Transitions

easier the second time

One tribe I keep one eye on is the Philosopher Queens. This morning I read What Does It Mean to Find Your Philosophy? by Jessica Böhme who writes rewilding philosophy The subtitle of her article, How to Dance in a Place of Ambiguity and Uncertainty, resonates with me.

The prevailing philosophy, I was raised in is grounded in a mechanistic understanding of the world. This mechanistic understanding is very limited to how we can understand the world, how it came to be, what role we might play in it and where it is going. In short: the current philosophy neither fits today’s needs nor is it very accurate in terms of scientific advancements…

The number of people making this shift is growing. We understand that that the scientific reductionist worldview is not wrong but is incomplete, very incomplete. “Follow the science” is not wrong but only following science surely is problematic and got us into a lot of trouble during the pandemic.

The pursuit of a new philosophy is both enchanting and demanding, pulling at the fabric of my reality and pushing me beyond my comfort zone.

Unlike Jessica Böhme, the journey from a modern worldview to a metamodern worlview was not difficult for me. However, my midlife journey from a Christian paradigm to a secular one involved five years of severe cognitive dissonance. I had to accept that beliefs that had guided me for twenty-five years were false.

Society, however, doesn't always applaud this ambivalence. We live in a world that favors certainty, simplicity, and easily digestible truths… In general, we are enamored with clear-cut answers and straightforward narratives, frowning upon the uncertainty inherent in the quest for a new philosophy.

Most of my relatives and many of my friends want certainty, simplicity, and easily digestible truths. That is one reason I launched Metamodern Wannabes. I need my tribe.

I love exploring and I took a closer look at Jessica Böhme  and followed some of the links. I looked at what she Reads on Substack, 26 subscriptions, 6 which we have in common. I noted that she follows Brendan Graham Dempsey who is one of my favorites.

Perhaps the most captivating and challenging aspect of embracing a new philosophy for me is the imperative to fully accept the world and society as they are. And to sit in that delicate equilibrium, where the pursuit of transformation coexists with an acknowledgment of the present reality. As someone who always tries to fit in and who never knew anything but belonging, the worst outcome is to become an outsider. At the same time, I think this is exactly what is necessary. But more about that another time.

I do not feel like an outsider. Yes, we are outside of the mainstream and we no longer want to fit into Game A. But those who have transitioned to a metamodernist philosophy now probably number in the thousands.