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“Mystery, Transcendence, Adventure”
Steve Rice
Thought Leader & Futurist, The Office of Possibilities
Higher Ed Professional, Northwestern Michigan College
Founder, Humanitas Project
[Recorded November 21, 2024 at Northwestern Michigan College, Traverse City, Michigan]
“Being human in the digital world is about building a digital world for humans.” - Andrew Keen
Some conversations go off on a series of unconfined, wonderful tangents—rather than controlling the narrative, it's often productive to play it as it lays. In the second installment of this interview, we widened the scope of conversation into spirituality as it connects to education and technology, and asked if it is possible to find elemental balance for the preservation of intentional humanity.
The future becomes less daunting when we realize that the constraints we feel forced and tethered to, do not exist—all we have to do is climb over the boundaries of our imposed limitations. I have immense gratitude for Steve for expanding my thoughts and helping me to understand how to overcome my own imposed limitations, and reconnect with a spiritual mindset.
INTERVIEWER:
“You said something profound earlier about the relationship between tech and humanity—how we can blend harmoniously, working for us so that we can experience humanity at a higher level. Can you elaborate on how we can work towards blending these two realms harmoniously?”
STEVE:
“If we take our cues from one of the dominant narratives in our society today, it's tech. If we take cues from our human soul, there's a longing that we can't put into natural language.
So we have tension. There is great opportunity for good. There is great opportunity for evil.
The challenge is to have both realms advance in unison, to have tech-enabled answers for some of these longings of the human soul.
Randy Bass, an interesting guy worth looking up, notes that as machines get better at being machines, the imperative in higher education is to help humans get better at being human. I love that! I have a sort of mandate as an educator—I feel like I'm called, I’m implicated.
If we’re not intentional about being in that space it won't happen. Tech is trying to dehumanize us and we’ve got to beat tech at its own game.
The addictions, the loneliness, the isolation, the sadness—there's nothing good coming out of some of the applications of technology in our lives.
But we are not victims, it doesn’t have to be this way. There is an alternative.
So many people are experiencing the consequences of unbridled tech—it's designed to dehumanize you, and you don't even know it. You're actively participating in it and the algorithms keep you dialed in and closed off from the physical world.
Technology unbridled is most likely to result in our participation in the degradation of our souls.
Technology harnessed for all the good that it can offer could be something that helps us to participate in the harvesting of ourselves. We have to make that choice and take steps to implement the change, otherwise, tech will continue to grow exponentially leaving us in the wake of its destructive path.
The real challenge—and opportunity—is to ensure that as technology advances, it also uplifts the human spirit, taking cues from our souls’ needs and applying that to tech intentionally.”
INTERVIEWER:
“I fear if we're not intentional about using technology for good it will by default defer to evil or at best, severe misuse. It's scary seeing how it distracts people, and at face value that's fairly innocuous compared to the dark side of its addictive nature.
Yet there are good side effects, we can do interviews like this, share our stories, and connect globally.
However, I have a hard time disconnecting from the darkness of technology—the isolation, other ‘othering’ of social media. You mentioned Randy Bass before, and how machines are becoming better at being machines, while we need to focus on becoming better humans. What are some of the practical steps we can take to make that a reality?”
STEVE:
“That’s the unique thing about this time we're living in—we can look back on the last century of explosive growth and try to right the ship.
Imagine you and I are neighbors and it is 1850: we just finished tending to our land, and we're sitting down having lemonade together. I mention that I’d heard of this new thing called a factory. We're going to leave this agrarian economy that we know and we're going to step into the Industrial Revolution.
The early conversations that I'm imagining over our lemonade, talking about this thing called a factory—it was far-fetched and unheard of at the time, but not if we look back.
I think we're in a similar space where there's this thing called Artificial Intelligence—
the growth curve is not linear and we're trying to figure it all out.
Again, It's an opportunity for good and evil; how we respond is vitally important. I am not a doomsayer, but I think we have to be intentional about responding, and we collectively need to have more of those conversations. I look at it like it's an invitation, not a mandate. It creates an open dialogue for those who want to be part of it. And there are different levels or kinds of responses.
