A Worldwide Epidemic is spreading with enormous speed.

The 'WWO' (World-Wellness-Organization) foresees billions of people becoming infected within the coming decade!

Here are the most prominent symptoms of this wonderful enlivening 'disease':

1). The tendency to let yourself be guided by intuition instead of acting under pressure of fear, forced ideas and pre-conditioned behavior.

2). A total loss of interest in: - judging others, convicting yourself and preoccupation with things that create conflict.

3). A complete loss of the capacity to worry: - This is one of the most serious symptoms!

4). A continual pleasure in appreciating humans and things the way they are, which weakens one's tendency to want to 'change' others.

5). The desire to change oneself so that innate thoughts, feelings, emotions and bodily matters are managed in ways that facilitate only Health, Creativity and Love.

"The average working week was now twenty hours … but those twenty hours were no sinecure. There was little work left of a routine, mechanical nature. Men's minds were too valuable to waste on tasks that a few thousand transistors, some photoelectric cells, and a cubic meter of printed circuits could perform. There were factories that ran for weeks without being visited by a single human being. Men were needed for trouble-shooting, for making decisions, for planning new enterprises. The robots did the rest.

The existence of so much leisure would have created tremendous problems a century before. Education had overcome most of these, for a well-stocked mind is safe from boredom. The general standard of culture was at a level  which would have once seemed fantastic. There was no evidence that the intelligence of the human race had improved, but for the first time everyone was given the fullest opportunity of using what brain he had…

People could indulge in such whims, because they had both the time and the money. The abolition of armed forces had at once doubled the world's effective wealthy, and increased production had done the rest. As a result, it was difficult to compare the standard of living of twenty-first century man with that of any of his predecessors. Everything was so cheap that the necessities of life were provided free, provided as a public service by the community, as the roads, water, street lighting, and drainage had once been. A man could travel anywhere he pleased, eat whatever food he fancied without handing over any money. He had earned the right to do this by being a productive member of the community.

There were, of course, some drones, but the number of people sufficiently strong-willed to indulge in a life of complete idleness is much smaller than is generally supposed. Supporting such parasites was considerably less of a burden than providing for the armies of ticket collectors, shop assistants, bank clerks, stockbrokers, and so forth, whose main function, when one took the global point of view, was to transfer items from one ledger to another." Arthur Clarke, Childhood's End, 1956

I think of this quote often wishing to make it so. Some people read this and scoff at the notion claiming that people would simply be lazy living in a socialist state. Human nature they say is to be idle and corrupt.  But I don't think so. I believe that the society that Clarke sets forth is extremely interesting in that it unfolds a world where real ingenuity and meaning is realized. Work becomes an advocation where many skills and talents are recognized. People progress through the years learning more and more.  Work can be selected for the psychological and emotional needs of the individual. Easy work that allows the mind to relax and renew; stimulating work that challenges every part of the body; family years; etc. 

When I read the news today and hear of all the people out of work, the mortgages falling into disarray; people walking away from all they thought was secure just a year ago my mind starts to play with scenarios.  Could it be the ending of our childhood? It is scary, not just for others, but for me as well. Yet, I wonder, could we actually be in the becoming of our singularity moment where the world changes so dramatically ... for the better?

I find myself creating a vision of There, somewhat like in Clarke's novel and then asking myself, given today's falling apart, is it possible to to wayfind our way through apparent disaster and into the phoenix of a radically new world? Somehow I think so.  Drexler's Engines of Creation; Ray Kurtweil's work; and many others provide glimpses into a "perhaps" sense that this could be true. 

"The new life needs to be inspired with the realization that it has all kinds of new advantages that have been gained through great dedications of unknown, unsung heroes of intellectual exploration and great intuitively faithful integrities of people groping in the dark. Unless the new life is highly appreciative of those who have gone before, it won't be able to take effective advantage of its heritage. It will not be as regenerated and inspired as it might be if it appreciated the comprehensive love invested in that heritage."  R. Buckminister Fuller, 1963

In an age where information seems to be doubling every few days - where one innovation stands on the shoulders of another that is just a few days old - it is difficult to see the future, to find what matters.  Every system seems to be falling apart; Our political, financial and  corporate leadership are failing the ordinary citizen, too busy taking care of each other's business. 

Then an article like this shows up in the news and there is hope again. Two paragraphs in the article define a radical shift in how humans define themselves. It is interesting that we need science to know and give legitimacy to our feelings, our sense of self.

If human nature is as the Enlightenment philosophers claimed, then we are likely doomed. It is impossible to imagine how we might create a sustainable global economy and restore the biosphere to health if each and every one of us is, at the core of our biology, an autonomous agent and a self-centered and materialistic being.

Recent discoveries in brain science and child development, however, are forcing us to rethink these long-held shibboleths about human nature. Biologists and cognitive neuroscientists are discovering mirror-neurons--the so-called empathy neurons--that allow human beings and other species to feel and experience another's situation as if it were one's own. We are, it appears, the most social of animals and seek intimate participation and companionship with our fellows.