Here’s your futuristic themed friday bulletin, which this week contains the following:

• a practice update
• this week’s COVID update
• a thought about the future

Change is afoot!

PRACTICE UPDATE

This is to announce that Jessica has started a scheduled temporary leave. We are grateful she plans to return to her remote position, and an exact timeframe will become clearer as the summer progresses. We will miss her cheerful presence on a day to day basis. Trish McPhee NP will be starting next week as a permanent support to the care provided by Berkshire Whole Health.

COVID UPDATE

1. Covid apparently isn’t going anywhere yet. New case counts have doubled, but it’s only gone from not much at all to not a lot. Still, I can feel the collective enthusiasm waning. Or is it the collective concern rising? We all are traumatized to a degree by 2020 and are ready for some predictability.
2. Berkshire case counts have averaged about 10 per week over the last 30 days. The most recent 7 days are par for the course. No Blip yet here.

VIEW TO THE FUTURE

Compared to any other time in history, society is changing faster than ever. Artificial Intelligence, virtual reality, driverless cars, electronic currency only pick up steam as time marches forward. 

The definition of what it means to “be a human” is forced to adapt to technological advances.

How far do you think you have to go into the future to find that:

• whatever you want is delivered to your door, by a drone?
• electronic currency takes over and has quirky elements like expiration dates? 
• the idea of ownership of things is a thing of the past and monthly rental fees are the norm?
• organs will be in ready supply for transplantation because of 3D printers? (last year in the US there were just shy of 40,000 transplants performed; the wait list has over 100,000 people on it)
• one billion people face displacement by climate change issues?
• fossil fuels are actively phased out?
• meat is rarely eaten?
• Mars trips are possible?
• Space travel is tolerable on the human body due to scientific advances?
• the US is no longer the dominant superpower, just a face in the crowd of dominant countries?

These are all mainstream predictions for the year 2030!!

What happens to Human rights and individual freedom when society goes through changes like this? That is up to us.

We, as those who have the change thrust upon us, have an important responsibility in our lifetime. We need to keep an continual eye on the core elements of what it means to be human as technology advances the merger with our physical body and with society. The entities driving the changes can not be expected to hold that line. It is our task, is how I see it.

Living in denial of these changes or any other traditionalist approach won’t serve us. Courageously embracing change and helping shape the future in a way that allows our essence as humans to thrive is the key.

And it can thrive despite it all. I would go so far to say that the human spirit will benefit greatly from learning to thrive in this new environment. We just have to find the right standpoint.

We are called to: 

1. find a home in the uncertainty and unpredictability.  
2. be a rock that weathers the change and chaos around us.  
3. more than weathering the chaos, give order to it with our strength of character and hard work of defending what’s good and decent.

Here’s to your superhero powerful self and your good and kind deeds.