Breaking the Problem-Solution Trance: Why Hopelessness might be our only Hope

Last week I shared the phenomenon of the “death spiral” in my mastermind.

I previously was incepted with this metaphor by Bayo Akomolafe:

Soldier ants occasionally get stuck in pheromone marker loops that cause them to run in a perpetual circle. Over several days, they exhaust themselves and eventually die. Despite their obviously futile march, they continue their procession, believing they are solving a relevant problem and are getting closer to the solution and promised land.

They are focussed on the Problem-Solution Trance to the point that they don’t realize that the solution is the problem.

What if, for us as humanity as well, the only problem that is keeping us from heaven on earth is to think that there is a problem?

Celebrating the End Times

Let me take you into a thought experiment that I originally heard from Brad Blanton, author of “Radical Honesty”.

He invites us to abandon all hope for a better future – or anything, really (he calls himself a futilitarian)!

What if all our striving is futile, and we have moved the needle beyond the tipping point for humanity already?

He offers two options to proceed from there:

1. We smash our heads against each others, and figure out who’s to blame in a finite lose-lose game.
2. We give up all hope and come together, celebrating the last days of humanity with the greatest party this planet has ever seen.

If we choose option b., it forces us to drop our (often times well-meaning) agendas and resort to the ever present now as all we have.

No need to hold on to rapture ideologies, no more causes to lead us into the promised land worthy of pursuing.

I love a good paradox.

The synthesis and twist of his hypothesis is, that if we give up all hope for humanity, we can for the first time come together without needing to manipulate anyone to join our endeavor or support our belief in the path forward. And in coming together in exactly this way, we actually open the only remaining possibility to actually create change on this planet.

Bashar’s Formula is probably the only self-help advice and compass you ever need, if you truly embody it:

Or in the context of what to hope for from here, in the all-time classic words of Vaclav Havel:

What does it look like for us to come together in this way?
What is really relevant for you personally if you cannot reap the fruits of these actions?
What is your radical honesty about why you are here and what you want to do?

And what if rather than doing, it is so much more about who you are, your beingness?
And what is the natural and highest expression of that, free from any conditioning and societal norms?

At this time, we need to learn to come together in this way and give each other permission to be who we are!

We need to create sanctuaries for the celebration of what is sane and sacred in a world that has gone insane.

Let’s come together!

For the past months, I’ve been hosting group sessions to explore these edges and engage in this trans-rational sense making of what is going on in the world. Through listening deeply and hearing from people from all over the world and their lives, we’ve been creating a much more nuanced understanding of what is actually happening on the planet than what the news or social media channels portray.

Because it is my highest excitement and natural expression of my essence at this point, I will continue to host these „Soul Alignment – Leadership in Service to Life“ calls for free every first Thursday of the month.

The next one is happening on June 6th, 9am MST // 5pm CEST.

Join us!