Skating on the edges of the mainstream all my life, failure has been a familiar companion. Nevertheless, I must admit that when the idea of New Tomorrow first appeared on my radar I thought it was a no-brainer. After all, who would not want to support a movement that embraces everyone, from all corners of the globe, respecting our diversity, and acknowledging that our fate is inexorably intertwined with the fate of all life on this magnificent planet? And a mere $5 a month contribution – the cost of a latte at Starbucks – would be an easy commitment, for almost anyone, to the betterment of our world on a grand and global scale. So I reached out to hundreds of contacts, many of whom had worked with me and knew me well, and the results were startling.
Admittedly it was just around the time that Russia invaded Ukraine so walking away from the ‘Us versus Them’ paradigm was harder than usual but many responded that they just could not wrap their minds around embracing the notion that we are all in this together. Others saw the affirmation of the preciousness of all life on this planet as somehow a hidden endorsement of the anti abortion crowd. Some thought the whole idea too grandiose to be realistic and so felt endorsing it was a waste of effort. And then there were those who pushed back hard against the $5 a month suggested contribution even though they were part of a community that includes NGOs and foundations which represent billions of dollars in funding.
Long ago My Love and I recognized that, for whatever reason, few people are able or willing to embrace the richness of the low consumption, low carbon, car-free, plant-based lifestyle that we find so rewarding. Still, I thought that a simple commitment to some basic values relating to the preciousness of life might be an easier lift for people. Seems I was overly optimistic.The vision that thousands would embrace a New Tomorrow story and spread the word to tens of thousands more, never materialized.
Sometimes an idea is just just too big. Sometimes the timing is wrong. And sometimes it falls to the wrong person to execute. In this case it may have been a bit of all three. When New Tomorrow turned out to be harder to communicate than anticipated, I reached out our signatories for help. Some responded and on more than one occasion I felt hopeful that someone, perhaps younger, perhaps representing more cultural or ethnic diversity, was stepping up to take this to a higher level. That too turned out to be overly optimistic.
I’m an old white guy that has relatively little at stake. I don’t have children or grandchildren that face a perilous future. I’m not fresh out of college looking to build a life. I don’t live in a war zone. I am unlikely to face famine in my remaining years. Where I live is not as vulnerable to climate breakdown as most regions of the planet. The sky is still blue, the air is still clean and the water is still pure. Access to healthcare is stellar and our social safety net is still strong.
On a more personal level I found My Love 25 years ago and we are two biophiliacs enjoying our intimate lifestyle on our Town Lot Farm. We have planted, grafted, rescued and now care for over 25 fruit trees, over 20 grape vines, half a dozen varieties of berries and a vegetable garden on our little town lot in an urban neighbourhood. As much as possible, we stopped paying others to live our lives decades ago and do most things ourselves; from brewing balsamic vinegar using our own grapes to maintaining and detailing the house we built together with our own two hands. In short, we are no longer content to sit in meetings, discussing how to build a better world, placated by the illusion of engagement. Instead, we are building a better world every day by being the change we had hoped to see in the world.
Still I felt I had something to contribute. My lifelong learning experiences all pointed to the same underlying cause of our civilization’s malaise. And I was sure that a cultural reset, an updated paradigm, a new collective story, could unite enough of humanity to achieve a tipping point in our civilization’s trajectory towards oblivion. That reset required not only an increased awareness of the powers of cognitive bias but the courage to embrace a new, global, worldview. New Tomorrow was my attempt at jump-starting a movement that could open the doors to a deeper understanding and a better future for all.
If you’ve perused the New Tomorrow website you’ve heard a version of this before but it bears repeating: Our stream of consciousness was analogue for most of human history. We occupied a contiguous reality that we could embrace fully each moment of our lives. Perhaps we could handle 1000 bits of information a day, but we usually were exposed to less than 500. So we could keep up. Our children were well served when we taught them what we learned from our parents.
Now, in our digital world, we are bombarded with millions of bits each day and we simply can not cope anymore. It’s like we are running 21st century software on hardware that has not been upgraded in 30,000 years. So we are reduced to sampling our reality. We cherry pick from the fire-hose of information that is pointed at us. Our sampling rates vary but none of us can absorb it all. Feeling overwhelmed and inadequate, we cling to the familiar and follow the crowd. We use our cognitive bias to build silos and echo chambers where we feel ‘safe’. We find cover in best practices, instructions and authority. We gladly hand control to others as the floor moves under our feet and our vision blurs.
The consequences of this dynamic are unfolding all around us. Strongmen are dominating our politics. Climate breakdown is being ignored. Religious fanaticism is resurging. The promise of simple solutions, or conveniently blaming ‘them’, is attractive to most. The cultural guideposts that worked for thousands of years are now leading us in circles. Any advancements in thinking tend to be incremental and slow in coming. Rational discussion, respectful exchanges of ideas, openly challenging misinformation, critical thinking, collaborative problem solving. These ideals are headed for the dustbin of history while events are overtaking us.
Our collective cultural framework is the only thing that stands even a remote chance of keeping up with the exponential rate of change we face in our civilization. But to do so, that framework needs to be nurtured, adapted, expanded, and sometimes revolutionized. My hope was that New Tomorrow would provide the catalyst to unite us all in that effort; to inspire the collective courage and commitment to build a better world – together. But when after three years of trying we only numbered a little over 100 signatories from fourteen countries on five continents, it finally sunk in that I took it as far as I can.
Since Elon Musk has turned twitter into a self serving cesspool, and Meta tracks our ever move and emotion, I’ve removed myself from social media entirely. I am simply not willing to sacrifice my precious time on this planet to learn and engage on these or other platforms. The New Tomorrow website remains live and offer an opportunity to any individual or group that is willing to carry that torch forward.
Carl Sagan was probably right when he postulated that technologically advanced civilizations have an average life expectancy of about 200 years. Although the Harris/Walz ticket in the US provided some hope for optimism, but the election of the Donald as the commander in chief of the worlds most powerful military very much supports my overall analysis; humanity is clearly in over its head.
At this stage I am prepared to accept that the future, and our collective survival, is a crap shoot. I’ve spent about enough of my time on earth tilting at windmills. I’m happy to share my learnings with anyone who seeks my counsel but I’m done pushing rope up a hill.
My focus now is living fully and loving wastefully with My Love on our Town Lot Farm. If you are interested in the sustainable lifestyle we so cherish, you can always find us through this website: https://kandf.ca/