Future Shock Recovery

The Autumnal Legends Series : VIII

Alvin Toffler wrote a bestselling book back in the 70s entitled ' Future Shock.' He was addressing himself to a readership just viewing the changes to come. The two world wars and a list of other military engagements had broken the mold of stability in our world view and Toffler advanced the possibilities of change and their impact.

Forty years later today with the exposure to the information superhighway at the finger tips we are encountering a social attitude that's taking shape regarding change. It appears cathartic in some cases and in others still the idlylic dream setting but on average it portrays a picture of the individual at the very center of the cultivation of new perceptions.

Past world views relied on leadership quite often the charismatic type that identified itself with the concerns of the common man. We marveled at the way leadership brought a union of purpose to our societies and it appeared that we were all one family under the sun. It formed a simple view of the world as an extension of the family. It helped to have someone explain what the changes are.

Today we are viewing a collective state of individual perceptions from around the world … and it engages us to make sense of it ourselves. From the many websites, blogs, networking sites, audio and video sites, authorship and so forth … we are picking up on a collage of views that refers to individual concerns and cares, their lifestyle, their daily activities, interests, hobbies and the like. It adds up to quite a view of the world.

Would we call this the new world … I wonder. Not a world of wars, famine, disasters, riots, weather havoc but one of thoughts, perceptions and views … that which we bring our own thoughts to and grow with our experience of the issues. It helps us to examine our own and form new ideas of the way that we look at the world.

It is a new beginning … one in which the common man is at the heart of the world's cultivation of our own volitional acceptance of that which is in the mind of possibilities. Its almost dreamlike sometimes … and I'm reminded of the Cerro Santa Lucia rising out of downtown Santiago in Chile … like a mount of dreams. It resembles the legendary accounts of Mount Parnassus of Dionysis or Siva's Mount Kailash. Perhaps that's the way the world began for all of us.