The Invitation of Our Times

Oct 25, 2024

— Mizuta Masahide (17th century Japanese poet and samurai)

Dear Friends,

For some reason, I have always tended to think more globally than locally. Growing up on the plains of West Texas, which I appreciate much more these days, I often felt I was out of place. I wanted to be where the action was, where people were co-creating this next chapter of our world. In Texas, not much was happening.

At 15, I remember telling my dad, “I am thinking of walking to California.” He convinced me not to do it, but it was an expression and yearning for adventure. I could only imagine the lessons I would have walking from Texas to California, with no real plan. In retrospect, I was seeking an initiation of sorts, which most teenagers do.

This desire to be engaged later led me to join a structured walk in my early twenties called The Global Walk for a Livable World. It was a 3 1/2 year world walk, and I spent about a year on it, walking through parts of the US, India, Pakistan, and Japan. This was in 1990, long before working on topics like climate change was cool.

Later, my attention shifted to working in New York City juvenile halls, and eventually to tech, and now increasingly to AI. Yet always one of the most important inquiries to make is, “What is inspiring my action or non-action?” There is a way, at least for me, I always wanted to be a hero. I was a solution looking for a problem! The only way I felt important and worthy was by “tackling something very big.” It gave me an identity in life, a way to say, “I am pretty important.”

There is never rest in this approach, since as soon as one problem is solved, we have to find another one … why? Because we only know who we are through playing out some hero dynamic. Even if there is not a problem, we will find one. Our sense of self needs problems. It is like the parent who keeps parenting long after the child needs it. They simply do not know any other role.

Now, today there are a lot of problems or challenges in the world. We have an increasingly divided world, intense climate change, fast-moving AI, huge economic disparity (the top 10% of adults in the world own 85% of its wealth, while the remaining 90% own just 15%), and many more.

For me, my attention is increasingly toward AI, which is in part why we launched Wisdom & AI Summit this week in SF.

But the biggest challenge of our time I do not think is “any one issue.” It is consciousness. Eckhart Tolle talks about our primary and secondary purpose. Our primary purpose is to be right here, right now, in the only moment there is. Our secondary purpose is to listen to our particular calling or mission, what our work in the world is. However, if our secondary becomes our primary, we lose flow. We make Doing more important than Being.

So while we can argue and debate what doing is best for the world now, the real radical shift for the world that relates to every one of our challenges very likely might be in Being.

When I was more active in the environmental movement, and walking through countries, my friends and I would somewhat joke, “We will stop and pick up trash if someone is looking, but not if someone is not.” We wanted to be seen as environmentalists more than actually being one. And this is true for all of us, I think. What we do when no one is watching likely says more than what we do when people are watching.

So as the world goes through potentially one of the biggest shifts of my lifetime, from climate to AI to what could be an extremely contested and hostile US presidential election, I am reminded of our primary purpose: We know that in this moment, here we are. And that what we do may never be known or seen by others, but when we are in touch with Being, it does not really matter. The satisfaction is in the act.

And no matter whether we have billions of dollars or are in massive debt, connection to Being is accessible to every one of us and is our shared superpower. And we may need it in the coming weeks and years now more than ever.

I also know that growth, be it individually or collectively, often emerges in the most challenging of times. It happens less when life is easy and pleasant. It seems to be how we humans generally do it. And maybe most importantly, when the boat of life rocks the most, we learn to hold hands, so we can sway together, and possibly make it through when trying to stand by ourselves would lead us to fall overboard.

This may be the biggest lesson of our times: It is not only what comes our way, it is our sense of presence and community in receiving and responding to what comes. May each of us individually and humanity at large be up for the invitations life presents.

Blessings,