As I look at today's news, I wonder if maybe 'things' are not worse than they were. I arrive at the same conclusion whether I approach it from a 'what I see' deduction or from a 'what has probably led up to this' viewpoint.

Let me start with the latter. It would make sense to accept that there is 'more' of everything today. We have cell phones, hence far more communication. Please, for those that are older, remember that in the 'old' days, if you wanted to call someone, you called their home or office, not them directly. Now, whether at the airport about to leave, at some remote hotel, in the car or in the toilet, their personal mobile phone will ring. Then there's travel. Yes, the number of planes, routes and destinations has multiplied enormously. Consumer goods? More than ever! And then there's the Internet. The web allows us to share, teach, incite, cheat or lie to the order of ten to the fifty.

Back to what I see. Today's news is about Thai unrest. If memory serves me right, there has always been unrest, war and plundering. So, nothing new. This year is the year of the Icelandic volcano eruption and air travel disruption throughout Europe. Here too, nothing new. Volcanos have been erupting since the dawn of time, earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis too. The news is also filled with crime stories. Were there not brigands and pirates in the middle ages? Famines are another news story along with refugees, pandemics and slavery. Sorry to say, here too, no new invention. History is replete with all of the above.

Here's my simpleton take on the matter. I actually think that mom was right about the scale. I just think that she wasn't right about the reasons. It's not that there is more crime, disease or war. It's just that our growing population, with its growing ability to communicate, travel, manufacture, sell, transport, build, waste more and more, is pushing ever closer to the edge of the environmental, social and personal health boundary of disaster. In short, the more we are, the more we do, the closer we get to the chaos point where the system fails. That's what we are doing.

For those of you who have been on an ocean liner, a ferry, a bus or a plane, you know the paradigm of everyone rushing to one side of the vessel to look at the xyz. You know that if we all rush over, the vessel will tip. In many cases, this is not theory, it is fact. Our problem is that we have all been rushing in the same direction. We all want the same comfort, possessions and prestige. We either find a new equilibrium or we topple.

Mom was right. Now what am I going to do about it? Are we just going to sit and watch the earth as time rushes past and matters worsen?

Obviously, an attitude is ultimately a human trait, not an institutional one, but by extension, an institution is its people, hence the transfer of attitude.

I'm thinking about all this on the eve of President Obama's speech in Cairo. It will be his first major speech, excluding his Turkish visit, aimed directly at the muslim world. So what will people be looking for? Of course, they will look for his pragmatic view of the Israeli-Palestinian situation. They will want to know what he thinks about terrorism, democracy in the Arab world, and more. I postulate that they will mostly want to see his attitude.

Attitudes have a way of trickling down any chain of command. As proof, ideology, a key driver of policy, is ultimately an amplified form of attitude.

So, how do we change institutional attitudes for the better? How do we make United Nations staff be less skeptical of its own ability to cause real change? How do we get civil society to be as effective, even more effective, while toning down its often counter-productive rhetoric? How do we get tax inspectors to be more empathetic towards the citizens they often bully?

I firmly believe that the entire human race needs to take a closer look at the way it perceives. For those of you who know of my work in perception, you'll no doubt see where I'm going with this. You'll see that I am still obsessed with the need to create a communications stream that remains focussed on our common good, not just on our individual success. The problem is that governments still make their personal interest the leit motif of their discourse. For those of you who have been involved in political campaigns, I can already hear you saying that the electorate has never elected a leader who is more concerned for the global good than the national good. I will grant you that. But maybe, just maybe, we can all start insisting that a positive common attitude is something that can make us stronger, collectively.

I believe that humanity, despite our countless attempts at exterminating humankind and all that surrounds us, has managed to stick together using some kind of invisible glue. There is a glue that bonds us, whether poor or rich, Asian or African, able or not. Unfortunately, it shows itself most when we are at our worst. it brings us together in times of grief, sorrow or pain. But ultimately, it does not stick very well. It comes undone as we prosper again. The ugly face of greed, individual success and exclusion all come back as we become strong again. We suddenly have no more time for our fellow citizens, staff or friends. Often, we even exclude our own families. We simply become wrapped up in what progress has afforded us. We worry about the nice vacation, the new clothes, the better car and the bigger home, or homes for many who believe they can live in many of them at once.

I think we need a new type of glue. Without it, the current economic crisis will take longer to resolve itself and then it will likely be senselessly forgotten again. We will go back to a formula of excess and waste. Do I have an idea? Actually I do. I won't write about it quite yet, but I do have an idea on how we can grow beyond this current vicious cycle of greed and collapse. I do think there is a way for all of us to be more supportive of one another and to prosper intelligently without taking from others to the point of leaving them with nothing or harming the environment to a point of no return.

My challenge to you is to think through your own solution before I share mine. How do we accelerate the recovery and ensure its sustainability once there? For those of you who may have read the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, you may see where I am going with this. This multiple book, science fiction series was brilliant. It basically told the story of a gallactic empire in decline and of the efforts of one man, Hari Seldon, to shorten the anticipated 1000-year darkness. Maybe we too can find a new social order or a new economic model that keeps us in modern times — no reason to go back to cold showers — but allows us to aim for equilibrium rather than growth all the time. More to come...