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Recognizing when we are can be a life-changing experience.

In this podcast I explore how, for a growing number of us, it no longer feels enough to simply acknowledge that climate change and the planetary crisis are real, or even to sound the alarm about the magnitude of the problems we face.

Instead, we find ourselves wanting to talk about our life, work and future in the context of unprecedented discontinuities — and the disruptive responses they demand.

This crisis is an era, not an issue. We want to be in conversation with others about how it feels to live in this new era, not simply agree (or argue) about it’s seriousness.

There is, in short, a deep hunger for the meeting of context and connection in our relationships. Real connection is grounded in a shared experience. For those who’ve seen what’s happening, shared lived experience of profound discontinuity is the foundation for meaningful conversations about the world as a whole.

That shared experience is also what gives real depth to discussion of our hopes, dreams and ambitions. One of the things that older worldviews can’t encompass is the notion that continuity is gone, and we won’t be getting “normal” back — and that discontinuous change also opens up new possibilities.

When every discussion of the planetary future (to the extent it’s discussed at all) centers on how bad it’s getting, there’s no opening to discuss the genuinely profound opportunities in front of us. (Which, in some settings, is the point of keeping the conversation grim, as I’ve written.)

What a relief it is to find yourself in company with folks whose outlooks don’t instantly veer apocalyptic with the demise of past certainties! It’s so liberating to talk with people who — without denying the seriousness of the crisis — are open to the huge new opportunities ahead of us, the ambitions for change at scale that might prove transformative, the kinds of lives that can prosper because they are better-suited to the world as it is. Who understand that discontinuity is the job.

As I wrote before, about the ways old thinking hampers our understanding of this moment,

Events being unprecedented does not make them beyond comprehension. The loss of continuity does not mean a descent into blind chaos. We can learn to thrive amidst discontinuity, disruption, upheaval. There are thousands of people teaching themselves how, right now.

Those of us who understand unprecedented discontinuity as the beginning of the future (and not simply as the end of the past) may still be few in number, but we’re starting to have the most important conversations anyone is having, anywhere.

If you want to be a part of those conversations, you’re in the right place.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit alexsteffen.substack.com/subscribe

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