Thanks Otto! You name and frame the current global moment well as always.
What I've noticed lately in my practice is that people are ready for what they are ready for. Theory U is a great infrastructure and process, one of multitudes, to help people who are ready to shift, but they won't even see the value in entering that process unless they're ready. I'm noticing how tightly coupled (or quadrupled) are readiness, capability, understanding, and motivation; e.g. if you are only ready in your holistic development as a human being to be guided by the existing rules of society for the most part (which the majority of people are based on my observations) you'll find holding a space for cocreation way too scary and unknown(capability), and you won't see the need for anything different (understanding and motivation).
It seems like (hopefully there is some miraculous hidden "prestige", in the magician's act sense, that will change this) we as a species are in a process of widespread whole scale destruction of the ecosystem and collapse, and most people don't want to be aware of this. I read an article showing how the average National party voter in NZ thinks that everything is fine, and all the govt has to do is steer the ship steady, keep growing the GDP, etc (more of the same that you described), and National is the party that won the election. They've recently dismantled the Māori Health Authority which would have given Māori autonomy and resources to ensure their own health and well being in a decolonised way. People like you and I are way up one end of the bell curve in terms of planetary awareness and motivation to do something about the situation. But probably ~80% of people don't have the readiness to make the changes needed, and they won't in a timescale that avoids widespread collapse.
My current question, or koan, of the situation is: all of this was natural, how humans arose was a natural consequence of evolution, all of the environmental destruction is in fact a product of nature, the process of natural selection leading to this ultra efficient predator, us, the "future eater" as one book title framed it. And yet I can see clearly that we have a consciousness that can transcend that predatory nature to take a role as sustainable stewards of nature; humans have at times arrived at that cultural point, often in indigenous settings, only to have it swept away by colonisation. I've got a feeling that where this is heading is a great collapse, and I hope that what will arise is a much smaller, wiser through experience, cohort of humans who've learnt more deeply and collectively the value of being sustainable stewards.
But reading the data on environmental collapse I'm not sure we'll be around at all in a hundred years. If so, and if consciousness creates matter as much as matter creates consciousness, what is the purpose of this whole process? What is our (in the widest planetary family sense, including all life and matter, of "our") destiny? What does the universe want to learn? I feel very priveleged to at least participate in the unfolding. I'm sorry to the planet and indigenous people for the widespread destruction and domination that my ancestors were complicit in.
One thing I've always really appreciated and also felt challenged by in Theory U is the tension between presencing and absencing, and the recognition that both are always there. I've liked to focus on presencing because it makes me feel good and hopeful, but actually both are just as important as the other aren't they, even though absencing is a lot less pleasant. But it's all part of the journey eh?
