Don’t be a cane toad!

Cane toads

In the last post I raised the idea of evolution as a context for the dynamic process of surviving, adapting, and flourishing within a given set of historical conditions. Also raised was the notion that our era was calling for a transformation of our human identity. Within such a context what does human flourishing look like? Well, flourishing does not take the form of overpopulating and damaging the landscape, like the cane toads of Northern Australia. Cane toads were introduced to Queensland to combat beetles in sugar cane crops. Over time the cane toads, through no fault of their own, have become pests in their own right; pests who are swarming across Northern Australia wreaking their own particular havoc. In contrast to the cane toad dilemma, human flourishing involves taking up our place of belonging in our world through an authentic identity, purpose, and values system for our time. Therefore, unlike the cane toad that presumably cannot undertake inner work, human flourishing will require that we undertake the inner work of reimagining a new human identity and subsequent new experience of belonging.

(Note: I write from and into a Western cultural context where identity turns on the idea of individualism. So, when I write of human identity, it is particularly to the Western experience of human identity that I write.)

Copernican-like revolution
In this moment of history, taking up a new human place of belonging will involve a Copernican-like revolution. In the 1500s Copernicus argued that the sun was stationary, and the earth revolved around it. Such an idea contravened the logic of the time that Earth was the centre-point of the universe around which all other heavenly spheres turned. As a result of Copernicus’ discovery, the scientific field of astronomy had to be rewritten. Also, the world view of the time was profoundly affected. What is the Copernican-like revolution of our time? The revolution involves a shift in the way we understand the nature of reality. So, rather than reality being viewed like a machine that was created at a certain moment in time with separate, inanimate parts working together, and a future end date, the shift involves viewing reality as an organic web of relationships in the form of multiple living systems. Each living system is orientated around a principle of interconnectedness, via unity with diversity. Within such an organic web of relationships, the whole is greater than the sum of its systems because of the way each system participates within the whole.

Flourishing – taking up a new experience of identity

What does such a revolution have to do with flourishing in the form of taking up our human place of belonging in our era? Our understanding of our outer, physical world determines our inner experience of identity. Therefore, the outer world and our inner experience are interlinked; like two sides of the one coin. So, when our understanding of the outer world is transformed, so too our inner experience requires adaptation. In this way, our inner experience does not form within a vacuum. Rather, our inner experience of identity, and subsequent experience of belonging, emerge in response to our current lived experience including current understandings of the nature of reality. So, in line with the outer revolution of a new view of reality, we are tasked with the undertaking of reimagining our identity guided by the principle of interconnectedness via unity with diversity; we are to seek a new cultural song of belonging.

Don’t be cane toads! Let’s do the inner work of taking up a new cultural song of belonging.