From Imagining to Living in a Cultural Age

I have been imagining what it would be like to live in a cultural age since I was very young. However, it took many years to get my thoughts on this matter down on paper. This occurred in 1975 when two of my articles – ‘Towards a New World Order: The Age of Culture’ and ‘The Age of Culture: Prospects and Implications – were published by UNESCO, and later when my books Revolution or Renaissance: Making the Transition from an Economic Age to a Cultural Age and The Age of Culture were published.

When I read that Gandhi had said, “be the change you want in the world,” I knew it was time to live in a cultural age and not just write about it, which I have been doing for some time now. This has involved seeing the world from a cultural perspective, dealing with culture and cultures in central and holistic terms, “living in the whole, the good, and the beautiful” as Goethe advised, going into the forest “to lose my mind and find my soul” as John Muir advocated, allowing the cultures of all countries to invade my life as fully as possible, focusing on “the other” and not just “the self,” cherishing the arts, sending exquisite music to my friends and colleagues, conserving the natural, cultural, and digital heritage of humankind, treating people from other races, cultures, and heritages with dignity and respect.

Picasso was right. “Everything you can imagine is real.”

D. Paul Schafer is the Founder and Director of the World Culture Project in Markham, Canada, and author of The Age of Culture, The Arts: Gateway To A Fulfilling Life And Cultural Age, and his brand new, The World as Culture: Cultivation of the Soul to the Cosmic Whole.