Regenerative Future
“Befriending Uncertainty” in a Post-Covid World
With an Open Mind, Open Heart, and Open Will
Lauren Berlant described the ‘State of Impasse’ as “ a moment where existing social imaginaries and practices no longer produce the outcomes they once did, but no new imaginaries or practices have yet been created.”
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, we have reached such a state of impasse, of gridlock where our old stories, metaphors, norms, patterns, structures, and ways of being no longer serve us.
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
Thus wrote W.B. Yeats in The Second Coming.
Is it a coincidence that the poem was published in 1920, exactly a hundred years ago? It was written in the context of a post-war Europe. We are now in the post-Covid era collectively experiencing the falling apart of the old world-order, while the new is yet to be born. We have no new stories to fill the yawning gap, this liminal space that seems to hold nothing but despair, destruction, and damage.
Antonio Gramsci said a long time ago:
The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.
What we are witnessing in this interval is a variety of morbid symptoms — from the breakdown of healthcare to the demonization of minorities, to the imposition of state surveillance and absolute abdication of leadership.
This liminal space — the interregnum — is marked by a profound and precarious uncertainty, an undefined timeline, and a feeling of being unmoored as all the symbols of the predictability of normal life are blown away. We are at a cusp of civilizational crisis never before experienced in the modern world. A microscopic virus has us scrambling and struggling to come to terms with our own mortality, with the limits of our knowledge, and with the ambiguity we fear more than the virus itself. It has accentuated the fault lines and cracks in our societies, the darkness beneath the gloss and glitter while emphasizing the urgent need for solidarity, even as we take refuge in solitude. The imposed pause is forcing us to turn our gaze inwards even as our outer world shrinks to the size of our home.
Human beings are psychologically addicted to predictability. We prefer to be cushioned by the mundane ordinariness of life rather than dwell in the discomfort of the unknown. We will grab at any distraction to escape the awful, hollow, and helpless void of the unknown. Unfortunately, our routes of distraction have been snatched away without any promise of return. What we have been offered instead are revelations into the fault lines and inequalities in our societies we would rather not see; exposures to the absurd and ludicrous ineptness of governance that leave us stupefied; and experiences of the creaking and collapsing public infrastructures that are woefully inadequate in meeting the demands of the moment.
The virus has laid bare the pervasive brokenness we had papered over for far too long in their shameful, pitiful, and burning details. Our privilege is no longer our refuge. Our privilege now bestows on us a grave responsibility. A grave responsibility to reclaim our humanity and all it entails — compassion, care, empathy, connection, justice, equality, and dignity for all. A grave responsibility to remove the viciousness of social pathologies where we have lost touch with our own humanity in the pursuit of power, profit, privilege, pleasure, and political perversions. It is our opportunity to heal ourselves and our only home.
Vaclav Havel said, “The main task in the coming era is… a radical renewal of our sense of responsibility… for ourselves and for the world.” https://citizenstout.substack.com/p/care-connects-us-all
We are, perhaps for the first time in our living memory, plunged into a collective experience that is emphasizing the inextricable interconnections and interdependence of all life on earth — human and non-human — that form this fragile web of life.
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe,” wrote John Muir
Our inability to sense and revere this deep and sacred Interbeing has brought us to this cataclysmic moment where a microscopic virus leapt from a bat to a human and is now wreaking havoc across the planet with millions dead and infected. We are learning the hard way that we are not only our brother’s keepers, but also that of the whales, the bears, the bees, the birds, the forests, the oceans, the mountains, and the seas. However, discerning this deep interconnection requires us to slow down, widen our perception, see the interlinks between ecological breakdown and our economic and political systems, and our ways of relating with this planet to the current catastrophe. Otherwise, we’ll lose the opportunity offered by this pause to shift our collective consciousness and reimagine a regenerative and thriving future on this planet.
Unfortunately, our predilection for action and penchant for moving on are causing people to respond in one of the two ways:
~Despairing and yearning for a return to “business as usual,” our beloved BAU
~Devising ways to move into a “new normal” — the new catchphrase
Both these reactions arise from our propensity to move toward a resolution and away from this apocalyptic disorder confronting us. We want a decision, a cessation of this ambiguity, and the comfort of concrete actions.
I offer a third perspective. An invitation to move away from BAU and the “new normal.” The phrase, “new normal,” erroneously implies that the pre-Covid world was normal when, in fact, it was profoundly disbalanced, destructive, and devastating for many. We had normalized an unnatural and aberrant world order where 26 individuals across the globe owned more wealth than the bottom 50%, where it was ok to acidify oceans, clear-cut forests, mine the mountains, and exterminate life as long as the GDP grew. None of this can be defined as normal by any stretch of the imagination. In this context, I urge you to view this insightful TED talk by Kate Raworth, A healthy economy should be designed to thrive, not grow.
Hence, I deliberately diverge from BAU and the “new normal” and invite us to co-create a new story — a kaleidoscope of stories — that can act as compassionate compasses for us to follow toward a more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. We have been offered a pause to reimagine and reinvent a new way of being on this planet — of co-creating a regenerative future for all sentient beings. And to do this, we must befriend uncertainty! We must dwell in this pause — accepting all its pain, doubts, fears, confusions, questions — with an open mind, open heart, and open will.
The diagram below from Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges by Otto Scharmer (Presencing Institute) depicts the journey from the present to an emerging future if one has the courage to let go of past patterns (suspend judgement), see with fresh eyes (redirect perceptions), and sense into the field (letting go of the old), and hold space (Presencing) for what wants to emerge. I believe the pause imposed on us by the minute virus is an opportunity for us to reach our highest future possibilities as the stories, structures, and symbols of the old-world crumbles and crashes around us. We are being called to “lead from a future that is already here”.
