Project Vision 21

I recently came across a short and seemingly irrelevant story, yet it stayed with me and made me think more deeply than I expected.

The story was about a little dog somewhere in the United States that was feeling unwell. Instinctively, when his owners took him for a walk, he began to eat grass—a natural remedy animals have used for centuries to ease stomach discomfort. Without the owners realizing it, the patch of grass was contaminated with insecticides and pesticides. Instead of getting better, the poor dog grew even sicker.

The story had a happy ending: the dog eventually recovered. Reading it from another perspective, however, the story made me reflect on something bigger: we, humans, have also polluted countless natural and cultural elements that once had the power to heal us. Today, many of those same things have become sources of illness, confusion, despair.

Take education, for instance. Education once meant the integral formation of a person—an invitation to expand mind and heart so that students could face their future with courage and creativity. Today, more often than not, education has been reduced to a standardized process measured only by tests and grades. Students may pass exams, but they often leave unchanged, with no transformation in their inner life, neither in mind nor in spirit.

The same could be said of spiritual belief systems. In earlier times, whatever their flaws, they at least aspired to open a window into transcendence, helping us see beyond the narrow limits of daily life. These systems appear now not as invitations to transformation but as tools of political or economic control. They no longer inspire openness: they close off hearts and minds, making it harder to experience authentic change.

Another example is dialogue itself. Not so long ago, conversations without agenda or direction carried the potential to heal. Something new, surprising, and meaningful could emerge simply because people were speaking with one another openly. Now dialogue is increasingly reduced to the shallow exchange of memes or fleeting graphics—bits of communication that barely engage our neurons and that discourage us from committing to genuine, creative dialogue.

And then there is culture. I once heard Dr. Ramón del Castillo say with undeniable wisdom: “Culture heals.” I have never forgotten that. But in this dramatic moment of transition, whatever it is we are transitioning toward, culture seems less capable of offering guidance. Beliefs, traditions, and stories that once oriented us no longer provide direction. Instead, culture itself feels contaminated, filled with toxins we absorb without noticing. Rather than healing us, it now makes us sicker, leaving us unmoored and confused.

I am not suggesting we return to the past. That is impossible. And the problems of the present—problems largely created by the past—cannot be solved by going backward. The future is built from the future. But we will never get there if we cling to perpetuating a polluted past and repeating a stagnant present that continues to erode minds and hearts.