By Editor 
Progression, perception, perspective and consciousness, this article takes a high level look into why we always feel the need to make progress, when sometimes sitting still or going at a slower pace actually gets us there quicker and what we and/or the brain perceives.
There’s something deeply fascinating about our collective need to keep moving. We seem to be wired for progress, but are we actually progressing, or just staying busy?
The Commuter Instinct
As a long-time London commuter, I’ve noticed that when a train is delayed, most people don’t simply wait. They reroute, walk, or jump on the next available train. The logic is straightforward: movement feels like progress. Sitting still feels like failure.
The same pattern plays out on the roads. The street I live on becomes a popular shortcut during rush hour, even though taking the traffic lights around the corner gets you there in the same amount of time. The shortcut is narrower, often blocked by parked cars, and as I discovered recently when someone hit my car speeding down the road, it is genuinely dangerous. Yet people choose it anyway, driven by this notion that continuously moving forward, no matter how slowly, is the better choice.
What the Research Says
The Progress Network published an article arguing that we need a formal psychology of progress — one that examines how self-regulation and motivation shape our behaviour. Their view is that humans are creatures of habit and resistant to change, and that during uncertain times, people become especially cautious and sceptical of new ideas. Understanding this could help us better understand ourselves and what truly drives us.
Perspective vs. Perception
Two concepts worth separating here are perspective and perception. Perspective is a point of view, a particular attitude toward something. There are no concrete facts in perspective; it’s simply how we see things.
Perception goes a step further. It’s our ability to become aware of the world through our senses, and how we interpret what we experience. There is, in fact, an entire psychology of perception and of consciousness, which connects closely to these ideas.
The book The Brain by New Scientist1 explores this well, with chapters on how the brain invents reality, makes sense of the senses, and even creates our sense of the present moment. It raises the provocative question are you hallucinating right now?
Consciousness and What Comes Next
A talk by Anil Seth2 at the Royal Society, available on YouTube (and shown below), takes this further. Around the 48-minute mark, he presents a slide titled ‘Consciousness: A Mystery That Matters,’ suggesting we would benefit from mastering certain foundations before rushing toward AI and virtual reality. Those foundations include medicine, psychiatry, neurology, ethics, law, personal responsibility, well-being, and perceptual and neurodiversity. In short; understand what we are before building what we want to become.
Taking Responsibility
One element on that list stands out: personal responsibility. It feels increasingly rare. We live in a culture that encourages people to deflect, react, and point fingers rather than pause and reflect. Car insurance policies tell us not to admit liability. Social media rewards outrage. Road rage is almost expected.
But occasionally, someone surprises you. Recently, a van driver on a narrow road who could easily have been aggressive, rolled down his window and said, simply, ‘I’m so sorry, that was my fault.’ In London, that kind of response is genuinely remarkable. It shouldn’t be.
The Bigger Picture
The thread running through all of this is impatience. We’re always switched on, always accelerating, always trying to reach the next stage before we’ve settled into the current one. It’s the same pattern as technology companies releasing updates before the last version has even been properly adopted.
Perhaps the better approach is to slow down, embed what we have, and live a little more in the present. Progress doesn’t require constant motion. Society changes naturally and organically, it always has. In five years, the culture of always being ‘on’ may well give way to something else entirely.
For now, it might be worth asking: are we progressing, or are we just unnecessarily moving too fast?
Below is the fascinating presentation by Anil Seth at the Royal Society who makes somewhat progressive technical topics easy to digest.
References:
We need a psychology of progress, The Progress Network
Image by Susann Mielke from Pixabay
- The Brain: Everything You Need to Know, New Scientist ↩︎
- Consciousness in humans and other things with Anil K Seth | The Royal Society ↩︎
K J Foxhall