What is Evolution?
What is “evolution”?
That’s a REALLY BIG question and there are many points of view from every facet of life. In a nutshell, whether it’s biological, spiritual, cultural, scientific or planetary evolution, I personally believe that evolution is the basic impulse or desire for more and different.
Think about it. Everyone wants something other than what they have. Or, they want something in addition to what they already have, or they want more of (or less) what they already have or to be more of who they already are. We all desire different. Everyone.
Desire is the primary emotion that fuels evolution; change, growth, transformation.
Whether you are a single-celled organism or a complex human being made up of trillions of single cells, the desire to be or experience something other than what is, is the catalyst for evolution.
Our curiosity of the world around us is the driver for scientific evolution. Our curiosity of the world within us is the driver for spiritual evolution.
Most often leaps in the evolutionary process occur during times of great stress. Climate change is a great example of an environmental ‘stressor’ that inspired the eventual evolution of lungs to process oxygen. Did you know that the formation and accumulation of oxygen may have caused the biggest extinction in Earth’s history? It was called the “Oxygen Catastrophe”. Just a mere 2.4 billion years ago the Earth was covered with blue-green algae (Cyanobacteria). All this algae was happily (perhaps mindlessly) spending their lives photosynthesizing the abundant carbon dioxide and water and spewing their waste (oxygen) into the atmosphere. Eventually this toxic waste wiped out a huge portion of the Earth’s anaerobic inhabitants at that time.
My favorite book that describes this event and many other facets of evolution in an easily digestible and entertaining way is called “Spontaneous Evolution” by Bruce H. Lipton and Steve Bhaerman.
Let’s look at an example of cultural evolution. The Enlightenment or Age of Reason took place in the 18th century. There was an upsurge in science and philosophy in Europe and the American Colonies. Beginning around 1650 and lasting until circa 1800 the ideas of this time period fostered reason over religion and superstition. According to Wikipedia, The new intellectual forces spread to urban centres across Europe, notably England, Scotland, the German states, the Netherlands, Russia, Italy, Austria, and Spain, then jumped the Atlantic into the European colonies, where it influenced Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, among many others, and played a major role in the American Revolution. The political ideals of the Enlightenment influenced the American Declaration of Independence, the United States Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and the Polish–Lithuanian Constitution of May 3, 1791.[3]
It’s easy to look back in time and notate the evolution of the planet, animal species and humans, commerce and government, culture and religion. We look back on those events and timelines and can see the arc or rupture of change, whether is took place over millions of years or decades. We can notate the defining moments when one life form or way of being ended and another began, sometimes quite dramatically.
Every beginning springs from a desire to live, grow, expand, experience, thrive (sometimes just survive), learn, consume, apply, and adapt. It’s LIFE and it’s not stationary and there is no ‘one way’ to experience it.
What is truly evolutionary today, is the fact that we humans are noticing, becoming consciously aware of our own evolution as it is taking place, right now! All around us and within us. The conversations buzzing around the world on this topic are, well, EVOLUTIONARY!
So what is ‘evolutionary’ or better yet, WHO are the ‘Evolutionaries’? (We’ll encounter a lot of them on this blog). If you are fascinated by the connections between spirituality and science, psychology and peace, the environment, health and personal responsibility and the realization that you have the power to change your world through community and collaboration then you are an Evolutionary!
What do you think of that?