In conclusion, it’s not all about you.
It’s not all about your wants, needs, opinions, rights, freedoms, beliefs, personal fulfillment, people, country, religion, politics, money, or favorite sports team.
Don’t get me wrong: It is about you. It is absolutely about you. That is the whole point of the After Age: You matter.
It’s just not all about you. It is also about all of us. I have no idea how much it is one or the other. Is it 51% about you and 49% about us? Or 10% about us and 90% about you? Or vice-versa?
Or maybe thinking of “us” versus “you” is the whole problem. Maybe we’re on the same team. Maybe the distinction between “us” and “you” is a false one and always has been.
Anyway, I don’t know where that balance lies, exactly, and I don’t care. But I do know that, one way or another, it needs to be more about us and less about you.
As I have already said, “us” is just a big dumb thing that depends on each of us individuals to exist. That is why everything here is written for you. You are the one with the power. It is just a little bit of power, but it is all yours, you don’t have to share it with anyone, and you can do with it what you want. I hope at least one of the things you want to do with your power is to help us be not just OK, but great.
The best way you can help us to be great is to be more cooperative, by being more humble, more accepting of the wants, needs, and, especially, points of view of everyone else in this world. To admit that just because something matters to you does not mean it is the only thing that matters. To find some perspective about your own life, and the lives of those around you and to accept our existence when you consider how to act in the world. In the end, it may not always change what you do. Just opening yourself to the possibility is enough. In fact, just being aware of it is enough.
This new awareness is not just altruism on your part. The changes underway in the After Age have put pressure on all of us. The pressures are personal, but they also extend into how we treat other people, other groups of people, other nations, how we think about money, and politics, and the world as a whole. I hope by understanding the how and why of some of these pressures you are better equipped to live your best life alongside the rest of us.
That said, as I’ve made clear, there is a cost involved in making everything less about you. There is more effort involved. It complicates your own goals, undermines your own certainty. You take on some of the burden of ensuring the health and stability of the society and world around you, often with no obvious immediate personal benefit.
To convince you this burden is worth it, I’ve shown you how far we have gotten already and, by implication, how much further we could go. We have entered an era of unprecedented potential that is just getting started. There is no limit to what we could achieve. You want more money? We have been making more money continuously for over 200 years with no sign of stopping. You want more freedom? By every metric, we have been getting freer and freer. You want law and order, peace and security? Human life is less and less violent and more and more just and orderly.
You want more happiness? Well..uh..no, sorry, the After Age can’t promise you that and neither will I. However, the After Age can certainly make happiness more likely by creating the circumstances to allow happiness to come into being. The rest is up to you.
But I hope by this point you agree with me that the greatest benefit of the After Age is not what it can deliver for you, but what it can deliver for everyone, especially those of us who are much less fortunate than you or I. For that reason alone, we should all be doing what we can to keep the progress of the After Age going. For us and for you, this is a win-win situation.
Thank you for reading the After Age. If you’ve gotten this far, then you must have found the ideas in this book worth considering, at least. I have covered a lot of ground here. I would be surprised if you agree with everything I have written. However, if there is one thing I hope this book has encouraged you to do, it is to take a second look at how you think about the world, its present, future, and your place in it. They are all much brighter than you think.