We each have face down the inhibitors to Human development. (There are more than three but these are three big ones.)

The first holds a worldview of scarcity.

Only some will succeed – those with secret knowledge and privilege (whether it be the factory worker who wouldn’t tell the rest of us how to work the labelling machine so he knew his job was safe, or the inside dealer who’s going to make a killing).  A world of scarcity is a disconnected world, only offering a gloomy future.

The alternative is to bring everything good out into the open and look for way s of sharing.  A world of abundance is a connected world, benefiting more with the ideas we each have.  This ancient inhibitor is gnosticism and it has diminished Human development throughout the ages.

The second inhibitor is also ancient, demanding your conformity in exchange for “bread and circus.”  Governments, factories, and education systems require compliance in return for benefits.

The alternative is to connect with our values, and value  the beauty of our art in a long tail world – in which everyone can find a place for lovingly expressing their individuality in service of the community.  We face down the “smoke and mirror” obstacles which tell us we have no talent, we are not ready (including, where would be find the time?), and how we’ll drop off the edge of the world if we push on.  This enemy is empire, and the Roman’s promises of circus and bread, keeping its vast population subdued, are alive and well in the twenty first century.

The third inhibitor is the lack of a cohesive story.  Stories are increasingly important in a world accelerating in complexity.  Personal stories are vital, but, more crucially are those which enable us to uncover the emerging future together.  For many years now we have been questioning modernity and found it to be wanting in an Oz-like way.

Our questions have been important in deconstructing what is – and a good question will always be worth a thousand average answers – but we must need to begin reconstructing a story which will lead us into the Human future in a better world.  We do this by listening to one another, discerning together what we must do when we answer prime questions such as, What does it mean to be Human?  This inhibitor is postmodernity; it has served us well but cannot lead us into our future.

Which all encourages us to connect more, value our art, and create a new story together.