“When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” Jimi Hendrix
“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” Albert Einstein
“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” Mahatma Gandhi
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” John F. Kennedy
“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” Virginia Woolf
“We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves. Dalai Lama
“Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience”. Thomas Merton
“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.” Nelson Mandela
“Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.” Marcus Aurelius
“It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.” Eleanor Roosevelt
Wow!! Those are amazing quotes from amazing people.
In my last post, I discussed the dangers of Artificial Intelligence’s growing dominance in our lives. In this post, I will discuss what humans need to do to make sure that civilization advances more rapidly than cyberization.
In a recent NYT column, David Brooks, another amazing person, discussed how humans could ensure their distinctiveness in a digitally dominated world. He talked about our ability to present information in captivating ways, to connect with other human beings, to exercise our curiosity and creativity, to be sensitive to context, to demonstrate empathy and presence, to reflect on what’s important, to engage passionately, to find humor, to share wisdom, and to open ourselves to transcendent experiences. All of those qualities are beyond the wildest reaches of AI.
It seems to me that what makes us human in an increasingly dehumanized world is our potential for creating agency of our souls, finding peace in our hearts, and developing our powers and possibilities. Yup, instead of searching the internet for more disinformation, perhaps we should be searching our hearts and minds and souls for what’s most important. We may need a human APP to compete with all the information APPs bombarding us on daily basis.
For me, of course, this human APP is a 3-point acronym that captures the salient elements: Agency, Peace, and Possibility.
Agency implies that we have free will. To me, free will only exists for people who have some level of crystallized essence or a soul developed enough to witness our physical, emotional, and intellectual reactions and responses to the world. Developing a soul takes work – a lifelong process of introspection, reflection, and impartial observation. Enhancing our physical, emotional and intellectual well-being also requires continuous effort and discipline. All of that developmental effort seems daunting, but having some sense of agency makes it worthwhile. Having agency means we create the capacity and resources to fulfill potential.
Several factors can influence agency: social class, ethnicity, cognitive ability, mental health, emotional stability, imagination, etc. These factors can work against agency in marginalized and oppressed people. To the extent that any of us can develop personal agency, independent of those factors, gives us the power to counteract the disempowering forces and exploitative powers in a capitalistic and militaristic culture. To me, it’s even more admirable when people living under oppressive conditions are able to find agency in their connections, creativity, or cultures of resistance.
I just finished a remarkable book on agency by Maggie Shipstean entitled the Great Circle. This story of historical fiction is written about Marian Graves, a courageous World War II pilot who tried to fly a plane around the world – crossing over both poles – in the early 50’s. The fictional Marian had been born and raised in oppressive conditions and had been seduced by a powerful and dominating person who was 10 years older than she was when she married him at age 17. He had not so secretly funded her flying ambitions, and she was tricked into “negotiating” a marriage in exchange for her ability to fly. Flying was her only source of agency. While I loved the book, it struck me as an absurdly insane way to search for yourself under the most challenging conditions. It’s hard enough to find your way home without circling the globe. And yet, that’s what we tend to do. It seems to me that it makes more sense to go on a long, internal journey than an even longer external journey. It may also be a whole lot easier, and more satisfying way, to find ourselves. Although, in Marian’s case, I get it.
Agency, however, is useless if we don’t have Peace in our hearts. Power without peace will not solve the existential problems we are facing with climate change, wars, poverty and pandemics. There are so many wonderful and powerful quotes on peace, but the feeling still seems to elude us. Peace can only be achieved through understanding (Einstein), heroic labor, sacrifice, fidelity and purity (Merton), working with our enemies (Mandela), believing that peace is possible AND working to achieve it (Eleanor Roosevelt) and searching within (Dalai Lama). Peace can’t be achieved through retribution (Gandhi), avoiding life (Woolf), violent revolution (Kennedy) or force (Einstein).
For me, Peace is an internal state of equanimity or, as my friend Due Quach says, calm clarity. The questions are: Does a “state” like that exist, where can we find it, and how do we manage to stay in it when we accidentally or purposefully find ourselves there – even for a moment? I don’t believe that “state” exists anywhere external to us. We can only find it if we embark on the long inward journey.
I experience my most peaceful state during meditation. After 30 minutes of breathing deeply, moving gently, and visualizing serenely, I find myself in a peaceful and sublime state of being. If I notice myself feeling tense, rushed, or stressed during the day, I pause long enough to return to a more relaxed state.
A human APP wouldn’t be complete without a vision of Possibilities – perhaps our most distinguishing characteristic as human beings. No matter how powerful AI becomes, it will be incapable of envisioning possibilities for transcendence. Only humans can imagine a world in which we all live together harmoniously. To me, we all have the possibility of growing physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually – to have the possibility of evolving our consciousness, competence and conscientiousness. We have the unique capability to open to new possibilities and create a better world.
I could have added several other P’s to this mix, for example: Presence, Purpose, Perspective, and Passion – all of which make us more human. I decided to limit myself to Peace and Possibility because of their overriding importance, AND I didn’t want to get carried away with my alliteration – something I often do. Also, the point of this post was to explore what kind of APPs we need as humans to deal with the inhuman APPs that dominate our lives.
In closing, let me share that I’m not only writing this post on my 78th birthday – still in the process of growing agency, peace and possibility in my life – but this post also marks another milestone for me. It’s the 300th post I will have published in the last 8 years when I started this blog. Over these past 8 years, I have tried to develop my agency, my sense of peace, and the possibilities for experiencing life more fully – in essence, to become more human. AND to clarify my thoughts.
I’m hoping this milestone missive will inspire you to create your own Human APP that will help you deal with the dehumanizing domination of digital demands. Like Jimi Hendrix, I’m hoping that the power of love may someday overcome the love of power so that we can live in a more peaceful world. May it be so.
Also published on Medium.
