240 ■ FLOW
separate from other forms of life. We have conceived of individual
human beings as separate from one another. We have invented abstrac
tion and analysis—the ability to separate dimensions of objects and
processes from each other, such as the velocity of a falling object from
its weight and its mass. It is this differentiation that has produced
science, technology, and the unprecedented power of mankind to build
up and to destroy its environment.
But complexity consists of integration as well as differentiation.
The task of the next decades and centuries is to realize this under
developed component of the mind. Just as we have learned to separate
ourselves from each other and from the environment, we now need to
learn how to reunite ourselves with other entities around us without
losing our hard-won individuality. The most promising faith for the
future might be based on the realization that the entire universe is a
system related by common laws and that it makes no sense to impose
our dreams and desires on nature without taking them into account.
Recognizing the limitations of human will, accepting a cooperative
rather than a ruling role in the universe, we should feel the relief of the
exile who is finally returning home. The problem of meaning will then
be resolved as the individual’s purpose merges with the universal flow.