You mentioned the differences between generations, and in my case, I want to leave something of value behind for the next generation. If I could wave a magic wand or give you a pill to understand and learn all that I had to experience, with better opportunity, I would. Unfortunately, I don’t have that pill or magic wand.
If all that I and people like me possess is an imperative to help the next generations understand their purpose for being on this earth, and the work they are uniquely called and created to do, that’s great. But if the only thing we have to leave your generation is the Industrial Revolution, well, good luck.
If we can instead leave you with hope, tools, and real tangible applications of being human, the Industrial Revolution complex is gone.
The Industrial Revolution wants us to believe we are widgets. The coming Human Revolution wants us to know we are wonderments. And no one is more implicated in this shift than those of us who are in the space of higher education.
We don't have to be part of a world that's falling apart. I want to give hope, in the resilience of humanity to the upcoming generations—technological revolution leading to a human revolution.
I think of the Chinese proverb about planting a tree, the shade of which we will not live under. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago at the turn of the century. But, the second best time is now. We need to find a community of others who are awake to the realities and possibilities of our time. As an educator, I want to find those people who want to be part of building the new; part of planting a tree of higher education, appropriate for humans in the 21st century. The soil of our time is rich and ready for such a tree—I believe this is in sync with the rhythms and unspoken longings of the 21st-century human soul.
There's something inside of us called the principle of generativity. It's in our hearts, wired for eternity, to want to help the next generation—we're wired by God that way.
I want the democratization of human flourishing for the upcoming generations as a whole, I want ubiquitous human flourishing.
Why doesn't every person have equal opportunity to live to the fullness of their potential?
Imagine a world where this is a growing reality—where every person has an equal opportunity to live to the fullest of their potential.
You don't have the Haves and the Have Nots, because everybody could be a Have. Technology could enable us to make this possible. Not forcing it on anybody but simply making it available to everybody. This is for you if you want it. It's just a click away.
How do we make it real and imagine it as an increasingly known reality of truth with other people?
Parker Palmer is one of my favorite literary heroes, who I read while in grad school. His way of speaking, understanding of reality, and vocational calling to change higher education were so compelling to me. I felt like for the first time, I had met, ‘a neighbor.’
He has a great book called, ‘Let Your Life Speak,’ which I give out to students of mine. The simple message of this book? Before you decide what you are going to do with your life, learn to listen to what life and your life want to do through you—talk about reframing an approach to education.
He also has another great book called, ‘The Courage to Teach.’ These two books were the confirmation I needed to be in the space of education. Education was calling to me. And I needed to learn how to answer with, ‘Yes.’
I had never known a difference between a vocational calling and a career occupation. For many people, career occupation comes at the sale of their soul. Vocational calling, on the other hand, results in career expression, born out of an authentic soul.
I had to learn to live this way—it was not automatic. My educational training before grad school taught me the way of career occupation at the expense of the soul. Parker Palmer helped rescue me from this false way of being.
Can you see now why I say higher education is implicated in this shift away from the Industrial Revolution into the coming Human Revolution?
Parker is a remarkable thinker and writer, and also a Quaker—he talks about how we can live in abundance when we’re in accordance with our purpose—that it's like the sap flowing into the vine then into the fruits. We're not drained as when we’re not living from a sense of wholeness.
We can be a blessing to other people and be blessed at the same time. I envision a world where every individual has equal access to opportunities for personal flourishing. We should empower the next generation with the tools to understand their humanity amidst rapid technological change.”
INTERVIEWER:
“I’m here to give people what was never given to me—an opportunity to be seen and heard with the respect they deserve. In all of my endeavors, I get as much out of it as they do, with the hope that they pass it on. I love organic growth that is born out of genuine guidance. We have that in common. Was there a life event or catalyst that gave you the drive to help guide others?”
STEVE:
“We want life to be set at a higher standard, for our expectations to have the possibility of greater things.
I am so grieved when I think about ‘work.’ I think of what we do to students, and what we do to prepare them. I put myself in their shoes knowing they must be so anxious figuring out what they want to do for work, and how to go about making those decisions.
It's an overwhelming world now—so many options and new opportunities cropping up daily that it's almost too much.
If you’re in college now, you have all these people waving stuff at you: you need to go be a coder, you need to learn everything about AI, don’t go into this industry, it's dying, do this instead, and then a week later all that advice turns over again with all new information. The pace of change is exponential, not linear.
