Why the world is going crazy—and how to win back our minds | Jamie Wheal | Big Think

The speed at which civilization is progressing has become overwhelming for modern humans and has caused what Jamie Wheal (author of Recapture the Rapture, founder of the Flow Genome Project, and host of the Collective Insights Podcast) calls a “collapse of meaning.”

For many, Meaning 1.0 (organized religion) and Meaning 2.0 (modern liberalism) no longer provide the structure and guidance that they used to. "It does feel like the handrails, the things we used to look to for stability and security, have evaporated," says Wheal. "If we've experienced a collapse of meaning, how do we go about restoring it?"

In order to reach Meaning 3.0—which Wheal says is a blend of traditional religion and modern liberalism without the promise of an escape—we need to focus on mending trauma, reconnecting with inspiration, and connecting better with one another.
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JAMIE WHEAL:

Jamie Wheal is the founder of the Flow Genome Project and an expert in peak performance and leadership, specializing in neuroanthropology. He has advised the U.S. Naval War College and Special Operations Command, Red Bull athletes, and executives of companies including Google and Goldman Sachs. Wheal is the co-author of Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work.
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TRANSCRIPT:

JAMIE WHEAL: It's really easy to forget, that we're just monkeys with clothes. If you took all of life on Earth and you compressed it into one 24-hour day, anatomically modern man shows up at four seconds before midnight, cave paintings at one second before midnight. We've been playing at civilization for a fraction of a second.

Everything is going into exponential change, from education to quantum computing, to cryptocurrency, to transport, to macroeconomics, to geopolitics, to climate crisis, to everything. It's breaking our brains. We're overwhelmed, we're collapsing in grief. It does feel that the handrails, the things that we used to look to for stability and security, have just evaporated. If we've experienced a collapse in meaning how do we go about restoring it?

I'm Jamie Wheal, founder of the Flow Genome Project, and author of "Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex, and Death in a World That's Lost Its Mind." The collapse in meaning, that I think you can at least argue we're in the midst of right now, is complex and multivariable. We've had a collapse in traditional organized religion, what you could call kind of Meaning 1.0. For the first time ever, the nuns, the spiritual but not religious, like the "none of the above's," is the largest and fastest growing religious movement in North America. There are increasingly folks that feel like, "Hey, those stories, those codes, those ways of being, don't match my identity. Don't match my choices. Don't match my community." So organized religion is no longer a place to hang our hats. And at the same time, modern liberalism has also been getting a little creaky. That's Meaning 2.0. Think of the ivory tower in academia, news media, businesses, and corporate titans and leadership, potentially even medicine. And you just take those and you just go one by one. You're like, oh, well, Goldman Sachs sold middle America down the river in 2008. And McKinsey helped Purdue Pharma sell more OxyContin well after the negative effects were demonstrated. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, which used to be considered the journals of record are now imploding. And the same thing with doctors, the same thing with corruptions in peer review, and the replication crisis. Basically everything you've ever seen on a TED Talk is probably not true.

So all of the places that we used to use rules of thumb or decision-making shortcuts, that's just evaporated. So in that collapse, we're getting fundamentalism on one side, and we're getting nihilism on the other. We're getting diseases of despair. We're getting real heartbreak. I think you could make a case that that is why we're seeing this uptick in conspiracy theories of all stripes. Will anybody make sense of all of this nonsense for me? If you can give me a happily ever after, if you can tell me that I'm one of the good guys, and you promised to get me to the other side...

[bigthink]

Can we reach Meaning 3.0, or is it too late?

[circa_er]

At 45 with three young kids I've finally grasped the tragedy of life. I realized that majority of us are experiencing a generational spectrum of childhood traumas. This is the root cause of the current state of our world. The solution is simple. It's not about me or my comfort It's about raising our children surrounded by unconditional love. The concept of "it takes a village to raise a child" got eradicated, with it, we have lost to provide some of the most basic needs for our growing generations. I feel if everyone understood this and practiced it, within a couple generations our souls would reconnect with the natural laws, at a cost of slowed down materialistic growth, we have absolutely everything we need, otherwise we are just fooling ourselves.

[hadara]

"It is not the aim of science to open a door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error."
-Bertold Brecht

[mehameha]

My grandfather explained how he thought the world was too complex and we were changing and growing faster than is possible for others to keep up, or even want to. We see this in Amish, and other cultures in other countries.

