Getting back to basics in Covid times.

Back in 1980, my father gave me a copy of a book by author and futurist Alvin Toffler, called “The Third Wave”. Living in the time of the emergence of the personal computer I was highly impressed to be part of the third wave he described in his writing. Thinking back on the ideas in the book, I believe we are glimpsing even more of the future than Toffler envisioned during these new-covid times as mists covering the not so distant future are evaporated under the pressures of prevailing crisis.

Now for those of you who have not read the text, and I quote Wikipedia here “Toffler's book describes the transition in developed countries from Industrial Age society, which he calls the "Second Wave", to Information Age "Third Wave" society.” His first wave being the agricultural revolution which led us out of our hunter-gatherer lifestyles to a dependency on a mostly fixed location work and living economy.

Is it possible that we are about to and perhaps even already are returning to being hunter-gatherers of a modern kind?

The reason I ask is because I have been working remotely for some time in the delivery of small business development services and employee entrepreneurial activity learning for organisations. Due to the lockdown, I now work solely by remote and virtual means. I am noticing many similarities in how I work to existence as a human thousands of years ago. I also have lots of time to think.

Firstly, I now work as and when is needed, I interact with the entrepreneurs I serve at all hours and attend meetings with my formal employers between playing dolly dress-up or my little pony with my three and half year old daughter. While doing the dishes I both think and consider my working challenges and ideas as well as daydreaming. I come up with some pretty cool ideas and in the slow and considered delivery of my services believe that I am working more effectively than I had under the constraints and pressures of my past working environments.

Time has become a mere label as I work and interact with individuals on the other side of the world or in another hemisphere and season. I have given up asking “what time is it there?” My daughter will join me in voice calls to clients who hardly bat an eyelid at the presence of a child in a business meeting. Unthinkable a few weeks ago huh? Hunter-gatherers, I expect, carried their children with them to work. I try to wear some clothes for video conferencing to maintain the semblance that all is ok and it is business as usual. We do like feeling sure about things hey? I'll try to maintain that pretence for a while ok.

My tribe is growing. I have connected to more people in the online and virtual ether and had more invitations to become a member of other tribes of late. Our efforts to build more effective ‘hunting parties’ are providing some rather exciting synergies for the future and I truly believe that we will be bringing down some large mammals for my family and various tribes wellbeing in the near future. I smile at their children’s gleeful play I hear when we connect. Happy tribes are so cool.

That virtual ether is where we live, work, hunt and socialise these days. Our forest, our plains, our sanctuary and hunting grounds. It is also a dangerous place with no real rules or laws. It is wild and as yet untamed. I wonder if taming it will make it a better place.

My certainty of tomorrow is, for now, diminished, and until I really get into the season of this great change I will be wary of how I hunt, with whom I mingle and whom I tribe. However, I feel happier here than in the bondage of nine to five. I don’t really mind the uncertainty as I really believe that I can get used to it or make plans with my growing tribe. I love being a hunter-gatherer and I think I’m getting better at it with every day of practice.

How’s hunting today, how’s your tribe doing? Let me know ok.

Stay safe,

Brennan Williams