Letting go of 'what is', is tougher than adopting a new idea

Letting go of understood values, beliefs and work practices is decidedly more difficult than embracing a new idea; a new way of doing things.

Instinctively, it seems, we cling to what it is we know and what is a practiced part of our lives, while the new idea is treated with suspicion and subsequently approached with caution.

Charles
Darwin.

That is not surprising as that personal caveat of caution arises from our ancient reptilian brain that for millennia has been conditioned to consider with distrust anything beyond instinct.

Progress can then be attributed to those rare souls who dare walk down a singular and unfamiliar path buoyed by the hard reality of scientific evidence that the route reason has chosen has the capacity to re-direct and re-shape lives.

Evidence abounds in history illustrating that is was those willing to challenge existing presumptions who changed the course of humanity.

However, frequently whole societies were seduced by charlatans who employed a strange and distorting alchemy to derail the good intentions of many only to see humanity herded into something of a blind canyon.

Today all seven billion of us huddle in a metaphorical cul-de-sac, looking nervously about and expectantly hoping that “business as usual” will show as the way out or magically make more room and yet we wonder whether salvation rests with us embracing a new idea; a new way of living, one unencumbered by exhausted ideas.

History is alive with examples of people restless with the status quo, daringly sailing past the horizon to prove the world wasn’t flat; those who looked to the skies and in risked heresy declaring it was us who were moving and not the sun; and then it was Darwin who bravely helped us understand that it was evolution that shaped us and not some super-natural being using so-called intelligent design.

In each case, and many more, we have had to abandon ideas that were understood, accepted and claimed to be correct and bravely chance identifying with a new paradigm.

The history of humanity is animated with moments when good sense prevailed and we switched our allegiance to a reason based process as opposed one that idolized a faith-based argument.

Humanity, in geological terms, is little more than a baby and the journey to maturity teems with both distractions and distortions; difficulties that will demand an intensive intellectual effort if we are to be equal the emerging dilemmas.

To advance the human experiment we have to step beyond the status quo for its sustenance brings costs beyond our ability to pay and consider a new way of living and so trade existing habits and addictions for a kindness and friendliness that eclipses the brutal efficiency of modern conventions.