The Abundance Dynamic

There is a shift in progress.

For hundreds of years we have been living, working, consuming and discarding without much concern for the consequences of our actions. The dominant paradigm has been one of individual, corporate and national profit making and taking. The costs of these pursuits has been consistently and conveniently “externalized”, meaning, simply, that we’ve been ignoring the systemic reverberations of our actions. If you haven’t done so already, watch The Story of Stuff, now.

Generally speaking this is resulting in largely unintended and increasing patterns of environmental degradation, 5 nation-sized gyres of plastic soup in our oceans, a growing number of extinctions or near extinctions,  climate destabilization, crippling trade imbalances, the ongoing accumulation and concentration of wealth and health in small minorities, and the proliferation of re-enforcing systems and structures that, as populations increase, are accelerating these patterns. As populations grow and resources dwindle the consumptive force of this negative spiral is poised to increase exponentially. Accompanying  this tsunami-like increase we’re already seeing rather undignified grabs for resources (think oil–and, more recently, tuna).We call this the scarcity dynamic. We all know how this works. We perceive (correctly or incorrectly) that there is not enough to go around, so we hoard, consume more quickly, things fall apart and we realize the tragedy of the commons.

Recently, though, new patterns have been emerging that demonstrate the transformative power of widening our scope of action, intention and awareness. When we do this consistently and systemically we begin taking ownership and accountability for the impacts and influences we exert beyond the immediate scope of our work, commerce and consumption. We begin to realize that, instead of contributing to the negative spiral outlined above, we can create ripples of positive value in the world around us. We call this the abundance dynamic. And, it begins with a shift from “me” to “we.”

Tags: abundance, climate destabilization, extinction, me to we, oil, plastic gyres, population, scarcity, The Story of Stuff, trade imbalance, tragedy of the commons, tuna

Consuming Thoughts: I

I is for Inter-relations and What It All Means: John Lydon: Swimming in the slurry, burning in the heat, wind blown is the weather, I eat what you secrete. Nice thought that-and true. Breathe in, breathe out. You’ve just contributed to global warming. We are butterflies individually and collectively creating chaotic change with each flap of our bright, store bought wings. That means that literally everything we eat, drink, acquire and otherwise consume comes with a complex history of relationships, costs of production often hidden and externalized (The Story of Stuff is a delightfully depressing ode to this process.)

Things stay with us for a brief present (sometimes less than a minute of use)  and then can persist in some degraded form for hundreds of years. Take a look: take 10 minutes and start making a list of all the various relationships in which you became enmeshed through the last bottle of water you consumed. I doubt you’ll uncover them all, but please, don’t let me stop you. Imagine going through this process with everything single thing you buy. Not going to happen, is it?

So, as concerned but time-pressed consumers how can we take control of this complexity? Here’s a high impact start:

1. Buy local. Less complexity, more direct effect through shorter value chains.
2. Practice all 6 R’s: Reduce consumption. Reuse whatever possible. Recycle diligently. Repair what can be fixed. Refuse what you don’t need. Redesign how you live to accomplish the other five.
3. Rethink plastic: It tastes terrible, over 80% of it isn’t actually recycled, a staggering amount of it is unnecessary.
4. Create community: share stuff instead of buying what already exists in the neighborhood. Grow and share food. Share knowledge & experience. Share time.
5. Consider creating smaller families: The effects of over-population are not pleasant. Think famine, increased conflict and suffering, increased pressure on dwindling resources leading to large amounts of general unhappiness.

Yoda: Do or do not. There is no try.

Tags: buy local, chaos theory, Community, Do or do not. There is no try, John Lydon, recycle, reduce, refuse, repair, reuse, The Story of Stuff, Yoda