Breaking News

Change involves both making and breaking patterns. Can breaking an addiction to news provide new insights on fractal approaches to scaling transformations? The best way to find out is to experiment.

“I read the news today, oh boy”

Yesterday I gave a short talk to about 200 people from NRK (the Norwegian public broadcasting company), The Norwegian Opera and Ballet, and the Norwegian Sports Association. I described what it has been like to work on climate change research for decades, and why culture and creativity play a critical role in sustainability.

Drawing on The Beatles’ song A Day in the Life, I recalled the influence of a news article I read back in June 1988. “Global Warming has Begun” said the New York Times headline, followed by “Sharp Cut in Burning of Fossil Fuels is Urged to Battle Shift in Climate.” The article was about James Hansen’s testimony in front of the US Senate. This news influenced my graduate studies, which led to decades of research on the social and human dimensions of climate change.

Years later, we have yet to see the sharp cuts in the burning of fossil fuels. Oh boy.

The lyrics to A Day in the Life capture the ways that we go on with our daily routines in the face of shocking news that has existential consequences for so many. We read about wars, ecological catastrophes, loss of biodiversity, climate tipping points, and social injustices, yet we do not break the patterns that feed the processes that create and maintain them.

Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on. Yeah. But can we consciously change?

Breaking patterns

Consciously changing patterns takes practice, and if we want to collectively repattern the world, we need to practice changing our patterns. Not just in theory, but in practice.

In his book On Creativity, David Bohm emphasizes the links between the fragmentation of our existence and our attachment to habitual modes of thinking, perceiving, and acting. He warns of the dangers of mechanistically imposing a preconceived idea of social harmony on a chaotic state:

We have seen that society is in a mess, which is the result of the conflict of arbitrary and fragmentary mechanical orders of relatively independently determined actions. Any effort to impose an overall order in this “mess” will serve only to make it worse. What, then, is to be done? I would first suggest that it is a wrong order of approach to try first to solve the social problem. Rather, the key is in the state of mind of the individual.

News Break

Creative work, says Bohm, requires a creative state of mind. This month, I’m focusing on changing my state of mind. Specifically, I’m taking a break from compulsively following the news. As someone who consumes a lot of news stories, expert opinion, analysis, and debate, this is not an easy challenge.

I used to diligently clip and file newspaper articles about topics of interest. This practice was recommended by University of Wisconsin professor William Thiessenhusen, back when I took his course on “Land Tenure Systems in Latin America.” I still have a large box of clippings about the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas.

Breaking my news pattern means breaking up with my mobile phone, as the two are closely linked: When I look at my phone, I check the news. Less news and less phone time has led to morning yoga without YouTube videos, silent meditation, no podcasts, and less time looking at email. This means more time for fun, more time to run, and lots of other ripple effects. It also leaves me with more capacity to focus on what matters most at this time.

My news break is helping me to actively engage with fractal approaches to quantum social change change. Following Bohm’s advice, I’m going to learn something new, even if it means the ideas and notions that are comfortable and dear to me may be overturned. I’m going to start by thinking about the links between Dan Siegel’s work on Personality Development Patterns and quantum social change. Fun!

Gratitude

Speaking of fun, today is my birthday and it’s the one year anniversary of this weekly newsletter. I challenged myself to write about quantum social change for one year, and I did it. Well, more or less (49/52), including some recycling.

I’m grateful to all who have taken the time to read them, and to those of you who have written comments. I’m also thankful to Anne Pender for her feedback on drafts. And I appreciate paid subscribers who have made me feel that these words have value. I’m setting aside the payments to one day support some kind of a “quantum leap” project! Finally, I have such gratitude to everyone who is generating fractals of positive change. Your actions matter more than you think!

I loosened all my knots
so I could feel for different paths
so I could swim through alien worlds
recalculate the maths
and dive into the blue, into the black
through depths unknown
reach subatomic levels
of my jellied, quantum bones
and Freed from wretched safety
Freed from that which plagues me
Remembering why I came here
I would find my way back home.

Eleanor Flowers — from This is Quantum Change