Restoring Meaning in a Rapidly Changing World

Jamie Wheal argues that restoring meaning requires innovative, inclusive approaches that integrate healing, connection, and anti-fragility.

### The Quest for Meaning in an Exponential World: From Collapse to Creation
* 🐒 Jamie Wheal reminds us that "we're just monkeys with clothes," highlighting our **brief existence** in the grand timeline of Earth, where modern humans appeared "**just four seconds before midnight**" on a 24-hour clock of life.
* ⚡ The rapid pace of change across various domains—education, technology, and climate—has led to feelings of **overwhelm and grief**, as traditional sources of **stability seem to vanish**.
* ⛪ There is a notable decline in organized religion, now referred to as **Meaning 1.0**, with the "nones" emerging as the **fastest-growing spiritual group** in North America, indicating a **disconnect between traditional narratives and modern identities**.
* 🏛 Simultaneously, modern liberalism, or Meaning 2.0, is facing scrutiny, with institutions like academia and media **losing credibility**, as seen in the failures of entities like **Goldman Sachs and Purdue Pharma**.
* 🌀 In this context of meaning collapse, society is witnessing a rise in **fundamentalism and nihilism**, alongside an increase in **conspiracy theories** as people seek **clarity in chaos**.
* 🔮 Wheal proposes the need for "**liberating structures**" to foster individual experimentation in finding meaning, suggesting a new **Meaning 3.0** that combines the healing aspects of traditional religion with the inclusivity of modern liberalism.
* 🛠 This new framework should be **open-source, accessible, and resilient**, utilizing fundamental human experiences—like **breathing and music**—to **heal trauma and inspire connection**.
* 🌍 Ultimately, the goal is to **recapture our sense of rapture and belonging**, creating a collective narrative that helps us **navigate the complexities of our current reality** and **find purpose together**.

JAMIE WHEAL: It's really easy to forget,
that we're just monkeys with clothes.  If you took all of life on Earth and
you compressed it into one 24-hour day,  anatomically modern man shows up at four
seconds before midnight, cave paintings at  

one second before midnight. We've been playing
at civilization for a fraction of a second. Everything is going into exponential change, from
education to quantum computing, to cryptocurrency,  to transport, to macroeconomics, to
geopolitics, to climate crisis, to everything.  

It's breaking our brains. We're overwhelmed,
we're collapsing in grief. It does feel that  the handrails, the things that we used to
look to for stability and security, have just  evaporated. If we've experienced a collapse
in meaning how do we go about restoring it?

I'm Jamie Wheal, founder of the Flow Genome
Project, and author of "Recapture the Rapture:  Rethinking God, Sex, and Death in a World
That's Lost Its Mind." The collapse in meaning,  

that I think you can at least argue we're in the
midst of right now, is complex and multivariable.  We've had a collapse in traditional organized
religion, what you could call kind of Meaning 1.0.  

For the first time ever, the nuns, the spiritual
but not religious, like the "none of the above's,"  is the largest and fastest growing
religious movement in North America.  There are increasingly folks that feel like, "Hey,
those stories, those codes, those ways of being,  

don't match my identity. Don't match my choices. 
Don't match my community." So organized religion   is no longer a place to hang our hats. 
And at the same time, modern liberalism   has also been getting a little creaky. That's 
Meaning 2.0. Think of the ivory tower in academia, 

news media, businesses, and corporate titans 
and leadership, potentially even medicine. And   you just take those and you just go one by one. 
You're like, oh, well, Goldman Sachs sold middle   America down the river in 2008. And McKinsey 
helped Purdue Pharma sell more OxyContin, well 

after the negative effects were demonstrated. 
The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, 
which used to be considered the journals of 
record are now imploding. And the same thing   with doctors, the same thing with corruptions 
in peer review, and the replication crisis. 

Basically everything you've ever seen 
on a TED Talk is probably not true. So all of the places that we 
used to use rules of thumb   or decision-making shortcuts, 
that's just evaporated.   So in that collapse, we're getting fundamentalism 
on one side, and we're getting nihilism 

on the other. We're getting diseases of despair. 
We're getting real heartbreak. I think you could   make a case that that is why we're seeing this 
uptick in conspiracy theories of all stripes.   Will anybody make sense of all of this nonsense 
for me? If you can give me a happily ever after, 

if you can tell me that I'm one of the good guys, 
and you promised to get me to the other side, 
hundreds of thousands of people these days, are 
deeply vulnerable to that promise. These are   rapture ideologies. We can see examples of 
that with ISIS and Christian Zionism. But I 

I think what is equally important to note is that
they show up in Wall Street, in Silicon Valley. All of these rapture ideologies
share the same structure. Number one, the world as we know it is screwed. Number
two, there's an inflection point coming soon.

