I wonder if we are in the age of “doing.”
Step back far enough and you could say there have been two or three major eras of history.
The first and longest was the age of survival: hunt, gather, learn to grow food figure out how to build shelter.
The second? This age of surplus. Not for all or most, obviously, since far too many people are still trying to survive. But clearly the discovery of steam and oil means survival in the previous sense is no longer the chief problem some percentage of people concern themselves with.
Sandwiched between these two, or perhaps woven through both, might be called the age of thinking. Not always thinking well, but thinking nonetheless. God, a well-made boat, Shakespeare, Thelonius Monk, the bicycle, turning coffee beans into expresso . . . they all land this side of cave-bound survival, all demonstrate the mind at work.
Now, I would argue, we need to enter the age of hands, of doing. The age of do.
The age of surplus taught us we could all sit around and sitting around is not so good for us. It also taught us that machines could do our work for us, or that we should work according to their dictates, which has been even worse for us than sitting around.
Doesn’t it make sense, now, to take the surplus and hire everyone to be doing? To paint all the houses and fix all the roads and build too many schools in which people think? And then do too?
Humanity has fought the earth for sustenance.
We now fight capitalism and its imbalances.
Next, let’s fight for everyone to have the chance to answer this question: What can I do today that might serve?