Tuesday, 16 June 2009

Up through the cracks in the concrete

The revolution rises.

Hordes of soundbite politicians roam Westminster professing progress with their words but denying it with their lives. Media jackals haunt the streets, rooting through the recycling to feed their voracious appetites for suffering. They devour their own young on a capricious whim; the dark lords of celebrity fate. High above, in the glassy towers and gilded boardrooms, oil barons and money men plunder the planet's pockets, turning its own riches against itself.

And all the while, weary and disenchanted, the world yearns for something different.

Rumours of revolution abound.

Quietly but irrepressibly, revolutionary souls subvert the status quo, reclaiming and recruiting communities into their revolutionary fold. The tendrils of this revolution spread far and wide, bringing the hum of new life to the ruins and rubble. Green shoots of change break through the concrete jungle, creeping up through the cracks in the pavement, disrupting the carefully maintained constraints of the prevailing system.

The revolution rises.

Its faithful followers don't just sell light at the end of the tunnel, but see the diamonds sparkling in the grimy walls along the way. They collaborate, co-exist and conspire to create lasting change. They have a vision for the future, not just more of the same. Their lives are lived in community; not just knowing their neighbours' faces but their names and their stories as well. They are a new humanity; humankind 2.0.

The revolution rises.

These revolutionaries embrace technology, adopting and adapting rapidly to integrate new tools and toys just as their prehistoric forebears once did. They live on the wire, as comfortable navigating the twitterverse as the tube map. However, they are not consumed by consumerism, nor deafened by digital broadcasts. Their lives are more than the sum of their playlists and podcasts. They delight in discovering the wild heartbeat that sounds in untamed open spaces; they marvel at the stars that exist beyond the mask of city smog.

Such individuals celebrate their membership of the global village, but lament the exploitative implications of globalisation, the systematic corruptions that make our lives better at the expense of others. But they don't just lament: they act, they speak, they go and stand alongside the poor and the broken. There are no boundaries or borders that can stop the revolution; it is inexorably laying claim to the whole world.

The revolution rises.

Nations fall, politicians falter, but the revolution will continue. It is a perpetual rediscovery. A society turned inside out and outside in at the same time. It is radical yet non-violent, unheralded yet long-awaited.

It is Quantum and it has arrived.