It Ain’t About What It’s About

The Problem Elon Musk is Not Going to Address

Our world is changing faster than, perhaps, our human ability to process the change. My grandfather was born in 1882 (I’m 66 years old) and although he learned to drive an automobile mid-life he reverted in the 1960s to using a wagon and mule to get groceries from the store 10 miles away from his farm in northeastern Oklahoma. He listened to the radio for noon news and farm report but wouldn’t touch the TV. He used light bulbs but not an electric drill or circular saw. This from a man who, as a lifelong reader, in 1900 dropped out of his sophomore year of college because he was in love with my grandmother, our share croppers daughter. In other words he was literate and if we go by the evidence of his 68 year love affair with my grandmother … emotionally stable.

Consider the speed of change in our current world. Technologically, culturally, economically, environmentally, biologically, politically. Do we really think most of us are comfortably accommodating and ubiquitously and comprehendingly adjusting our paradigms to incorporate all the change and information and misinformation? I don’t.

So what do we do, as humans, when things feel out of control and overwhelming? We invent superstitions, ideologies, explanations, rationalizations, myths and totems to comfort ourselves. The very nature of these altogether human coping reactions have a built in label that says “not me”. If one has felt bewildered, frustrated, baffled or angry about what feels are inexplicable views and values of others it’s almost certain one is doing the very thing we’ve judged — just in a different way. “Ya spot it, ya got it”, we cant see or judge which we don’t have in our own psyche — even if “it” appears in different shape and color.

Not Elon Musk, Joel Osteen, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Selena Gomez or anyone else is going to solve this problem. We will adapt collectively as a species or we will fail collectively as a species. Be as loving, helpful, understanding, encouraging, optimistic and courteous to all creatures great and small in your life as is possible for you. Our species survival depends on you. No pressure, smile, go for it, you can do it!