needs met by community and self-awareness, their material needs start to match only their needs and not their fears. We have groundswell of support for environmental, socially benign, community, localized existence and people leading lives from their own source of passion and energy (not for wealth or money but for a purpose).
Now.
If we have laws that protect our data, knowledge that gets the best of us mentally and physically, policy that helps the individual as an individual, industries built around our intrinsic (healthy) motivations, a voice, a way of working and ultimately a less destructive material need — all combined with falling populations… what do you see?
I see the side hussle, the knowledge economy, the gig worker, the individual working to meet individual needs and a world that connects individually — not nationalistically, not religiously, not by geography — but by interests, passions, deed. Sure — it ain’t no simple step forward but a myriad of things coming together to push us forward to the Age of the Individual (fuck it — gave up my copyright already… for the better good after all).
This Age of the Individual will come alive in messy, stuttering, staggering, slow yet fast, ways to drive a more bonded, connected, safer world. Our local, geograhic and community bonds, will be augmented, not threatened, by the global bonds we make as individuals and communities.
Global movements, not local politics, will push us to be the best or ourselves. Through sustainable, intrinsically driven, productivity matching our material needs whilst ensuring we demand more from ourselves and less from our planet.
Now I do wish I could tell this story so much better — it is there you know. Needs some fancy slides (see how old I am) or a VLOG (getting there) or perhaps most importantly a trending idea that sits on the human platform across all the various technology platforms that now bend to the betterment of society not a few billionairres.
A human platform. An Age of the Individual. A global society with local love :)
I do like my morning walks — now I had better find a job…. or be homeless. The joys of ideas — they do distract in such a lovely way.
