It’s one of the most overused phrases in modern times. However, what “the world needs,” truly, is for us to get clear on what it is we even mean when we say “world”. Do you mean all of humanity? The earth? Both? The Western world? The third? Whose world are we referring to with our grandiose sentiments? And how the hell do we get off speaking as if we have any clue about what the world needs?
Most of us may experience at most only a few cultures and languages of this world. Most of us will have never gone to or experienced more than a few countries, and likely to tourist centers and hotels at that. You don’t know the world. You have no idea how other cultures live, what they value, and how your choices might be affecting them.
There are specialists and experts who can tell you about specific things relevant to their area of expertise. These same people frequently and blatantly step outside their purview with generalizations, conjecture and speculation.
Many of us consider ourselves informed. Outside the routine of wake, work and weekends, Netflix, Facebook and iPhones, there isn’t a lot of time for genuine research, discourse, reflection and contemplation. So we rely on vitamins and supplements provided by the mainstream and social media behemoths who name themselves as cultural, social, ethical and moral authorities.
No country on earth has the influence of Facebook. When you can pick and choose (and censor) the content and alter algorithms that cater to some 2 billion users, you can no longer consider yourself a mere media publisher, nor simply an advertising medium. You’ve become a new form of reality distortion.
What the world needs is that which comes after today’s social media. After we’re done hiding behind avatars and the vitriolic comment sections — once we bore of memes, messenger chats, incessant ads, and information overload, we’ll need to engage in the real world. We’ll have to find again the actual pulse of the human collective, and get to work.
We are all being deceptive, while being deceived. Who we are online is at best a fragment, a soul shard, and quite often, a coward. That’s fine, but isn’t it wearing thin? Doesn’t it feel just a little fake? Not one of us can be authentically represented by a mini-bio, some emojis, and a few links to selected, curated, sanitized offerings, as if all we are is what’d look good on a CV… and no one lies on a CV, right?
What the world needs is for us to get past the need of selling ourselves—desperate to derive worth and validity from the markets—and to embody our true, natural, powerful, creative, universal selves, completely.
That which our hands, hearts and minds do makes a difference, and aligns with the collective story, our spiritual healing, purpose and reconciliation, and elevates… the world.
Solvitur ambulando