None of that starts with a strong chance to just think about what you truly want.
No one is more concerned with our work than Jesus. God is so concerned with our work not because he needs us, but because our work is a way for him to express himself through us. This is the pattern we see modeled in Jesus.
I think of this like I were an artist, and I pull out a canvas and my palette and can see the paints as all of the options and paths available to me through my gifts. I use the palette paints to reveal a picture of my life as seen through God’s eyes. This is what is revealed to me as my life's purpose.
It’s not something determined as much as discovered. From discovery, I move to development. From development, I move to deployment. This is the opportunity for the future of higher education.
We don't think of work that way, we think of work as just another four-letter word.
I grew up thinking that we're not supposed to question too much whether we’re happy. Joy and work were not close cousins. The purpose of work was to earn a living to provide for your family. Then, in your later years, you’ll be able to spend time on your passions.
We often treat work and life like this and therefore we can't wait for retirement. But God has put eternity in our hearts, not retirement.
No one ever bothered to ask, ‘What's your why?’
It’s interesting to me that the letter ‘Y’ is not found in the word, ‘Retirement.’ But it is found in the word, ‘Eternity.’ There it is, the last letter in the word eternity. Could that be telling us something if we have ears to hear and hearts that long to know? I think, yes.
Again, God has put eternity in our hearts, not retirement.
What if the why of Traverse City could be conjoined in such a way that people were living in the fullness of their why as God has defined for them?
God has placed eternity in our hearts—so Third Chapter Curious to me is this subset of people who realize without even saying it, that they are stepping into eternity.
God is not interested in wrecking our lives and making us miserable. Religion might. But God’s not into that. I believe Jesus came to restore what it means to be human and to start a new brand of humanity.
That's a much more holistic way of looking at it. It changes the meaning and is the only thing that makes sense.
I see Third Chapter Curious as a community of people, most of whom have stopped working in the traditional model. They're now in a stage of life that society calls ‘retirement’ and they are aware that something's not right, because they're not done yet. There's still a why inside of their eternity, trying to be reconciled. It’s oil and water, and they’d rather have an opportunity to rediscover the why that they've been carrying all their life.
Life doesn't end because you're 60—that’s nonsensical. You've got a lot longer to go.”
INTERVIEWER:
“My grandparents' generation, who were in more of that traditional mindset, took continuing education courses, they did a lot of volunteering, they did a lot of community work, all very intentional pursuits to stay mentally sharp and connected to the world.
There are very few people now that just stop growing and learning but we don't talk about that enough, especially for the people that are doing something that's a complete departure from what they did for most of their lives.
In the realm of higher education, I don't think that most 18-year-olds are ready to make some of those big decisions. It can feel very forced to choose your path quickly, and making changes to your major is usually met with some pushback. That's how we end up with a lot of unhappy people later on in life—they weren’t offered or didn’t take the chance to make a change. How do you think we can change our relationship with work to be more fulfilling?”
STEVE:
“Now that’s a great big question. How do we change our relationship with work to be more fulfilling?
I think of 3 things. Essence. Expression. Example. Each of these is part of reframing work for the 21st century.
Essence. This refers to who we are and why we are. Ultimately, this is something we all share, and have in common. And that’s a good thing, for if we did not, we could not learn from each other.
Expression. This refers to the making known or ‘going public’ with our Essence. Expression is Essence made known, seen, and offered.
When what you do is an expression of who you are, then ‘work’ takes on a whole new meaning. It’s an invitation to the potential and possibilities of a life of fulfillment, not accomplishment.
Example. This refers to our need for a model, exemplar, or archetype. Who or what is the example we are offering our young people today? When they think of ‘work’ who is the example of someone they would like to be like? Who is the example they might choose to follow?
For instance, if my essence was a gift of talent, skill, and love for basketball, then I might want to follow someone like Lebron James or Michael Jordan. When it comes to sports and athletics, we do this kind of thing all the time.
But what about doing this when it comes to our world of work?
I have had to learn to view Jesus from this perspective. It’s pretty crazy and counter-cultural. For me, Jesus is the example, archetype, the model for ‘work.’
Jesus had a why and that why involved work. Lots of ‘W’s’ there.
