Technology offers us the possibility to eliminate risks and seemingly create more safety. As a society, we have unconsciously shifted our focus more and more from immaterial safety to material safety. From the very first day of our lives, we grow up in this new reality, and our entire life is interwoven with it. For newborns, there are already many safety standards, rules of conduct, prohibitions, and maintaining the material reality is placed above the immaterial safety of the child. Children come less into contact with risks in a physical material sense, which drastically reduces the opportunities to achieve immaterial safety. The natural bonding with the mother is already disrupted as soon as she places her newborn in another crib, undermining the child’s chances to gain immaterial safety. As the child grows up, many things are forbidden. More value is attached to material safety than to the non-material safety of the child. When the parents do allow the child the space to build non-material safety, society is there to take away all the natural risks. Material wealth, material safety, material norms and values, and liability have become more important than natural attachment, non-material safety, non-material norms and values, and responsibility. On all levels\u2014personal, social, and in relation to the natural environment\u2014children are undermined in their ability to naturally attach to their parents, to their own social and natural environment, and thereby to themselves, in order to explore the world through risky play, build resilience, and in doing so, develop an inner, immaterial sense of safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a society, we think that children are neglected\/abused if they do not have toys, even though the children of contemporary hunter-gatherers do not look neglected or abused. They play based on the possibilities offered by their own body and creative mind and what is available socially and in their natural environment. They attach naturally, take risks in the vicinity of their social environment where they feel safe, in order to increasingly explore the natural environment. This is fundamentally important to remain in balance (Yin & Yang) as personal, social, and\/or natural boundaries change, whether or not initiated by themselves. Being allowed to attach naturally as a child gives you the space to discover yourself, yourself in relationship towards your social and your natural environment without coercion (Wu wei), in balance (Yin & Yang), following your own life path (Tao). Without balance and without risks, we as humans also deprive ourselves of the possibility to use technology optimally, in balance with ourselves, each other, and the natural environment. To thrive technologically, we first need to learn to thrive naturally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trias Vita is a centre for lifelong development that supports children and young people to develop in connection with themselves, others, and the natural environment from an ecosystemic Taoist life perspective: finding your path (Tao) in balance (Yin & Yang) and without force (Wu wei).<\/p>\n\n\n\n