Shifting our future. Designing for regeneration and holistic change

According to Charles Darwin, it is not the strongest or the most intelligent who survive, but those who are most responsive to change. Humankind as a species could do worse than remember this famous quote and embrace its underlying notions, as it hurtles towards an unprecedented, staggering change of the type our minds can barely make sense of.
Humankind hurtles towards a staggering change of the type our minds can barely make sense of. 
I have often addressed the nature of these mutations, which are picking up speed like never before and involve the kind of leap that used to take many centuries to coalesce into a new kind of civilization. I have discussed –and will discuss again– the newest global language, represented (as I have argued) by cryptocurrencies and other virtual phenomena which are replacing traditional forms of interaction, including the ways in which we trade, invest, and produce. I have held that in the intricacy and complexity of modern life, together with the very real risk of overstepping our planetary boundaries beyond repair, a hitherto unknown paradigm has begun to emerge and that the relevant knowledge and unfolding cultural patterns can’t be jumpstarted, but will have to be learned — and lived.

Also, in previous articles and blog entries, I have tried to map our groping progress, as we try to grapple with the exponential growth of social and ecological uncertainty and wrap our tongues around this latest language, which is beginning to take shape just beyond the borders of catalytic transformation.
Now I will steer our vessel towards deeper waters, and attempt to describe the accompanying developments — not the global, mind-boggling ones taking place throughout the planet, but the inner transformation happening inside each human being as he or she realizes, whether consciously or intuitively, that regeneration is required at the profoundest level. And I will tell you something about my vision of the basic principles and ideas on which this transformation, this making-anew, should run.

The astounding shifts which the human species is currently experiencing do not only happen “out there”, in what I like to define as an “adjacent possible” — rather, they are mirrored by a swelling, vivid transition of equal magnitude happening inside of us and across our multi-layered, variegated consciousness.
As well as having to learn a paradigm-shattering new language, we are being required to align ourselves to a common, all-encompassing purpose involving an evolved consciousness. This consciousness has become poignantly aware of its own entropy (for example, the impossibility of continuing to grow in an extractive and destructive manner in a finite planet) and understands that the coming paradigm is, of necessity, regenerative.
This is humanity at its best — evolving, shape-shifting, wrestling with seismic change, and turning, deliberately or not, to the regenerative, holistic patterns formerly cast aside in our feverish race towards self-annihilation.

We are in the presence of incredible novelty and of the breakdown of forms and habits that have been with us for so long, life without them can seem scary and brittle. Like animals before an earthquake, most people can sense that something momentous is happening, even if few have the desire or ability to stop in their tracks and ascertain what it is. What we all share is the capacity of drawing from our common, holistic inner resources to strengthen ourselves towards this unheard-of journey.
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Several years ago, in 2015, John Fullerton laid out the eight principles of a regenerative economy, which are of use to us now, in our attempt to explain the transformation taking place within and without us and strive to align ourselves and our fragmented, harried lives with the shifts our world is undergoing:

These principles enable us to view the world, and our lives taking place within it, in a systemic, holistic, and interdependent way that encourages the flow and circulation of resources. Crucially, this includes viewing wealth holistically, as opposed to wielding it predatorily, in the ravaging and exploitative manner in which it has been used so far.
Explaining how these principles will shape the world’s new economy, Fullerton has said: “What remains [ahead of us] is the immense challenge to spur a broad awakening to the profound social and economic transition it implies. […] This quest’s most important discovery was that universal principles and patterns of systemic health and development actually do exist, and are known to guide behavior in: living systems from bacteria to human beings; nonliving systems from hurricanes to transportation systems and the Internet; and societal systems including monetary systems and yes, economies”.
His principles can be applied to our current dilemmas and to the fraught complexity of our times, helping us to “craft a coherent narrative around [this paradigm] so that it may be applied to defuse today’s global threats, particularly those arising from outdated and at-times-misguided beliefs in business, finance, and economics” (the words, which I wholly endorse, are again Fullerton’s).

Not by mere coincidence, these principles are also aligned with the patterns and axioms of open source. Originally referring to software codes made freely available for use, modification, and redistribution, the phrase’s meaning has come to include other decentralized models and systems encouraging open collaboration. In this spirit of community, sharing, purpose, and accountability, it is my and my fellow thinkers’ intention to facilitate our inner shifting towards awareness and evolution by creating a DARE (Decentralized Autonomous Regenerative Enterprise) that runs on both the protocols of open source and the patterns and principles of living systems.
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The aim and ultimate objective of this ecosystem is to unleash the new syntropic forces at our disposal and to harness the regenerative powers that will make our life on this planet sustainable. In this context and scheme, wealth is, to borrow Buckminster Fuller’s ideas, the ability to sustain ourselves in the long run — as opposed, I may add, to humankind sizzling and spluttering out like a candle, lost forever into the vast darkness of a dark universe.
Not strong, then, or even intelligent (though both strength and intelligence will play a large part in survival) — but, rather, responsive to change. Humans invented writing, math, sailing, the wheel, the Internet — all these allowed us to change the form of our lives and societies, making shape-shifters of us. We are now faced with unthinkable danger as well as unthinkable opportunity, and the question is — how will the shape-shifters respond?

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