Do we dare to befriend this uncertainty? Do we dare to dream of a different destiny? Will we use this crisis to magnify all that is magnanimous within us? Is this our collective tryst with destiny moment? What behaviors do we need to demonstrate and embody to lead us into a regenerative future? What narratives can we energize and envision to act as compasses in an unknown territory? What old stories, patterns, and structures must we hospice to move toward a regenerative future? What are the new stories, patterns, and structures we must midwife to step into a regenerative future?
How can we hold space for meaning-making, sensing, and emergence? Above all, how do we “need to be” to stay with uncertainty, to welcome uncertainty? What messages will this liminal space yield up, whisper to us if we have the nerve to step back, slow down, let go of our resistance, and care to listen deeply?
None of us have the answers. But if we live into the questions, I trust that the answers will emerge from our collective intentions and actions. We need to acknowledge uncertainty, dwell in the unknown, and hold space for ourselves and others as rapid and irrevocable change tears down every known bulwark and buttress.
I’m witnessing this pause as a crucible where the new world order is churning itself into being. To fully step into this pause, to become stewards of a new way of being on this planet, we must befriend and welcome the uncertain, the unknown, the ambiguous, the unfamiliar, the unthought of. Only by learning to dwell in this liminal space with gentle curiosity can we actualize the future that wants to emerge through us.
None of us have a map to this unknown world. I have tried to distill some core qualities we need to embark on this voyage as compass…
Embracing stillness. “Times are urgent; let’s slow down,” wrote Bayo Akomolafe. This line has stayed with me. And every time I feel the urge to rush, I repeat this like a mantra. Embracing stillness is about being in the space, about sensing the inner space and the outer space. We inhabit both at all times but are often unconscious of both. Slowing down is not about physically coming to a stop. It’s not a passive act but one wherein we are wholly present and aware in the manner of a witness, an observer. It’s about fully inhabiting ourselves, grounding ourselves in our bodies, and coming into awareness and alignment with what is most alive within us. It is about coming out of our auto-pilot mode and acknowledging our overwhelm, our fear, our exhaustion, and being a witness to all that rises within. It’s about tuning in to what is truly wanting to emerge through us, and then taking awareness-based, thoughtful action.
We are hardwired to jump into action at the slightest feeling of uncertainty. Being still is about desisting from reacting; and waiting for a response to rise. We can infuse moments of stillness throughout our day so that we can get back in alignment with ourselves. This, to me, is the first step toward befriending uncertainty. There are many ways to introduce stillness to our days from meditation and mindfulness practices to reflective journaling, solitary walks in nature, and embodiment practices like Social Presencing Theater.
Staying with the questions. Rilke on embracing uncertainty:
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.
Holding the questions with gentle curiosity is more likely to yield answers when everything around us is changing every moment. “Live the questions now,” urged Rilke. When we make space for the questions that matter, nurture them with gentle curiosity, seek not easy answers but true insights, and humbly yield to the learning, the answers reveal themselves in various ways. It takes patience and a trust in universal coherence to abide in the questions.
Deep listening. I love Otto Scharmer’s model of the Four Levels of Listening. When we truly engage in deep listening (level 4 in the model), we “listen the new into being.” The quality of our attention has the capacity to create a sacred and safe container where the unthought and the unsaid get expressed, giving rise to truly generative co-creation. Deep listening can only happen when we let go of our judgement, our cynicism, and our fears. Deep listening is the art of listening to others while also listening to oneself — what is happening inside me as I listen is as important as what I’m hearing. That which arises inside us can either block or augment what is being co-created in the moment. Therefore, listening from the field can only take place from a point of stillness, of awareness, compassion, curiosity, and generosity. These are tough to demonstrate under conditions of chaos and uncertainty but even more important…
Hence, in times of uncertainty it is profoundly important to create spaces for deep listening and generative conversations to practice the skills, to facilitate sensemaking and emergence, to steward the envisioned future into being. Only by articulating and re-repeating the shared visions of our future reality can we collectively co-create the new stories and pathways to a more regenerative future.
Revering Interbeing. Joanna Macy calls this unraveling The Great Turning. The vital question for our collective contemplation now is, “how do we become the humans our world needs?” We, who are born into these profound times, have a shared responsibility to reimagine a new way of being, to be scribes to an emerging New Story — a story of Interbeing, Interrelatedness, and Wholeness. A story that embraces the exquisite fragility and the astounding resilience of this planet and of life itself.
This story needs to be lived at every level — social, political, ecological, organizational, and personal. It is already taking root, it’s tender shoots are sprouting across the globe through various movements, dialogues, and practices. To reinvent ourselves and our systems, we have to embrace our sovereignty and our inner beliefs as individuals and as collectives. We are in a liminal space — a space that is alive with creative potential, filled with unparalleled possibilities, and with extraordinary prospects. To realize the hidden promises of this moment, we need to shift our consciousness from an “ego-system awareness to (an) eco-system awareness” (Otto Scharmer).
I see this as an opportunity for humanity to reinvent ourselves, to align with the needs of the planet and the potential of the people, to chart a new path towards our Evolutionary Purpose. I believe that each and every life-affirming and regenerative intention and action undertaken has far-reaching effect, percolates far beyond our imagination, and ultimately becomes a groundswell displacing the crumbling system.
Imagination is the first step to healing our planet.
Our imagination is stuck in the logic of the old paradigms.
We can imagine the new paradigms.
We can create the new paradigms.
We can live the new paradigms.
Imagining: Touching the Unknown
My grateful acknowledgement to @Laureen Golden who inspires me with her passion, generosity, and compassion. She holds space for the unsaid and the unthought of to emerge with unmatched grace, elegance, and eloquence.
