The Liberated Society

Every new step contains the danger of failure, and that is one of the reasons people are so afraid of freedom. (Erich Fromm, To Have or to Be)

You might be a hero in the social media space, surrounded by Facebook friends, or the king of Twitter, only to find that a new technology comes around and you can start all over again. Nowhere in our history has change ever been so fast and widespread. I have a PhD in economics and may be lucky enough to keep my privileged position into retirement, but today's generation may not have the same luxury. Perhaps it takes several degrees in multiple fields these days to stay ahead, perhaps no amount of knowledge can protect us from the onslaught of computers in coming decades.

If you feel depressed reading this, don't be. It is a quite a spiritual phenomenon really. Who knows what exactly we will be doing with our time in one or two centuries, but expressing our uniqueness and spiritual being we will. My hunch is that each of us will find that special niche that allows us to express our divinity and no robot can ever beat us being human. Let the robot do whatever can be mechanized and programmed, we will focus on the "je ne sais qoui" that makes us human and divine: the artist, the athlete, the artesian, the entrepreneur, the creator, the writer, the communicator, the entertainer, the healer, the educator, the chef, and so much more.

Do not cry about the fact that security will likely be elusive in the future, but enjoy the fact that we all will finally be stirred to let go of the having philosophy and will embrace the philosophy of being instead. With nothing to hold on to we might discover one day that we can walk on water after all. Today's economic age is transcended by the spiritual age.