The forces of creative destructive have been operating non-stop in the world associated with media, traditional and social. The latest loss has been at MarketWatch where about 13 may have been cut.
However, the other side of Schumpeterian dynamics is what is being born. Some see that as a fresh hope that any of us can figure out the new normal and create opportunity from it.
An acquaintance in social media lost his job. That isn't news, of course. What should get our attention is that he's in his 60s. Most would have written him off as finished. Within a month he had another full time job in social media and the commute isn't bad.
While developments like this may be encouraging they're upsetting because they reinforce that we don't know, do we, what's happening in the current job market, never mind what will happen.
That sinking sensation that we aren't all knowing, if we acknowledge it, could be the incentive for seeking out the "enlightenment" of zen. At the New Haven, Connecticut Zen Center, for example, Buddhist monks such as Ken Kessel lead a meditation practice which opens the mind to accepting "not knowing."
Although surrendering to not knowing is scary it also liberates us from having to predict the future. In the late 1960s, some experts made the forecast there would be a shortage of college teachers in the humanities. A whole generation was encouraged via three-year government fellowships to enter doctoral programs. In the early 1970s, those jobs didn't get created. Schumpeterian dynamics cast us out into a world which mocked what it perceived as over-education. What if I had entered the doctoral program with the mindset of "not knowing" where the studies would lead? The suffering would have been cut in half, at least.
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