Hello and Welcome
I’ve been on Medium for less than a year, and it’s really only been since September that I’ve been active. I’ve been reading all kinds of stuff, commenting when I think I have something to say, and writing on my own “publication” Choosing Our Future.
Suddenly, really from out of nowhere, over just two weeks, the number of people who are “following” me has tripled. This doesn’t put me in the same league of some venture capitalists who has 37K or 145K followers, but it has been a surge that bumped me into triple figures.!?!)
Some of you I recognize from things you have written to me, or you have written things that I have commented on. I have found that to be interesting, and that I believe is the purpose of Medium. That is why I am writing this post and hoping all of my “followers” will read it, because I really have no idea who most of you are, or how you found me.
We are living in a moment when the entire world seems to be going through rapid changes. So many changes are happening so rapidly that it is making many people feel uncomfortable and insecure. People are less sure of what will happen next and how it will affect the way they support themselves, the lifestyle they have, and their children’s future.
Part of what I hope to do on Medium is to be part of a discussion about how people are feeling, what they are doing and what they would like to see happen. I’ve spent forty years as a psychologist and psychotherapist. I have worked with thousands of people who have gone through changes and I know how difficult any transition can be.
In may ways the new technology driven, scientifically based, algorithm guided world seems exciting and full of promise. But we have seen that a lot of this technology can be used to control the flow of information, distort the truth, and influence people without their awareness.
There have been many changes in social institutions and values since the beginning of this century. This has made many people feel excited by new freedoms and new possibilities, while other feel lost, angry and confused as old ways and traditions are questioned and discarded. People in unprecedented numbers have moved around the world. Some are fleeing war, poverty, persecution and drought. Others are taking their advanced education and money and moving to places where they can put those things to the most use. Still others live and work in several places all around the world, living an international lifestyle, working for global corporations.
At this moment it is very uncertain how all of this disruption and change will affect everyone. Will there be the usual winners and the usual losers, or will the balance shift. Is the current wave of authoritarian style governments just a backlash, and the last gasp of the old style power structure of rich, old, White men. Or is that entrenched power still too strong to overcome, and the wealth gap will continue to widen, and the poor and brown continue to be exploited and left behind?
I am trying to sort this out. I don’t think I can do it alone — well, I can do it alone but I’ll probably be wrong. So please join me and make some comments. You can post in any language in which you can best express yourself. With the nw technologies I can figure it out.
Please, NO BOTS
If you don’t want to comment then push the green heart just to let me know you’re around and that you’re not a bot. I am learning there are good bots and bad bots, but so far, bots are just tools without feelings, so I’m not ready to treat them as equals.
We shall see what the future brings.
All the Best to All of Us in 2017!
Happiness! Joy! and most of all PEACE!
