The Future of Life
Café-Salon Philosophique #10
May 23, 1998
No. of Participants: 15
(Holiday weekend)
Topic: "What do you envision life to be at the turn of the century? What is your vision of the world in the next ten years? What kind of life do you imagine we are going to have? Will we survive the chaos? Is there going to be any chaos? And after the chaos, what then? Any why is living so difficult, but yet so simple?"
Samuel began the evening by asking participants to share why they had come to Cafe-Salon Philosophique. One said, "It's something different to do. I saw it in the paper." Others said, "I saw the article in the NY Times about Paris' Cafe Philosophique, so I thought I'd try it." "I heard about it while I was here in the store." "Someone brought me here."
To acquaint everyone new to the Cafe, Samuel gave a brief history about Cafe-Salon Philosophique and Le Centre du Silence Mime School. (BodySpeak™ - The Avital Method and performances by the Boulder Mime Theatre of the 70's).
Samuel introduced the evening's topic by briefly discussing "visibility and invisibility." Visibility is learning to relate and interact in the world in a simple manner. Visibility is not about drawing attention to one's self. It's being invisibly visible.
Being invisible is "maintaining a low profile." It's learning to not make a big deal of everything that happen's in life or needing a reaction from others for your actions. It is going about your business very quietly, unnoticed.
People that make themselves "too visible" often attract unwanted attention and often times, find certain rights being violated by others, such as freedom of speech, freedom of enterprise, right to privacy, etc. People of high visibility often come under fire and are perceived as a threats by authority figures because of fear and not wanting old systems to change.
Samuel gave the example of Bill Gates being a "highly visible" leader, and how government, big business and the press have pushed to try and control and even potentially stop his freedom of enterprise.
Discussion then moved to the subject of psychology and psychiatry and how this "treatment modality" has failed in the last 100 years in bringing "peace of mind" to the people. The reason being, is that psychiatry works from the premise that there "is something wrong" with a person and the "way that they think." These so called "professionals" tend to keep people attached to unnecessary emotional bonds of past or present situations which have nothing to do with finding personal freedom, freedom of speech or creative living.
In the past few years, there has been a movement for people to progress away from the old, outdated medical models towards a more holistic, mind and body approach. People are becoming more and more distrustful of the "doctors in the white coats," and don't want them "playing God" and no longer want to be treated as "experiments" for drugs, testing, surgeries, etc.
People are learning to focus more on health and wellness rather than being treated as "symptoms" of illness. They want to be treated as whole persons and not just as "individual body parts." Someone said, "we are beginning to take charge of our lives by creating new solutions for maintaining health and wellness." This trend is going to continue and one person stated that "these holistic practices will be reflected in new ways of caring for the mind and body."
Discussion then moved to what was happening in the fast paced world of technology - the internet. One described the internet "as an exciting way to effectively communicate with the world." Another stated, "we are advancing so rapidly that there are a lot of new and exciting possibilities awaiting us in and from cyberspace." Someone mentioned how relatively "inexpensive" the internet is and about "how fast" one can communicate with distant parts of the world in merely "split seconds."
On the other hand, disadvantages to the internet were thought to be,"a way to alienate one from another," the internet is "alot of useless words, information and garbage," "live communication could become lost," and one thought that "there is already alot of discrimination and racism in the world and that the internet is just one more way to separate the "haves from the have nots."
Samuel believes as the number of people using computers and the internet increases, people will become bored and restless because of loss with human contact.
The next topic of discussion was looking towards the future of education. Samuel began this topic by describing to us how it will be necessary for people to shift to a new way of thinking in order to live and survive creatively in the world.
He sees education returning to the home, and a new form of education needing to be developed in order to accommodate this. People will require training to adjust and adopt to new information and knowledge after things have settled from the chaos.
We then moved to discussing if we could even possibly imagine eternal life for humans in the world today and what were our views on death? Samuel started this conversation by reminding us that Society thinks of youth and vitality as being in "cosmetics, plastic surgery, and bottles." He asked us why our world accepts death as inevitable? Why do people "retire" at age 65? Why do Western doctors continue to treat symptoms and illnesses with drugs rather than using more holistic, alternative practices when they are so readily available and have proven to be effective?
He then asked us if we were ready to die? One said, "eventually." Another said, "I'm not ready right now." "I don't want to die." Some believed that "eternal life is achieved after the physical body dies." In order for one to even possibly consider eternal life, one is going to have to shift their way of thinking. As the shift continues, people will have to relearn what health and wellness is through a new form of body-mind care.
Discussion then moved with participants asking, "why our world has failed to change old and worn out patterns and systems of our Society today?" "Why have we not progressed from these old systems in let's say, the last 100 years?" Tara asked, "Why is it taking the world so long to evolve?" "It seems like we are going way too slow." "Why is there so much focus on technological advancement, money and materialism?"
The last point was Samuel asking us to share our visions of what we foresaw for the future. Responses were, "I see increased cooperation between nations and people, and increased communication through use of the internet." One said she was, "just gonna go with her gut and let it flow." One person "did not want there to be an internet." She would like to see "huge catastrophes happen, so that we could become human again, or just so that the real humans would survive."
"Natural disasters and catastrophes are happening right now and will continue to happen." "The people to survive will be those that relearn and retrain themselves to live in the world, but not be a part of it." It will be for those who live simply and learn to interact as only is necessary in order to stay sane in the midst of madness." Responses continued with, "I try to live moment to moment." "I see the gap of the haves and have nots widening." "If I meet chaos, I try to stay detached."
Others stated, "There will be those that fear and those that are fearless, with the fearless surviving." The fearful will be those separated by "ego, chaos and confusion." "The fearless will be those that "prosper, regenerate, and know their real and personal truth." Samuel reminded us that there is a difference between truth and honesty. "Truth can be manipulated, but honesty can't." So one has to learn to distinguish between the two.
Others envisioned "crises still occurring with resistent diseases still prevalent," "a continuation of the socioeconomic gap between the rich and the poor," "increased choices because of greedy materialism leading to increased confusion and chaos." Another sees the "old systems falling apart." One thinks "no changes will occur within the next ten years, everything will pretty much remain the same." One sees "small changes at a time occurring." And then in conclusion, most think that "the internet will be helpful."
On a more positive note, some think that we will "go in new directions where we've never gone before." People who can overcome negativities will emerge fearless and be on top.
The next meeting for Cafe will be held June 6, 1998 at Barnes & Nobles , 2915 Pearl St., Boulder, CO beginning at 7:30 p.m. For the featured topic, we will continue to elaborate on:
"What do you envision life to be like at the turn of the century? What is your vision of the world in the next ten years? What kind of life do you imagine we are going to have? Will we survive the chaos? Is there going to be any chaos? And after the chaos, what then? And why is living so difficult, but yet so simple?"
Reported by Alessandra
