At the core of mainstream Western culture, and in effect, at least since some decades ago, of mainstream global culture, there is a reverence for measurable science, particularly natural science. We have all been conditioned to believe that this is all we can and should rely on in the long run. Faiths and beliefs may have their place for people who think they need it, but such views must be kept aside, in private spheres. In the public realm nonphysical ideas and experiences have to be dismissed, simply because they cannot be explained by scientific methods or measured with scientific…

This essay was previously published as episode #40 on Mind the Shift podcast

The Dutch historian Rutger Bregman has written an extraordinary book called ”Humankind”. One of my earlier guests on Mind the Shift podcast, the futurist Carin Ism, talked about Bregman’s trailblazing work, but I hadn’t heard of him then. Now I have read the book.

It is brilliant, and it is very important. It should be compulsory literature at universities, in every corporation and in every government authority.

When pronouncing the title, the stress should be put on the last syllable, ”kind”. Humans are inherently kind, and if…

This essay was previously published as episode #28 on Mind the Shift podcast

These are strange times, but they will eventually prove to have taught us a number of things. I want to point out five less-than-natural features of our society and system that the pandemic has shed some light on:

1 Money

Most of us realize that money isn’t a zero-sum game, the idea that there is a finite amount that constantly changes hands as it is distributed and redistributed among us (unevenly so). Most of us know that it grows. New money is constantly created.

How do you picture that…

This essay has previously been published as episode #22 on Mind the Shift podcast.

When I was 20 years old I did civilian service in a coastal town in southern Sweden about 140 kilometers from the town where I was living. (There was a possibility to opt out from military service and instead do a civilian variety, but you had to pass a few tests and an interview.)

This entailed many hours and days of working alone and traveling alone. When you are with yourself for long periods of time, there is space for processes within you to start happening…

This essay has previously been published as episode #25 on Mind the Shift podcast.

We are all connected.

Not just in the trivial sense that we have common interests and things like that. And not just we humans, but everything in this world is connected in the quantum soup it all exists in.

You know, 99.9999 — I can’t even remember the number of nines after the point — percent of our bodies consists of what we would call nothing. …

This essay has earlier been published as episode #18 on Mind the Shift podcast.

In a way, time is what it is all about. If there is a global shift happening, which I believe there is, it implies that the world and humankind is going from one state to another, and in our way of seeing things there is a before and an after, which we call a past and a future. And the shift is happening in the present.

This is how we normally perceive this world. It is strange to imagine that there is a different way of…

I have just finished a podcasting course called Broadcast Yourself at London Real, with Brian Rose at the helm, and I’ve been asked to write a review. It is my pleasure to do so.

Broadcast Yourself is everything it says it is. Brian claims the course will change your life, and if you go all in, that is no exaggeration.

The course has pushed me over more than one threshold, into a new territory of self-confidence and less worry about what other people think. If you follow your passion, everything you do will be genuine, and that shows. …

The case for traveling by air — after all

Trains can never substitute airplanes on long-haul flights, air traffic is crucial for global integration and there is no point in knocking out aviation anyway — its share of the world’s CO2 emissions is too small. If all the billions that are invested in trains instead were to be invested in clean aviation, we would soon have it.

Practically every vision of the future before the era of mass aviation contained some kind of flying means of transportation, from Metropolis via The Jetsons to Blade Runner. Flying cars were legion, and…