Consuming Thoughts P

P is for Patterns and Being Present. Roger Daltrey: Listening to you, I get the music, gazing at you, I get the heat, following you, I climb the mountain, I get excitement at your feet. In our excitement to buy, adorn and enhance our selves through commerce it would serve us well to be aware of two things. 1) Our selves: What patterns of consumption drive us to buy and what exactly are we buying? Those of us who do the shopping probably have some well-worn trails we traipse. As I say to my son: pay attention, you might just learn something. 2) Our context: What environmental patterns (designed and emergent) drive us to buy what? Michael Pollan’s intriguing treatise, The Botany of Desire on the control plants exert on our development as people and cultures is well worth a read. As is Biomimicry, a beautiful book by Janine Benyus.

Ms. Benyus also gives us this to ponder: life creates the conditions conducive to life. Spend some time with that one, folks. As a consumer, parent, business person, educator, human being are you creating conditions conducive to life? How do you know?

Tags: Biomimicry, Botany of Desire, Janine Benyus, Michael Pollan, Roger Daltrey

Moving the Needle: From Less Bad to Abundance

Imagine you’re looking at a gauge. The left half of the gauge has black hash marks with numbers that go from “-10″ to “0″ at the top. The background color on this half is red. The right half of the gauge has numbers that start from “0″ at the top of the gauge and go to “+10″ on the lower right. Let’s say the background color for the right half is green.

The goal is simple. As much as possible, keep the needle in the green. Keep things positive.

In Cradle to Cradle Will McDonough writes that eco-efficiency (aiming for “-2 instead of, say, “-8″) really isn’t an option. It’s like being the frog in the pot of boiling water. The water warms slowly. The frog sits comfortably. By the time the water is too hot, it’s too late to jump out. We’re already half cooked. We’ve boiled ourselves to death slowly.

“Life creates the conditions conducive to life” – Janine Benyus. This is true except for when we’re in the red, the negative half of the gauge. When we’re in the red, we’re burning through resources, devouring capital, depleting our savings. When we’re in the red we’re actually creating conditions that make life hard. We’re degrading the systems that support life, that support us. We’re creating our own Hell, cycles of suffering and destruction. From a mindset of scarcity (use what I can, when I can, to maximize my short-term benefit) we create scarcity.

The other half of the gauge is abundance. When the needle is in the green we, ourselves, businesses, communities, cities, nations and the economies that support us are creating conditions conducive to life. We’re strengthening the systems that support life. Well-being emerges from well-being. We’re creating and sustaining life-generating, life-giving cycles. From a mindset of abundance (use what I can to create long-term prosperity for myself by sustaining and enhancing that which supports and sustains me) we create abundance.

The goal is simple. Keep things positive. Making the changes in the ways we think, see, and act in our lives, communities and our work are difficult, daunting. Sustainability is something we do together. Abundance is something we create together.

Red or green? You make the call.

Tags: abundance, Cradle to cradle, Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions conducive to life, sustainability, Will McDonough