I'm so fascinated by Jesus because His life was one of continuing to give back. At the end of his life, he gave the ultimate sacrifice, allowing it to be taken.
But the entirety of His life, from womb to tomb, and beyond, was a sharing of love for all of humanity. And He did this through work. I think Jesus needs to be presented and studied as a model for what it means to be human. In this model, you will find a primacy for work.
That’s pretty relevant if you ask me. This is an opportunity we have to reframe the future of work in our 21st century.
Jesus is the perfect example of God caring about our work because our work is an opportunity for God to uniquely reveal Himself not only to us but through us to the world around us. I know that’s pretty heady stuff. But that does not make it less real.
There are two versions of every one of us: the caterpillar and the butterfly.
I spent a lot of time trying to feed, nurture, and polish the caterpillar version of me—I was never taught anything different. I wasn't a rebel, I was just ignorant.
The beautiful thing about a lot of 55 and older folks is that they have money, they have resources that they didn't have when they were 18, so they’re able to embark on journeys, and adventures of learning to live a different way.
However, you do find a group of people that are returning to adolescence because they have money—they're living like spoiled rich kids, they're not living from their soul. They are tending to the caterpillar version of themselves. The result is often addiction.
Every addiction has a common trait in that it's impossible to get enough of something that almost satisfies, it's always fleeting and you’ll never catch it. So addiction is the result of pursuing that which almost satisfies but never will.
The mindset, in that case, could be, I've got resources I can do whatever I want to do—I'm into my vices and I’ve earned the right to do as I please. However, every addiction is the same, and we've been fooled into thinking that there’s a hierarchy to their destruction.
All addictions result in a splintering and debasing of the human soul.
The technology trap is an addiction, for instance, that can't work in our favor in its current form— it wasn't designed to work for us, yet we use it recklessly anyways. That’s the sad reality of addictions.
What might happen if we were to reframe work as a great opportunity to flip the script and ask how we can give back rather than endlessly take to fill a void that will only continue to expand?”
INTERVIEWER:
“Inversely, I never got the chance to be the caterpillar. I never got to blend in and be ‘normal.’ But as one of my favorite designers Diane von Furstenberg said, ‘Why blend in when you were born to stand out?’ Besides, blending in it's boring anyways
I think we have to find and honor the ability to nourish the person that we’re meant to be regardless of whether or not it's comfortable or understood.
If it is a departure from what you think you want, work on fostering that feeling, otherwise, it's just going to nag at you until you make the change. When it comes to figuring out your purpose, don't stop until you find it, and when you do, don't get complacent either.
It seems that many people feel lost when it comes to their purpose. How can one navigate this journey of self-discovery?”
STEVE:
“I think there are levels to everything. The participation of human persons in the life of God is a fascinating world. It’s captured in the word, ‘Theosis.’ It involves mystery, transcendence, and adventure.
If you look carefully, you will find this is the model for work which was modeled in Jesus. But, many people are trying to get God involved in their lives. In a very real way, we have it all backward. I did this for many years, so I know something about it.
God's purpose requires Jesus to be viewed and understood from a certain perspective—not as the one who came to start a religion, Christianity, but as one who came to restore what it means to be fully human.
I'm studying Jesus through a human mindset.
Our invitation as humans into the life of God does require trust, it doesn't send us to our demise, because we have free will. It has been a constant, and we were born for its fulfillment.
In a traditional modality, we run a system where people take their accomplishments and run them through a series of tests to ensure they’re suited for placement in the world and made useful.
We're good at helping people accomplish goals and tasks, but when was the last time you took a fulfillment exam? It doesn't exist. We want to live lives of fulfillment instead of just accomplishment.
I always feel a little weird when someone says this person is an accomplished pianist or something like that because we are measuring talent and the value of a gift within human-created systems.
It’s beautiful because life is about understanding your intrinsic value and the gifts you bring to the world. Life is not about mere accomplishments but finding fulfillment in participating in something greater than ourselves. We should encourage each other to seek out and nurture the unique contributions we can make.
It’s mysterious—we're never going to fully understand,
It's transcendent—it's beyond us, yet for us,
It’s not boring—it's adventurous.”
C. Thompson for Third Chapter Curious, LLC
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