A zen perspective on how we think about the future
NASA has discovered new life forms that now require the rewriting of science textbooks. The life form utilizes arsenic for its life structure, a phenomena that questions how we think of life on earth, and opens new doors to environmental cleanup possibilities. What if we started to considered “scientific certainty” as scientific possibility?
Climatologists project that over 3 million people on the planet will become immigrants if sea levels rise above 4 feet. It presents a case for figuring out the immigration “problem” that devils most countries in the world even now. What radical propositions would be necessary to accommodate such a seismic shift in world populations?
American children ages 8-18 are spending over 8 hours daily behind screens indoor, and I don’t mean back door screens. There is a new movement among physicians writing prescriptions for behaviorally unhealthy patients to get outside. There are no lack of green, walkable and bikable spaces. What will it take to get people to overcome their nature deficit disorders?
An Indian-American group is actively engaged in a new campaign, Take Back Yoga, ostensibly to return yoga back to its original “Hindu brand.” It’s interesting to think of ancient wisdom traditions having a “brand” but if we think about brand as story, then yes, but every global movement emerges from countless stories. The institutional originators get to decide on the “official” legacy stories. But as we know today, “brands” cannot be “owned” by anyone in a world where stories proliferate in every media and channel...
Climate Change is publishing a buyer guide to the sustainability ratings of thousands of top brands. Using rating categories of Stuck, Starting, and Striving, Climate Change uses 22 climate related criteria to rate services and products. Whole Foods is doing similarly with some of its food products. How long before we see this and other social and environmental justice indicators available through phone bar scanners, which have already started? What indicators would you like to see? How about ratings applied to local...
The Open Collaboration Blog talks about the practice of gift circles. Their purpose is to “create a self-organizing, decentralized network that re-localizes communities, fosters resilience, builds social capital, and creates economic self-sufficiency by activating latent resources through sharing needs and gifts in gift Circles.” The germinal structure is the community gift circle: a group of people that meets regularly to meet one others’ economic needs without money or barter. The basic structure is that each person...
Lit poetry workshop here in Tremont tonight with some of the greatest verse warriors in the city, trading in peer review and inspiration for each others' work. The big take-away is that it is a craft of subtlety, structure, and sensibility where every word, image, allusion and sound counts. Slight shifts become cosmic shifts. How could we become a planet of poets?
The Zen aesthetic has long been associated with minimalism. Minimalism is the use of only those elements necessary to complete form and function, where everything works and nothing is missing. In a world where excess is next to godliness, minimalism is an errant voice. What in your world would benefit from a bit more, or a radical makeover in the direction, of minimalism. What could you remove from your living space, your work, your life, and perhaps even have more space to breathe, imagine, and move?
I heard my mentor and friend Peter Block today talk about globalism. His take on it is that globalism is code for new forms of colonialism. In colonialism, one culture assumes the power of superiority over another. In this sense, it is the scaling of one culture at the cost of another’s extinction. Worse, it is the elimination of local economies so that non-local economies can take over. Is it possible that “thinking global” can allow space for authentically “acting local?” and if so, what does that mean? If thinking...
10-time author and designer with a focus on change in organizations and communities. HappinessChoice.com. Contact Jack at jack(at)happinesschoice(dot)com
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