We Are Trailblazers

I was doing research for another article I want to write to post here, and I fell down a rabbit hole and it won’t be ready for a while. In the mean time I was reminded that what we call a “Normal Life” right now is something that has never existed before.

Human beings instantly being able to talk to each other, anywhere on the planet? Sharing ideas, supporting each other, flinging insults… the whole thing! This has never been done before. There is no way to know if we are doing it right or wrong. I don’t think you CAN do it right or wrong, and then I remember the insults thing. Yeah there is a lot we can do better.

I just wanted to take the time to just remind myself and anyone who reads this, that we are in uncharted territory. The results of what we do now will have lots of unintended consequences. This isn’t to scare myself or anyone else into stagnation, no it is to validate the gravity of that fact. To cut myself a little slack when I feel daunted getting up in the morning and not knowing if I as a person am up to navigating the ENTIRE UNIVERSE AT MY INSTANT FINGERTIPS. It is daunting and the reality is that what I do in that shared digital space has consequences that unlike the physical reality, they do not decay with time.

Our brains and instincts are set up to help us navigate a mammalian animal life. That life exists in a physical realm where change is unavoidable and absolutely necessary, stagnation is death and decay, (which is also change). We cannot escape it, but there is a comfort in that also. We can accept our note in the song our place in the cycle of things.

As we trailblaze into this new universe we created for ourselves, everything we do is visible and stays. It is a strange new relationship with responsibility, a call to be more genuine. A gentle reminder that what we create ends up having a life of its own outside any expectations of what it would be. This will be good and bad, but mostly it will just be.

So it’s ok to be daunted by the enormity of the face of everything at once, and we are all doing it the best we can. None of us have ever done it before, we can’t look to history to see what its impacts will be. We have to watch them unfold even though we won’t have perspective to see the real patterns. We are in the thick of it right now, way too close to what’s happening to see anything at all.

So I choose, every day to try to be clearer and kind. If I’m going to send ripples out into this new universe, I don’t want them to be ones that I’m ashamed of. I want to create places I want to come back and visit. When I remember this time of my life (Its the internet none of this is going anywhere). I may look back and think I was pretentious and naive, but hopefully also kind. That’s the trail I want to blaze.