The Balance Between Here and Tomorrow

Issue No. 16 : Reflections on how far we have come and how far we could go

When in Los Angeles, I walk along the beach every morning and just soak in the beauty of the here and now while working on my fitness goals for tomorrow. Photo: Per Håkansson.

Once you realize that we live in a world of tremendous abundance and not scarcity, things change. We have never in the history of Homo Sapiens’ 300,000 year long history having had the opportunity to live as rich lives like today.

In 1651 the British philosopher Thomas Hobbes described the pre-Renaissance era in his magnum opus Leviathan:

“No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” – Thomas Hobbes

We have, indeed, come a long way.

That’s not to say that we cannot become better but I think we often get so caught up in the everyday that we forget to see the bigger picture.

You might think it’s naive self-consolation but chaos, as today is often described as due to social and political changes, is on the surface. If we dig deeper, there is an opportunity to both understand better and live life to the fullest.

We live longer, have easy access to the basic essentials, and the opportunity to explore the world and all its knowledge from the palm of our hands. We truly live in the golden era of humanity.