Regardless of the stage of life you are in, the path of evolution you embrace, the personality structure you shape, or the form of therapy you adopt, the journey from information to truth is always paved within.
Reaching the stage of adult awareness requires, sooner or later, the ability to clearly, firmly, and unapologetically state what a young American author once affirmed:
"I have my own
Mind
Heart
And Soul."
— Robert M. Drake
Before becoming those mature humanoids, “grown” in mind, capable of critical thinking and a lucid analysis of the surrounding world, it is necessary to integrate many aspects of our individual or collective past, where:
-We understood reality backwards;
-We were wrong about things;
-We excessively sought support that limited our autonomy;
-We constructed fictions about the future;
-We pushed uncomfortable aspects of personal or collective history into the shadows;
-We forgot to bring to light radiant dreams once imagined so vividly;
-We were afraid;
-We felt ashamed;
-We adorned ourselves with fleeting laurels;
-We climbed too high on peaks of arrogance;
-We deceived ourselves with cognitive biases and re-confirmations of illusory realities;
-We confronted hidden facets of ourselves that we did not recognize;
-We harshly criticized ourselves even when others had stopped doing so;
-We created “never-ending” stories about unpleasant experiences that led to limiting beliefs and absolutist language (“always,” “never,” “everywhere”...);
-We lost our connection to our own joy and the feeling of being “at home” within ourselves;
-We lost patience with ourselves and the world;
-We let creativity and innovation be carried away by the winds of AI, because decisions, original design, art, creation, and authentic social interactions demand involvement, dedication, effort – and these are exclusively human domains. However, hope is not lost because the wind wastes nothing, and these qualities can be recovered with every “breeze”;
-We were tempted by quick fixes, miracle pills, and therapies with captivating names;
-We “anesthetized” our nervous system with superficial distractions, the deceptive opium of the virtual world;
-We did not clearly understand how information is the fundamental component of reality (we have only just sequenced the human genome), how information networks actually function, yet we built a naive, overly optimistic vision of them;
-We deceived ourselves into believing that access to increasingly powerful informational technologies would bring only good things – the eradication of poverty, victory over diseases, eternal youth, halting environmental degradation, global peace, overcoming all human weaknesses, natural disasters, and so on.
Perhaps now, more than ever before, we have the duty to reconnect with our inner selves if we do not want to end up living in environments made of bits instead of atoms.
The 21st-century adult, I believe, is a person capable of critical thinking, balance, moderation, neutrality, self-governance, compassionate relationships, and patience.
Such a person can confidently state: it took millions of years to realize that I am me!
I’m sharing a few essential questions I asked myself while writing this text, and I hope they will be useful to you as well:
What does my inner space look like today? What occupies it?
What fears are limiting me right now?
What beliefs do I hold about myself and the world that prevent me from seeing reality accurately?
What types of experiences or relationships challenge me to grow?
What forms of education or training will benefit my future the most?
What motivates me to learn?
Do I have a general understanding of the digital culture?
How important are fundamental sciences like biology, physics, mathematics, and philosophy in the era of AI?
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