Call to Action

The fragile and precarious state of our world is a grim and daunting challenge. An unprecedented combination of mutually reinforcing crises portends the collapse of civilization and threatens the future of Planet Earth, unless urgent and drastic solutions are found — and within sufficient time. 

Erich Fromm's gloomy but all too prescient observation signifies the dread and apprehension. Fromm's words:

• "This time, mankind is at one crossroad where the wrong step could be the last step."  

Fromm's observation corroborates the horror that other global analysts variously portray as: 

• "Apocalypse." 
• "imminent collapse of civilization."
• "disintegration of society." 
• "impending convulsion and chaos." 
• "breakdown of our cultural patterns." 
• and so on.

There are fears — indeed, signs — that humans and the natural world are heading for mass extinction. A recent United Nations Report and a BBC podcast portray an ecosystem that is fast collapsing, and a Planet that seems to be heading for its catastrophic demise.

Daunting and deeply troubling! 

What is even more troubling is the growing ineffectiveness of traditional solution approaches. Hence, the twin questions:

• Are the modern crises unsolved because they are too difficult to solve?
       
• Or, might it be that we've been tackling the symptoms, inadvertently overlooking the real and underlying root of our predicament — inadequate sense of who we really are and why we live?

Analysis and synthesis of the insights that are brought together in Creativity: Revealing the Truth about Human Nature suggest, contrary to the popular belief, that the dreadful situation the world is facing is not “economic,” “social,” “political,” or “environmental” crises, per se. Our difficulties are not separate crises, either. And, certainly, they are not due to “human depravity” or assumed “human propensity to evil.”   

The result of the analysis identifies our present difficulties as, fundamentally, a global creativity crisis.

• This is the inability of the vast majority of people to realize their inherent potentialities — inability to recognize, to develop, and to meaningfully engage the most fundamental aspect of their lives: Who they really are as persons; Why they live (over and above wealth, consumption, comfort, power, fame); What they deeply care about and, therefore, what they need to be doing and where they need to be going. 

• Resultantly, widespread sense of futility (meaninglessness), of which many psychological, social, economic, political, and ecological crises are the symptoms. 

To the extent that fundamental misconceptions about human nature and global creativity crisis are valid, solving climate change and other life-threatening crises the world is experiencing, and building a viable and sustainable global future require us to, first and foremost: 

• Set right the misleading and increasingly dysfunctional notion of human nature which underlies modern civilization.     
  

In other words: 

• Recognize our inherently and primarily creative essence which is in perpetual need of actualization and fulfillment.
   
• Align all public policies, all business decisions, and all social actions with our quintessentially creative nature  —  with the real need of human nature.
  
  
• Create, provide, and maintain necessary conditions for everyone to find, to follow, and to fulfill his/her passion, his/her path, his/her authentic purpose in life. 

• Give considerably more attention to inner development of people as ethically, morally, socially, and ecologically responsible beings: So that everyone recognizes his/her own unique abilities as a global asset, rather than a personal competitive advantage.