Here’s the thing. I’m just a little bit angry. Which appears to be not uncommon at the moment. Obviously there are a few people in London, who are more than a little bit angry.
Perhaps it’s Mercury in retrograde. Perhaps it’s the massive solar flares full of magnetic energy that we’ve been whopped by in the last week. Perhaps it’s fear. Perhaps it’s a deep-seated recognition that the bigger system we’re a part of is no longer working for us.
With respect to that system, I’ve had a number of conversations with people recently circling around the idea that one of – if not the – biggest flaw in our System, is our disconnection from Nature. We live in a world dominated by science and capitalism, we’ve acquired a massive amount of information and knowledge. But we lack wisdom. Because we also live in a world in which the economy does not appear to understand (although it knows) that it is entirely dependent on ecosystem services. We live in an era of spiraling rates of depression, anxiety and addiction. We live in a world, where in the middle of the London riots a kid tried to mug a woman for her iPhone but then turned away because it was only 3G.
How then, in an age in which we’re witnessing the exponential growth of information technology, can we reconnect with Nature?
How, I’ve been wondering, if there is no way we can stop science and technology (and of course there are so many reasons why we shouldn’t) could we create an app to facilitate our reconnection with Nature and ourselves?
It would appear, that I’ve completed missed the point.
Because I am the best app I’ll ever have.
Thanks to my friend Nick Potter (if you haven’t checked out his blog Re-Be I suggest you do), I’ve discovered a recent article by Soren Gordhamer (organiser of Wisdom 2.0) in the Huffington Post entitled – wait for it – The Most Important App You Will Ever Have. Which is about, you guessed it, the realisation people are experiencing ‘that no matter how great a technological device we buy or how great our network is, the real source of potential is in ourselves’.
So why am I angry? Because, while I’m mindful and eat well and walk in nature or practice yoga everyday, I spend way too much time in front of a computer (quite possibly the definition of stupid is that I know that and here I am). I’m angry because I look around me at this remarkable, brilliant, stunningly beautiful world full of natural systems our lives are dependent on and we’re systematically destroying it.
And yet I’m essentially optimistic. My hope is based on many, many wonderful, smart, generous people I know who are working towards an era of a more enlightened way of doing and being. But I still have my moments. This app of mine is human afterall. And in these moments,wherever possible, my response is to go outside. Without my iPod, so that I actually engage with the world around me.
So here’s my suggestion.
If you can, please, right now, back away from your computer…Go on, you know you can do it.
Then take your most important-beautiful-full-of-potential app and get the f*@k outside.