Foggy clarity

The hard thing about seeing is that you are never convinced about something you do not see at all or see clearly. So you really do not know there is a problem when you don't know what you don't see. (Confusing) It is hard to know what is actually there and how to see clearly when there is so much fog. It happens to be a humid foggy day in Hong Kong Spring weather which makes a dehumidifier a godsend.

The fog I have come to terms with recently is the deception or prejudices we collectively hold. To survive in chaos, human civilization has created artificial order that can allow us to thrive or hide. It's up to us. Look back at history and places during war, feudal times, autocracy and oppression and it's easy to treasure our relatively peaceful participatory world.  But keeping the peace at the expense of truth, quality and caring is the fog that exists today.

When information is becoming so easy to find and mostly free, it is amazing how many do not look for anything except instant gratification and security. It is actually easier, safer and faster to find information and knowledge than ever before. But the uncharted future (which is actually a constant state of being) and faster and faster rates of change perhaps is causing many to hide more deeply in entrenched institutions, methods, and ways of thinking.

That's why money has become the sole object of so much work. We need these numbers to exist. But the way to add it is becoming more exclusive instead of inclusive. There is actually enough innovation, work, products in our economy to make life better for everyone than ever before in history.

We know each other better. There is more people working together from many places than ever before but most people feel more depressed and trapped than ever. Perhaps that is why all religions are experiencing unprecedented popularity.

Truth exists but not in any one institution. It is in the simplicity of nature, in our passion for companionship and in our desire to express ourselves. Yet institutions be they companies, clubs, nation states or even a dinner party or a couple in love can be used to suppress the very nature of our humanity.

The foggy clarity is this. If we work to secure some achievement, glory or fulfillment simply to increase the value of something we made in the first place, we forget that life is a gift. Life's value is in its living.

We never will know the future and will never stop discovering who we are. To see that this is the point and not be distracted by achievements is perhaps the best way to see in the fog of tomorrow.