Shifting Gears

The present era, due to innovation, growth and communication, has succeeded in upholding its fragile stability but, while threatened by an incredible variety of challenges, which undeniably place the well being of individuals and communities across this planet at risk, struggles to preserve its smooth façade.

Criticism has been and continues to be directed at systems - governments are perceived as incompetent, international organizations as helpless and grassroots agents as tragically irrelevant. And while critics’ perceptions are certainly valid, they fail to recognize or perhaps to acknowledge the source of present day apathy in regard to sustained problem solving – individual human demeanor.

Overcoming contemporary challenges requires a shift of gears, a reset; not systems but individuals must receive widespread attention, must be analyzed and approached, most effectively done through education. Once having been reinterpreted and reoriented with the intention to awaken both intellect and practice, thereby forming the basis of enlightened globalization, education will have the potential to transform the status quo, turning into the most essential device of the twenty-first century, into a catalyst for sustainable development.

Obviously, critics will easily question this approach, categorizing it as idealistic, impractical and unacceptably time intensive; yet when in the course of history has change been generated with ease and in the blink of an eye? Unless individual demeanor adapts to a global reality, based on awareness of mutual interconnectedness and vulnerability, neither systems nor their impact on their direct surroundings and the world at large will and can change to the benefit of all.

Practicing Intellectuals and entrepreneurs can and should act as pioneers in this transition process, paving the way for governmental, non-governmental and grassroots institutions. May the future be a time of awakened intellect and practice and an age of enlightened globalization.

Alexander M. Wegner