Welcome to the Age of Acceleration. It might be a new thing to you – and if it is not, good for you, good for us. Humanity will need people who can stay above the waves while everything crashes and changes around us.
I hope that the Singularity is not news to you. The fact is, paradigm shifts are now happening faster than most humans are able to keep up with; that in itself is not new; it was the central thesis of the 70s best seller, Future Shock. But just knowing that and staying flexible is no longer enough.
For a couple decades, the information revolution helped those who were information-hungry to stay on top of the changes. First information boards, then the internet, then wifi, then always-connected 5g smartphones – those who want to keep up were provided with increasingly abundant resources to connect with the available information.
I used to tell teens that in the Information Age, the fundamental unit of currency is not dollars, but attention span. A simple proof of this is that the internet is swamped with companies who are willing to pay real dollars just to capture a shred of your attention span. Therefore, those who have willful control over how they invest their attention have a competitive edge; they can optimize how they spend their attention to acquire new skills, create and harness business opportunities, enjoy intimate relationships.
He who controls his attention is master of himself, and the new rich. (If you want to improve yourself in that way, I’ll write an article about that next).
Interesting corollaries of the Information Age is that it is also the age of noise. An incredible amount of noise is generated daily, some of it as a consequence of a shallow culture, some of it willingly. Spectator sports, vapid entertainment, a never-ending cycle of personality gossip and fake news are all over the place. I won’t go into the economics or politics of it (yet), but noise is indeed increasing even as social networks are putting the finishing touches upon their customized ideological echo chambers, to keep you exactly where you are – dazed, disoriented and dependent on external authorities – the perfect consumer.
A consequence of the Age of Noise is that filtering the noise is now not only a worthwhile, but a necessary skill. How is one supposed to stay on top of a rapidly evolving reality when one doesn’t even know that staying on top is empowering – let alone where to find the information that’ll get you there!
So some of the most worthwhile skills to have right now, in no particular order – they all build on each other – are the ability to direct and sustain your attention at will, the ability to adapt to new information, and the ability to sift through the noise to find a signal. It is my aim here to help the community by providing only worthwhile information that will be useful to my readers, so I’ll need to start from there.
I have a lot more than this up my sleeve that I am really excited to share with this evolving community. As I am new here, though, I’ll build on these basics to thrive in the Age of Acceleration, and look forward to hearing your feedback and what you’d like me to share about.
Blessings,
MasterCoach