A Message from Ervin Laszlo
A global pandemic is an opportunity for global change—for rapid and effective change to a better world.
Even if some people are depressed and do not see the light at the end of the tunnel, the pandemic we are experiencing is temporary; it will pass into history as all the previous pandemics did. But the change it brings may be lasting. It can be change for the better, or change for the worse. Making it a change for the better is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss.
We are in the midst of a “bifurcation”—the process scientists call a sudden forking in the evolutionary trajectory of a complex dynamic system.
We are living the global systems-shift we have discussed and anticipated for years. We have learned a few things about such a shift. It is one-way, it cannot be reversed. But it is not predetermined—it allows choice. In a bifurcation, we can choose the way we go. For the first time in history, we can consciously and purposefully choose our destiny. This could be a bright destiny; the dawn of a new era of sanity and flourishing. But whether it will be that is not determined. It is up to us.
There is an important lesson to learn here. In his Inaugural Address, president Franklin D. Roosevelt told us that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Applied to the condition of the world today, this conveys a relevant and true message. We can build a better world if we stop being fearful. A better world is available to us; it is waiting to be built. There is nothing to fear but fear itself.
What is it then, that we need to do? It is clear that we need to think constructively—dare to hope, and dare to act to realize our hope.
But we also need to act differently; act as if we were part of the web of life on the planet. Because we are that, even if most of us neither realize nor act like it. We have been harming the planet, and so harming ourselves.We have ignored the interdependence and ultimate oneness of life. We need to adopt better goals. It is not “our people, our nation first”—not even all of humanity first. It is the web of life first, as it exists and evolves on Earth. When that web is safe and sound, we are safe and sound. Then we can flourish, instead of having to fight crisis after crisis.
We can thank the pandemic for opening the way to a global transformation.
Now the way is open to creating a better world - a world that lives up to the power and the potential of the human spirit. When the pandemic subsides and passes into history, creating a better world will be our epochal task. There has never been a more exciting or more important task in the history of humankind
