“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” Socrates  An essay by Paul Kingsworth struck me as an important commentary on today’s world, and the critical situations we face. The following is extracted from that essay and its entirety can be found at Daily Good: News That Inspires In 1949 the German philosopher Karl Jaspers coined a new word (which is) usually translated into English as “Axial Age” It referred to the historical period between the eighth and third centuries BC. During this period, Jaspers said, five distinct civilizations, those of Greece, Palestine, Persia, India, and China, all experienced profound transformations, which between them created “the foundations upon which humanity still subsists today.” The First Axial Age- What Transpired? In each (distinct civilization), a combination of social, economic, and technological changes, including the spread of ironworking, literacy, urbanization, and market economies, disrupted old social and religious orders. Philosophers and spiritual pioneers, including Buddha, Plato, Socrates, Zarathustra, Elijah, Jeremiah, Confucius, and Lao Tzu, developed new and groundbreaking ways of understanding man’s place in the world. Hierarchies began to crumble, certainties were questioned, and new ways of thinking and seeing began to develop from the ensuing confusion. The greatest significance of the Axial Age, in Jaspers’s mind, was that…….