When asked by a student about what the world needs, he responded, "Don't ask, what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." I think that's wonderful advice and I've tried to follow it.
I believe that the Ship of Civilization is sinking and those who wish to survive and thrive are getting into lifeboats, rowing away from the sinking ship, and creating a new way of life that is truly sustainable and in balance with the Earth. I picture the Ship looking something like the Titanic having struck an eight-sided iceberg with each jagged point representing one of the following consequences of our addictive way of life:
- Economic Implosion.
- Environmental destruction.
- The end of cheap oil.
- Global warming.
- Population overshoot.
- Food practices that are killing us.
- Male despair and global violence.
- Wild-Card "Black Swans" such as a world-wide Pandemic
Although we can become immobilized with fear when we try and deal with this huge iceberg, when we look more closely we see that it really isn't so frightening up close. Each one of the "problems" can really be reduced to a mind-set of "more." We have been seduced by the illusion of progress to think that we need more money to buy more stuff that is made with more cheap oil and produces more people so we can eat more and more food that makes us fat and fight more wars with more high tech weapons and create more fearful ways we can die.
