Relevance Realization & Analysis Paralysis
When we find that perfect blend of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
It’s been said the Information Age is over. This is because the accessibility of information has gone from being novel and fascinating to overwhelming and confusing. We have access to more information than we know what to do with. We are hoarding information the same way grandma used to hoard plastic bags and old magazines.
We have an entire generation born and raised completely unaware of how things were like before. I consider myself fortunate (a little proud even) to have been born and raised at the cusp of the information age where my childhood memories included the sound of a dial-up modem. I’ve come across a few names for the new age we are upon. There’s the Age of Reckoning, the Age of Curation, and the Age of Experience.
Each of the three names seems to ring true in their respective ways. Curation makes sense since there’s an overabundance of information. The field of data science and analysis is proof of that. There must be reckoning for curation, and experience is referring to communication via videos and pictures. We know a picture is worth a thousand words and therefore videos and VR is probably worth millions and billions respectively.
Do we see a bit of a cycle here? First, we don’t know enough about each other and the world. Then we know so much that it begins to separate and disconnect us from each other so we put all that information back together to experience each other again, albeit from afar. The pendulum swings not back to the same place but perhaps even further than before.
What’s happening at the societal level resonates heavily at the individual level. I think people are slowly realizing this feeling of both being close and yet far from the experience of each other and themselves. Our world seems to be made up of many such contradictions.
We have technological marvels available in certain parts of the world while extreme poverty in others, sometimes even within arms reach. We have governments touting their socially responsible policies while simultaneously turning their backs on the needy. We have the historically oppressed oppressing others. We spend money we don’t have to save far away lives while lives are being lost right at our doorstep. These are just a few of such contradictions. At the personal level, we need not mention rising mental health issues, addiction and suicides.
Let’s take a step back.
The information age was born out of the need for knowledge. Knowledge led to understanding and better decision-making for better outcomes. This all stemmed from our desire for progress. However, there is one law of nature that everyone seems to have forgotten, balance. Companies cannot grow their profits forever. Civilizations cannot keep expanding endlessly. Good and bad things will always happen. People will always do good and bad things. At the personal level, most of the root causes of mental health problems come from an inability to accept loss, pain, and contradictions.
When we used to be largely ignorant of everything except what was happening in our little corner of the world we were a lot happier. Prior generations suffered a lot more and had a lot less quality of life, yet they seemed to be a lot happier than we are now. We all know ignorance is bliss, but I’m not suggesting ignorance is the solution.
With all this knowledge gained from the Information Age, we are in dire need of some wisdom, both collectively and individually. We need meaning drawn from the right information in the right ways about the right things, for the right things (not right for “righteous”, but rather the right grasp). When looking for solutions and we see nothing but contradictions it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with the world. It means there’s something wrong with the perspectives we are taking. We need to realize what is relevant and not. Otherwise, we’d get locked into analysis paralysis where we try to reconcile everything. The natural world is never uniform and consistent in any respect. It is dynamic and chaotic in how it achieves balance.
I’ll extend a personal lesson I learned recently that I think also applies to society. We are so accustomed to the idea of dualities where a “good” side always has to win over a “bad” side that we can’t conceive any other paradigm. The problem is everyone thinks they’re on the good side. In nature, no one is good or bad. Both sides exist in their own right no matter what you label them as or which side you’re on.
I’m not suggesting we throw morality out the window. However, morality has its limitations and sometimes we have to accept the contradictions of reality to move forward. I believe the reason for many of the contradictions in society with our governments or how we treat each other is that we don’t know how to change our understanding of what is right and wrong according to the context and situation at hand. We are trying to apply the same understanding linearly across the board when that’s not how our world works. Different situations call for consideration of different scopes of factors with different weights. It all depends on what our ultimate desired goal is in each situation.
I’ll pose what I think is a very important question about many of our governments. When the different political parties argue and fight, are they doing it for the benefit of the citizens or is it just for the sake of being contradictory, or to be self-serving? Likewise, when we debate amongst ourselves in private, are we debating from our angles and priorities or are we looking from a bird’s eye view? I’m not insinuating that any of these are right or wrong necessarily.
I think any of these perspectives can be right or wrong depending on the context being discussed. If we think we can solve all our problems by simply gathering as much knowledge as we can, we are simply confusing ourselves and giving ourselves the impossible task of reconciling everything which is another way of saying “pleasing everyone”. We know that’s not possible.
Related: Ep. 28 — Awakening from the Meaning Crisis — Convergence To Relevance Realization (John Vervaeke)
I can’t seem to decide which of the three names listed above I prefer for the new age we are living in. I have an idea which is to combine the three into the Age of Being. If you are familiar with John Vervaeke’s Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, you would understand why I chose this name.
