This post is part of an ongoing series exploring ideas from my nonfiction book in progress, The Lens That Changes Everything — a work examining how the way we see shapes both our inner lives and the culture we’re living in. If you’d like access to each chapter as it’s released, you can sign up using the form at the bottom of this post.
On Chapter 2: Civilization’s Shortcut
(And What It Cost Us)
Most people who struggle to change their lives assume the problem is personal.
They think they lack discipline.
Or consistency.
Or motivation.
Or clarity.
Chapter 2 of The Lens That Changes Everything asks the reader to pause that assumption — not to escape responsibility, but to place it correctly.
Because before we talk about habits, mindset, or effort, we need to understand the environment those things are operating inside.
That environment is civilization.
The Problem Civilization Had to Solve
For roughly two million years, humans learned how to live, adapt, and cooperate without large-scale systems.
Knowledge was embodied.
Beliefs formed through experience.
Understanding moved slowly, through story, imitation, and relationship.
Then, very recently in human history — about ten thousand years ago — everything accelerated.
Agriculture, cities, population growth, specialization, and hierarchy created a new problem: How do you coordinate millions of people quickly?
Civilization’s answer was not wisdom or embodiment.
It was compression.
Rules instead of stories.
Roles instead of relationships.
Symbols instead of lived experience.
Institutions instead of elders.
This wasn’t malicious.
It was necessary.
Civilization took a shortcut.
Why the Shortcut Worked (At First)
Shortcuts exist for a reason. They trade depth for speed.
By compressing meaning into systems and expectations, civilization made large-scale coordination possible. It created stability, predictability, and growth at unprecedented levels.
But that success came with an unexamined assumption:
That beliefs could be installed, rather than formed.
That humans could adopt values, identities, and behaviors from the outside in — without lived experience to support them.
The shortcut worked well enough that we stopped questioning it.
The Cost We Didn’t Calculate
Chapter 2 isn’t an argument against civilization.
It’s an examination of what happens when a temporary shortcut becomes permanent.
When belief is prescribed before perception is formed, a gap appears.
People know what they should do — but can’t bring themselves to do it.
People succeed externally while feeling disconnected internally.
People apply more effort and pressure, only to feel more stuck.
The system assumes the problem is individual failure.
But the chapter proposes a different explanation:
This is a misalignment between human formation and civilizational design.
Pressure doesn’t resolve that misalignment.
Optimization doesn’t resolve it.
Shame certainly doesn’t.
Those responses only deepen the fracture.
Why This Matters Personally
The quiet relief in this chapter comes from recognizing something most people have never been given permission to consider:
You may have been trying to solve a structural problem at the personal level.
That doesn’t mean nothing is your responsibility.
It means responsibility has been misplaced.
Once that misplacement is seen, something important happens — pressure lifts, shame loosens, and curiosity returns.
That moment is where real change becomes possible.
Not through more effort, but through a clearer lens.
Where This Chapter Leads
Chapter 2 does not offer tools or solutions.
That restraint is intentional.
Offering fixes too early would repeat the same shortcut the chapter is describing — skipping formation in favor of outcomes.
Instead, this chapter prepares the ground for what comes next:the missing lenses that help us understand where beliefs actually come from, and how change truly happens.
Early Reader Note
Chapter 2 is nearing completion.
If you’d like to read it as soon as it’s released — and follow the book as it takes shape — you’re welcome to join the Early Reader Circle.
There’s no pressure and no hype. Just a quiet way to stay close to the work while it’s still forming.→ Learn more about the book here
→ Explore the Creative Humanity Alliance