A jinking target requires calm resolve.Modern-day sages tell us to subvert the dominant paradigm, or dominate it, or otherwise bend it to our will (or much more likely, bend ourselves to it).
Whatever we do with it, the prerequisite is to grasp it. Not as easy as it sounds, with this moving, jinking target. Economic and cultural forces are rolling on the crests and troughs of seismic waves, turning over again and again as one upheaval or another transforms our world, ever more rapidly.
Think you got a handle on the dominant paradigm? Are you sure you’re not hanging on to a vanished reality from two or three paradigms past?
This is a world where information is currency, and industrial construction takes place on the nanometer level. A world of unrelenting connectedness, of data democratization, and of technologically enabled personal empowerment.
But don’t dwell too much on that world, on this paradigm. Because it’s changing again, right in front of you.
It’s easier, perhaps, to focus on what’s gone — to recognize the dinosaurs that have gone extinct. And there’s value in that, to a degree. There’s value in knowing what no longer works.
But we’re not really reactive types, are we? So how do we become proactive about this rapidly changing world? Simple — we change this world to suit our needs.
That’s not as arrogant, or as delusional, as it sounds. What is a paradigm, after all? It’s a pattern. It’s a pattern of behaviors, customs, interactions — that define how we work, play, live, and love. The patterns form from societal influencers, and they flourish because we accept and build upon them.
We excel at pattern recognition, but we’re even better at pattern creation. We are absolutely empowered, through technology and personal courage, to create new patterns, and thus new paradigms.
Easy? Nope. It’s much easier to go along with whatever the rest of the world is doing. Rewarding? Now you’ve got it. The reward for courage and tenacity is a world, or maybe just your little corner of it, that is patterned after your own ideals.
The C4:
- We speak of paradigms and patterns. They’re one and the same. They’re the collective norm, the way most of us view the world and interact with it and each other.
- For a myriad of reasons, the patterns are shifting faster and more dramatically than ever before. For most of human history, the patterns and paradigms recognizable in any one person’s lifetime were almost indistinguishable from those of their great-grandparents, or their great-grandchildren. Now our world shifts before our very eyes.
- Do not despair. This isn’t future shock, it’s opportunity. The same seismic forces that roil our outlook also empower us. We can harness the agents of change to create patterns and paradigms that are worthy of our courage, our tenacity, and our noblest hopes and dreams.
- “The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.” — Napoleon Hill
