This desire to be independent-- the fear of being judged, and the feeling that "I don't want to need you" or "I don't want to owe you anything"-- is very much a part of the fabric of our culture. It is what Charles Eisenstein, author of Ascent of Humanity and Sacred Economics, refers to the "myth of the separate self". We live in a society that values independence from as early as infancy. We learn from a young age to censor our emotions, thoughts, and even our gifts for fear of being judged by others. We develop endless "habits of separation" (including judging others) that become so much a part our daily routine, we don't even question their existence. In Sacred Economics, Charles discusses how through separation we also become alienated, pitted in competition against one another, devoid of a sense of community. Our modern monetary system contributes to this lack of connection to one another > you give me a service or a product, I give you money, which relieves me of any obligation or connection to you, and we go on our separate ways. For many people, this is the most comfortable way of doing business. After all, it's what we know. It's all we know! The problem is that this paradigm of separation is not serving us well. Maybe we've fooled ourselves into thinking we are independent and don't need each other. But in reality, rather than relying on our local economy and community to meet our needs for food, clothing, fuel, shelter, entertainment, etc, we find ourselves wholly dependent upon giant corporations and banks who are not beholden to us for anything but their own profit and gain. Without any connection, without any accountability, obligation or care, profit has been prioritized over people in every facet of our lives. In fact, if we look at any of the major crises facing our society today, and we ask "why?", and we peel back a few layers of "whys", we will keep coming to the same answer: money.
As a parent, I find myself most concerned with the health, safety, and well-being of my child, and really of all children. I am continually struck by how the the current systems and structures of modern life do worse than fail to protect the most vulnerable among us; they actually do harm. It seems that every day I read another statistic: 1 in 88 children born in the US with austism, 1 in 4 adolescents in the US now diagnosed with diabetes or pre-diabetic conditions, cancer rates to increase by 75% in the next 15 years. Scientists scratch their heads-- they just can't prove what's causing it. It's just something about the westernized lifestyle. But, what? And why? Why are so many of our food products from genetically modified soy and corn? Why have vast monocultures replaced the rich biodiversity of North American agriculture? Why is Tertiary Butylhydroquinine (TBHQ), a petroleum based carcinogen, added to my child's fishsticks? Why are there toxic flame retardants in our sofa? Why are energy companies like Halliburton permitted to inject toxic chemicals into the earth that threaten the water we drink, the air we breath, and the climate on which we depend? Why is it that the federal government can bail out the too-big-too-fail corporate banks while public institutions like the Philadelphia public school system are allowed to disintegrate? The answer to all of these questions (and so many more) is profit. And lots of it. We live at a time in which giant corporations, with little to no accountability or oversight, toss aside the precautionary principle in the name of profit. And the result is dis-ease, among people and within our fragile ecosystems.
And this brings us to another myth that Charles Eisenstein expounds in Ascent of Humanity: the "Story of the People". The myth goes something like this: we've mastered agriculture, we've created machines to do work for us, we've developed telecommunications, we've conquered disease... we have risen above other species and transcended our limitations. We are ascending higher and higher to a point where we will have total control- over the environment, over the weather, over the cells in our body. We may even one day defeat death. The myth tells us that this total and complete power and control over everything will be the highest point of our humanity-- our ascent -- and we're almost there. The problem, of course, is that the more we "ascend" the more separate we become, from nature and from one another. This quest, this conquest, really, has also lead to the oppression of people all over the world, war, genocide, and the increasing, perhaps irreversible, degradation of our planet. And furthermore, we really can't ascend any higher on this trajectory. We are already at peak oil. We're also at peak money, as our debt far surpasses our economic growth. We're even at peak sugar because, let's face it, any more in our diet and we'd just drop dead. We simply can not continue to progress on this current path. It is completely and utterly unsustainable.
So if we've found ourselves already at the top, where is there to go from here? Are we on the brink of self-destruction? Maybe. Or perhaps, as Charles suggests, we just need a new myth, a new story, one that is predicated on connection and community, one that values human beings and their unique gifts over profit and consumption. The new story is one that we are able to glimpse in moments of our true authentic being-ness-- a vision that Charles calls "the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible."
We become aware of it in moments, gaps in the rush and press of modern life. These moments come to us alone in nature, or with a baby, making love, playing with children, caring for a dying person, making music for the sake of music or beauty for the sake of beauty. At such times a simple and easy joy shows us the futility of the vast, life consuming program of management and control. We intuit that something similar is possible collectively....Another way of being is possible. --Ascent of HumanityAcross this country and around the world, individuals are coming to the same conclusion. This isn't working. Something has to change. The Occupy movement has served to bring many of these issues to the forefront of our collective consciousness, and in various moments and instances over the past 9 months, has succeeded in catalyzing significant shifts. Just yesterday the Huffington Post reported that Occupy Buffalo succeeded in convincing the city council to divest 45 million dollars from JPMorgan Chase to be invested in a local bank and the local economy. The national Move Your Money campaign chronicles many similar success stories. The Transition Movement, which began in 2006, is also spurred on by this shift in our consciousness. We know that "we are living in an age of unprecedented change, with a number of crises converging. Climate change, global economic instability......" We know that we must prepare for the changes ahead, yet we also know that we can not solve the problems of the old paradigm by continuing to operate within the old paradigm. This is not a time to haul off to a cabin the woods with a 2 year supply of canned goods and live in isolation. This is not a time to throw titanium dioxide up into the stratosphere because we think it might stave off the effects of global warming and we're sort of sure it won't make things worse. This is a time for radical change and revolution- not the violent and destructive revolutions of the old paradigm, but a revolution of values, a revolution of consciousness, what Buddhists call a human revolution- "transforming our lives at the very core. It involves identifying and challenging those things which inhibit the full expression of our positive potential and humanity."
Shift happens. It is happening now. From the the myth of the separate self to a new consciousness, a connected self. From a paradigm of centralized power and control to one of collective empowerment. From profit based systems that degrade our earth, disrupt our climate, destroy our health and communities to "New Economics, including negative-interest currencies, local currencies, resource-based economics, gift economies, and restoration of the commons." This is a time for profound transformation, as the cost of inaction at this point is simply too great.
This blog, in future installments, will discuss my personal exploration of the many ways to "get on board" with this paradigm shift: divesting from corporate banks and moving our money to local credit unions, supporting Transition Towns in preparing for a sustainable post-carbon future, participating in Timebanks and local gift economies, starting a worm bin, a compost, a rain water catchment system, a backyard garden, utilizing alternative and renewable energy resources, "re-skilling" ourselves and our communities in local food production and preservation, focusing on production rather than consumption, generally opting out of the systems and structures that have failed to serve us, investing in community, working for social justice, and striving to remain positive, hopeful, connected, and even joyful in increasingly uncertain times. I hope that you will continue to follow along, both in readership and in action.
For more information on the work and ideas of Charles Eisenstein visit:
http://charleseisenstein.net/
http://sacred-economics.com/
http://www.ascentofhumanity.com/
Inspiring videos can be found at:
The Revolution is Love
Sacred Economics- An Evening with Charles Eisenstein