What I am experiencing is the same thing my grandfather experienced. I’m telling the same story he told to me, but now I’m telling it to my grandchild.

The world really is designed to be this way. As we age we don’t always keep up with new things like we did when we were young. We get comfortable working with what we know and even get arrogant and think it is the right and only way to do it. There are some older people who are exceptions to this. But in general, we lose our ability to listen and take on new methods or learn new skills.

We think the world is changed, and yes on the surface it has and always will.

But underneath it all, the changing world and the feeling of not keeping up with it is nothing new. If you read literature from various time periods, many talk of how their modern world is ruining mankind. Yet mankind goes on, changing as it always has.

Now that I’m old. I am content that the changes and our uncomfortableness to it are actually normal and we should feel secure in knowing “all is well and as it should be.”

[gabrieljordan]

Just finished his book. Well worth the read.
To be honest - I always thought my feelings of being overwhelmed were just because I'm weak minded but as it turns out humans in general are going through a weird phase right now.

[oneirishpoet]

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society" - Krishnamurti

[V]

“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.” - Alan Watts

[alanbutron]

Good piece, I had a seizure two months ago and woke up with brain cancer. Before that I was working hard on feeding my mind, body, and soul with healthy things. When I was out in the hospital I lost all memory of what happened, but I witnessed something absolutely beautiful during my stay at the hospital. I saw a white light. My body began to melt a type of oil from it’s pores, and my physical body started getting lighter as I started floating. Then I saw black and woke up in my hospital room. Right there, I had this realization that we are not truly focusing on what we really need in this world. We have become slaves to this new type of capitalism. Working like dogs while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We have also disregarded our neighbors in nature, humanity, and the animal kingdom. We are very selfish humans, and that is why we are depressed. We need to love our selves by taking care of our mind, body, and soul. Love your family, friends and community. Reconnect with them and help others in any way you can. You save your money, revolutionize this economic system, and find happiness.

[halikidikidokida]

The tools for me is to have critical thinking, apply logic and reason and to have empathy towards other.

[YiannisANO]

im 27 and most people in my circle are not planning on having children, just the thought of bringing a child into this world is taken as a joke now. That says a lot about the state we are in.

[kwahujakquai]

Any culture that would help humanity in a direction of a "Star Trek" Future for us instead of a "Mad Max" Future would be preferable!!

[shanayaranashetty]

Just us talking about this and thinking about the state of humanity…. It’s like watching evolution right before my eyes. We grow with every generation but insanely fast because humans are unique and have these wonderful consciousnesses that are very adaptive. Amazing

[bjoe]

If you are reading this, know that you are worthy of anything you desire. Most times it amazes me greatly how I moved from an average lifestyle to earning over $63k per month, Utter shock is the word. I have understood a lot in the past few years that there are lots of opportunities in the financial market. The only thing is to know where to invest.

[jpe]

I strongly disagree with his assertion that all TED Talks are wrong. I’m not suggesting that they are all 100% correct, but to make such a broad generalization seems intellectually dishonest at best.

[gradypicinich]

Jamie Wheal is an interesting man because he's clearly intelligent, but he can speak so much without really saying anything definitive

[apopompi]

"The handrails we used to have to guide us dissapeared". That's an excellent allegory for the technological and societal adolescense we're going through as a civilization

[Kinessmata-Akkadian]

I actually feel this to be accurate to today's society. So much damage and chaos is done these days, lives thrown away for reasons, not just of their own making, but from outer influences as well. Individuality is important, as nobody wants to be compared to another person outright. In the end, everything requires a balance to reach true happiness.

[RB-jqgh]

We are outsourcing ourselves for the answers that are on the inside.

[abcto]

When we understand that life has no meaning, we realize that it is up to us to give our lives any meaning we want, and that it is not only ourselves but also others who are giving some meaning to our lives. In other words, we have already been redeemed. There is nothing to be afraid of.

[sto]

“A blend of traditional religion and modern liberalism” said another way could be a blend of both conservative and liberal values. Which, to my mind, is centrism, more or less. If that’s the case then I fully agree. When societies go too far to the left or right then things get bad. A moderate centrist approach that balances all points of view is always best. And this is how we get back on track.