Know, Sancho, that all these storms that happen to us are signs that the weather will soon calm down and things will happen well to us; for it is not possible for evil or good to be lasting, and from this it follows that, having lasted a long time, good is already at hand…

(Don Quixote de la Mancha)

No, this is not a Chinese curse. Actually, it never was. Research shows this saying is not of Chinese origin, and that it was born in the mind of Joseph Chamberlain, a British politician, around the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The expression is an irony where "interesting times” means difficult times.

But then, life is intrinsically very interesting all the time. Transformational changes are happening continuously. They define life. Not every person, tribe, or country, or species is necessarily experiencing the same intensity of “interesting” at the same time, just like storms do not happen everywhere simultaneously and with the same intensity.

But changes, intense changes, from the point of view of the inhabitants of a particular place or moment of history, take place in the course of the evolution of life and civilization. A volcanic eruption is destructive but fertilizes the soils, a meteor striking Earth ended the era of dinosaurs, and launched the mammalian evolution culminating in the human species, and the agricultural, industrial, and informatics revolution have altered the sociopolitical architecture of humanity.

The first humans, hunter-gatherers, did not have language or time to reflect on the changes befalling them all the time; they lived in constantly challenging situations. The stable human settlements enabled by the discovery of agriculture led to civilization. Organized around densely populated settlements, divided into more or less rigid hierarchical social classes of division of labor, often with a ruling elite and a subordinate urban and rural population. Civilization concentrated power, extending human control of societies over the rest of nature and over other human beings.

Throughout human history, the organizational structure of governance and the complexity of society have varied as tools for production, communication, and travel developed. Shifting from communes, cities, feuds, kingdoms, nation states, empires, confederations, and global blocks, with various sizes and degrees of political participation of their citizens. Mass education, science and technology, power, superstitions, beliefs, leaders, and natural processes shaped our collective global consciousness in the same way a garden evolves and goes through stages; the garden collectively grows, but its components are not all in the same state. Some elements are still growing, whereas others are blooming. There is nothing in the universe that is not in constant motion and change; all is in a cycle, all. That is the design of all things.

The overall consciousness in terms of understanding, through the intellectual and, to a certain point, intuitive achievements of science, has led modern civilization as a whole towards a conceptual blending of humanity as one species, and the understanding of its connectivity with all forms of life and nature. The speed of this transformation has been amazing. Just up to 12 to 15 thousand years ago, isolated tribes of hunter-gatherers populated the planet in various different pockets. With the development of agriculture, animal domestication, and the management of minerals, a new era evolved. Just 600 years ago, the two world hemispheres connected their cultures and populations. A bit later, the use of energy to move machinery, the development of science, led to an overwhelming link of people on a day-to-day basis, on tools and understandings developed by science, and not superstition. And brought us to another reality that came into its fullest expression in the 20th century.

During the course of that global amalgamation, many interesting and terrible moments happened, constant wars, massacres, religious inquisitions, enslavement and merchandising of people, holocausts, atomic weapons used to incinerate cities, and environmental impacts of human activity that led to the deterioration of human health and natural systems. Yet, there was some progress in terms of awareness of the fact that we are all in the same boat. This can be expressed as a progression in bell curves wherein the whole of humanity exhibits progress, but there are people that are way ahead and others just starting to develop.

And I guess this is what makes it so interesting, the struggle, the different states of sensibility, and maybe this duality, this friction between levels of sensibility and behavior related to each, the proverbial good and evil, is nothing but the tension between different developmental stages that provides the energy for further evolution and progress.

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So yes, we are living in very interesting times. Times, when our awareness and humanity have allowed us to perceive that we are intimately interconnected in a continuum of life, when our mind has allowed us to understand and use the material and energy realms, while becoming aware of the consequences to our own wellbeing of disturbing the existing equilibrium. And we need to match the growth of the scientific and technological innovation that we are experiencing in this modern civilization, with a conscious shift that makes us aware of the underlying fact that we are all on the same boat, and what affects one will eventually affect all. Otherwise, we will just be exchanging tribal battles for global battles, and instead of strangling a perceived enemy, we will shoot him or blow him up with bombs, and we will poison and degrade the natural environment that we totally depend on for our survival.