Number three, as soon as we get to that inflection
point, me and mine, the elect, the saved, are going to score one of the golden tickets to
the other side. Number four, so let's get there as

fast as possible. Don't worry about the collateral
damage of the world we're leaving behind. So the question then is, how do
we create liberating structures so that a lot of people all around the world,
can experiment, innovate and adapt their own

approaches to finding and restoring meaning,
without it coming top-down? If we want to create Meaning 3.0, which is a blend of traditional
religion and modern liberalism, how do we have the salvation that religion promises, and the
inclusion that modern liberalism is committed to?

From Meaning 1.0, we need healing, inspiration
and connection. From the modern liberal side, we want this to be open-source. We want
anybody anywhere to have access to this. It needs to be scalable, really cheap
or outright free. And then the third,

is it has to be anti-fragile. But as Mike Tyson
said, "Everybody's got a plan until they get hit," right? So the idea of an anti-fragile
solution is one that actually digs in

and get stronger, more rooted, more effective as things deteriorate around it. If you want to do things that everybody has access to that are effective, start with evolutionary drivers like breathing, sexuality, embodiment, substances, and music. Our nervous systems and our

bodies can actually be profoundly potent tools to discharge trauma, and to prompt peak states and inspiration. Bringing that design thinking approach is an attempt to support that. So that would be the hope for Meaning 3.0. It doesn't promise an out for an escape.

It doesn't promise a happily ever after that is structurally different from right here, right now. We need tools to mend our trauma, tools to reconnect with inspiration, why we're here and what it all means, and tools to better

connect with each other. And if we can do that, then we stand a chance of recapturing our rapture, our bliss, our contentment, our belonging, our passion, and the story of who we are, the story of

where we're going, and the commitment to figure out together what do we do now.

Why the world is going crazy—and how to win back our minds | Jamie Wheal | Big Think

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Humanity's Brief History and the Current Crisis of Meaning

Humans are relatively new to Earth, with civilization existing for a tiny fraction of time.

Exponential changes in various fields are overwhelming and causing a collapse in meaning and stability.

Traditional sources of security and meaning have evaporated, leading to widespread grief and uncertainty.

The speaker introduces himself and his book, focusing on the collapse of meaning.

The Decline of Traditional Meaning Systems (Meaning 1.0 and 2.0)

Traditional organized religion (Meaning 1.0) is losing its relevance for many.

The rise of the 'spiritual but not religious' group signifies a shift away from traditional religious structures.

Modern liberalism (Meaning 2.0), including institutions like academia and media, is also losing credibility.

Examples of failures and corruption in various institutions are cited, eroding trust.

The resulting vacuum leads to fundamentalism and nihilism, along with a rise in conspiracy theories.

People are vulnerable to promises of a better future, leading to the rise of rapture ideologies.

These ideologies, found in various contexts, share a common structure: a doomed world, an upcoming inflection point, the selection of the 'elect,' and a disregard for collateral damage.

The shared structure of rapture ideologies includes a belief in a coming inflection point where the 'elect' will be saved.

Creating Liberating Structures: Meaning 3.0

The need to create bottom-up approaches to restoring meaning is emphasized.

Meaning 3.0 should blend the healing and connection of traditional religion with the openness and inclusivity of modern liberalism.

Meaning 3.0 must be open-source, scalable, cheap/free, and anti-fragile.

Utilizing Evolutionary Drivers for Meaning 3.0

Utilizing evolutionary drivers like breathing, sexuality, embodiment, substances, and music to address trauma and foster peak states.

Meaning 3.0 doesn't promise an escape but offers tools for healing, reconnecting with inspiration, and fostering better connections.

The goal is to recapture rapture, bliss, contentment, belonging, and passion through these tools.

The focus is on rebuilding the story of who we are, where we're going, and collaboratively figuring out what to do next.