David Peat

198 From Certainty to UncertaintyTaking StockWhere are we to find this wisdom and how are we to use it in theworld? Think of artists working on a portrait or still life. From time totime they stand back and squint at the canvas. They have been workingon a particular detail and now need to pause and look at things inperspective, taking the whole vision into account.Something similar happens in all creative work, as well as in ourdaily lives. We can get so tied up in details, in rushing toward a deadline,in the routine of the office, in the need to make profits or attainpromotions, that we forget to pause and ask, Just what am I doing?Why am I doing this? Is this really what I want? Is this really what I setout to achieve five or ten years ago? Is my life fulfilled? Am I happy andcontent in my family relationships? Do I still hold to the ideals of myyouth? Or have I been caught up in some grand scheme, sold a bill ofgoods, made compromises, bought into a system in which I no longerbelieve?We should be asking such questions throughout our lives. Butmore often they are only associated with what is termed the “midlifecrisis” when people start to question their lives and at a time when theyhave a sufficient perspective to look back upon the path they havetaken.What is true for individuals can also be true for a human society.Maybe it is now time for Western society to take such a pause, to stepback and ask: Where are we heading and where have we come from?What impact are we having on the world? Is society some abstract idealor is it us, we human beings who are its members? And if so then whatare we doing to ourselves? What are our individual values and how dothey resonate with the values of the society in which we live?It is indeed time to pause and step back from the painting. It istime to ask ourselves if society needs to rush ahead at such an acceleratingpace. The events of the twentieth century caused us to questionthe Enlightenment dream and its assumption about continued humanprogress. Yet if we leave this dream behind then where are we to findthe meaning upon which our society is to be based? This is the keyissue we face at the start of our new millennium.