We have moved on from living in tribal and national interesting times to global interesting times. The eccentricities and narcissistic behaviors of tribal leaders brought interesting times, just to the boundaries of the tribe, the insanity of Caligula just to Rome, but today people like Trump and Putin can make the whole world live very interesting times.

Scientific understanding has met the mystical teachings from all traditions and the bell curve of understanding that we are all in the same boat has moved forward, the abolition of slavery, the recognition of women’s rights, the expansion of education and health to many, the creation of more democratic societies, the adoption of environmental considerations in developmental thrusts have advanced significantly. It all goes in steps, and there are always counterforces and interests opposing these pushes towards sustainability. The speed of the pushes that challenge the traditional cultural status quo, that envelops a narrowness of consciousness of human id to a particular nationality, race, gender, religious belief, etc., creates a resistance, a fear to change, a call to go back to the past in view of the uncertainty of an evolving future.

This, together with our personal and collective struggle between selfishness and selflessness, that leads to extremes like Elon Musk and Mother Theresa, and corporate techno-economic systems centered on its products rather than human solidarity, these extremes create very, very interesting times for all the people on this planet. It seems a profound transformation is at hand. The ever-evolving conceptual understandings of each man to his own and the concept that we are all one family are clashing now on a global scale, because civilization is now on a global scale. Meher Baba, a spiritual teacher from the last century, synthesized this dilemma: “Selfishness, multiplied by population, results in wars, exploitation, persecution, and poverty. Selflessness, multiplied by population, brings about peace and plenty.”

An example of the transformational struggle is the United States. The country has been, over the last 100 years, very influential in leading the poles of greed, opulence, charity, scientific development, consumerism, the global environment, racism, inclusion, and diversity. That is, the manifestation of the good and bad things that humanity has always exhibited, in the scope of today's civilization. But today, the United States is focusing on policies of selfishness, prejudice, and ignorance, excluding the outbreak of advances in science, compassion, nature conservation, and human integration.

In Europe and elsewhere, these politicians and policies are also growing, taking advantage of people's fear of change and stoking it with slogans of going back to the past. But none has projected as Trump, thanks to his effective use of the media and his buffoonish authoritarian personality.

So, we have moved. This human conglomerate from the evolutionary origins of homo sapiens about two million years ago, hunter-gatherers until 12 thousand years ago with the mastery of agriculture, society, written language, until through recent accelerated developments in scientific discovery has brought us in the last couple of hundred years to a global civilization. All this process is through constant struggle, wars, and differing points of view. A process of transformation.

For the new global transformation, a change of consciousness is necessary, where the prevailing model, egoistic, tribal, and nationalistic, is totally replaced by a planetary vision of humanity.

Like Pope Francis said: “The future has a name and this name is hope. Hope is the virtue of a heart that doesn't close itself in the dark, doesn't stop at the past, doesn't scrape along in the present but can clearly see tomorrow.”

The spiritual forces are within each of us, and with wisdom, compassion, and courage, we must stand firm in our truths about the equality and interconnectedness of humanity. We have to continue to shed light on the darkness cast by fear. With courage and love, but never with hatred, we will make positive change and transform the world where the prevailing model, egoistic, tribal, and nationalistic, is replaced by a planetary vision of humanity. Where people become aware of their physical and existential interconnection with others. Where religious principles of oneness, expressed at a declarative level in concepts and dogmas by spiritual traditions and religions of the world, are truly adopted as worldviews and guides for daily behavior by individuals and society, in harmony with the findings of science, about the continuum of the universe and life.

Yes, these are very interesting times, the universe, life, all are always a wonderful and miraculous thing, and we must involve ourselves in its challenges and riddles to reveal its beauty. No matter how dark it is, the sun will always rise again, outside and inside of us.

Meher Baba once said: "... Those who are only alarmed by the obstacles facing humanity tend to despair about its future. But one must look deeper if one wants to gain a correct perspective on the current crisis of humanity. The real possibilities of a new humanity are hidden from those who only look at the surface of the world situation. The redemptive characteristic of human nature is that even in the midst of disruptive forces, some form of love invariably exists."

May we always live in very interesting times, seeking this love.