Thread by @RobbSmith

1/ 2020: The Great Release meets The Transformation Age, what an amazing time to be alive! We are witness to the birth pangs of the new world right beneath & in front of us. Incredible.

A thread on the best way to understand 2020 through the lens of an integral mind.

2/ At highest level, 2020 is exact fault line of two seismic historical-evolutionary plates colliding: First, the techno-economic-social plate of 21st c. civilization in the making, smashing into second, an end-of-cycle plate of the natural breakdown of post-WWII US hegemony.

3/ That is, The Transformation Age is smashing into The Great Release.

I've addressed both in various places (as have others). In 2012, I described TTA as first-time emergence of one, interconnected society of 7 billion on single planetary biosphere:

youtube.com/watch?v=X3X6YY…

4/ The Transformation Age emerges alongside, and indeed catalyzes, a time of great crisis: a *Metacrisis*.

The MC is a worldwide, interrelated, interpenetrating crisis & failure across environment, economy, governance, & spirituality, all atop of a deeper failure of education.

4/ As I outlined at TEDx, the central adaptive requirement of The Transformation Age is *growth in human consciousness*: growth in empathy, discernment, mindfulness, humility, & sustainability.

Not just an educational challenge, a *transformative education* challenge.

5/ Transformative education grows people. Not just their knowledge, but the capacity, complexity & capabilities of their inner selves.

They get...*bigger*. It helps them grow up, wake up, clean up, show up, open up & rise up.

This century, nothing less will do.

6/ Now, against the emergence of The Transformation Age hits The Great Release, a painful breakdown in the dominant of the day, in this case the United States. We are amidst an epic breakdown in the US today, and a searing crash & time of adjustment is ahead.

7/ Why? It's almost inevitable: all "winning" empires get slow & lazy as those in power change the rules of governance to maximize the ongoing gains of the few. In a word, the winner gets deeply *irresilient*, incapable of adapting to change.

8/ Irresilience grows as power consolidates. And as power consolidates, policies get increasingly stupid, increasing irresilience. Tension builds, heading toward a *great release*. This follows a complex systems adaptive cycle we can map since 1945:

9/ Volumes can be said about this, but best to just read it.

TLDR: obesity, wealth inequality, rise of populism, enduring popularity of Trump & Sanders, degradation of middle class, culture war etc. all play roles & readily seen through this lens.

integrallife.com/wp-content/upl…

10/ Note that both in my TEDx talk & in TGR, *resilience* is central. Why?

Because global phase shifts like ours means life is VUCA—volatile, uncertain, complex & ambiguous—at least for a long while yet (more on this in a moment).

*And resilience is the antidote to VUCA.*

11/ What's really happening is The Transformation Age is demanding a new *Integrative Operating System.*

An integrative O/S knows that resilience is our new scarce resource, & that growth in human consciousness is the pathway to meet the metacrisis.

integrallife.com/never-better-n…

12/ Let me say that differently: to meet the metacrisis, we need to build *full-spectrum resilience* in all 4 quadrants (see above) & at all levels of evolutionary stack. We need to become a Deliberately Developmental Civilization.

This is why I founded @IntegralLife in 2007.

13/ We are seeing the emergence of a new stage of human civilization, with new structures, technologies, & ways of making sense of the world emerging in all 4 quadrants. 2020 is a story 50,000 years in the making, and you're living through the dawning of its next chapter.

14/ In a time of such opportunity, confusion, peril & promise, it's inevitable that the 4(+1) main stages of human consciousness on the planet today are caught in a vicious contest. Each interprets the metacrisis, TTA, & TGR differently, each replies as they can (actually, must).

15/ These stages contest for the future: Red & Amber for a mythic-agrarian yesteryear. Orange for a market-based liberalism. Green for a diverse egalitarianism. And now Teal, just emerging, for an integrative pluralism.

16/ Our cultural commentators are beginning to see the outlines.

Cultural Warfare (Red+Amber)
Meritocratic Individualism (Orange)
Class Warfare (Green)
Pluralism (Teal)

But these aren't just narratives; they are actual structures of consciousness.

https://twitter.com/nytdavidbrooks/status/1223259337709191168?s=20

17/ Why does Sanders ignite the young? Their values come from Green.

Why does Biden seem safe for the money establishment? Its values come from Orange.

Why does Trump wage war on diversity? Their values come from Red & Amber.

3 structures, 3 candidates, 3 futures.

18/ None of which will work by themselves.

Why am I an irreverent, snarky, smart, non-politically correct, spiritual, integrative asshole who prods, pushes, surrenders, forgives, apologizes, loves, screams, cries, hopes & praises all the rest?

Because my values come from Teal

19/ We have to make room for everyone in the future we're building. We have to invite them into The Transformation Age. It will need an operating system that builds resilience & meets the metacrisis, yes, but it also has to feel safe, loving & generative. For everyone.

20/ As I said the new world is already being birthed, with tens of thousands of efforts underway across new governance, technology, sustainability, education, money, community, spirituality, mental health, organizational forms and others.

21/ A Deliberately Developmental Civilization is being born, mostly because it has to. But because it has to, we each have an essential role to play in how it emerges.

22/ It's why I offer free coaching to anyone who needs it, from CEOs, entrepreneurs & politicians to authors & other coaches. Anyway each of us can serve, we should do so.

Start where you are. And serve. Build. Make. Love.

And teach your kids to do the same.

23/ In closing, this is a very big picture that tries to reduce a lot of complexity to a simple story: a metacrisis at the intersection of a dawning new age, an irresilient empire, and 3 stages of consciousness as they respond to and compete for the future.

That's us, in 2020.

P.S. I'll be happy to reply to Qs or provide further resources in any way I can. Now that my nomadic integral global survey is complete, I'm shifting gears soon to make a bigger contribution to the world, so consider this my capstone offering on Twitter.

P.P.S. If you want to support your own growth & development, or our effort to help people understand and live into the Transformation Age, @IntegralLife is a member-funded organization that does so. Feel free to join.

joinintegrallife.com