The Pendulum
Photo by Adam Kring.
Perhaps I am naive but from where I am sitting, the pendulum has begun to swing. The diagnosed entitlement, faux American Dream work ethic and lottery-win mentality of common culture are tilting in the direction of personal fulfilment and discipline. The rise of entrepreneurial popularity, new media forms and figureheads such as Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson and Jocko Willink show that young people are trying to make up their own minds on things. Titular and empty aspirations are out, deeper rumination is in.
If you look around, it is clear that the carefully directed, the slow, and the steady is back in fashion. Just look at a newly fostered care for the long-term global environment, the rise of home fermentation, vintage, plastic free, financial independence, and a hankering to really get a grip of how things really work in the world. In droves, millennials are rejecting the ‘reliance-on-a-coach-for-a-everything’ mentality, inciting new passions for food, craft, transnational mobility, bodily capacity, and autodidactism.
We are thinking, I assume, that if we can hash out more sturdy fundamentals for living, we have a better chance at rectifying humanities diverse problems and a happy life. If we can attach ourselves to better dogmas and performance metrics, steadily nurturing them to a full bloom; perhaps, a better, much better even, future is possible.
Perhaps it is not this clear cut and I am overstepping the mark. It is true that chronic job switching is on the rise… but so are side projects and hobbies that make a difference. There is still a culture of complaining and celebrity of adoration but we are also picking candidates; across science, discovery, and business, that more deserving heirs to such attention and mimicry.
I can see a fresh appreciation of the process, where ‘but how? And why?’ is gradually being highlighted from all avenue of culture and industry. We want to know how things came to be… so we can shape them ourselves. The more we know about the inevitable shades of grey, the better.
If there is a change, it is this; we are thinking more about what we do and how it connects us to others. As stated by Brian MacKenzie in our podcast below, ‘working hard at something is not productive unless that thing is driving you’. If we can all find the right ‘something’ perhaps we can end up with a world where awareness, wealth, experience and nature are all one and the same. A shared wisdom.
Now, how is my fermented garlic honey coming along?
This piece was originally published on www.wemove.world/
