Getting Centered

Our daily dealings are still heavily influenced by ideas that were firmly set before anyone knew the world was round. In many ways, they reflect how we understood the world when we didn’t understand the world at all. Our economic, religious, and ethical institutions ride antique notions too narrow to freight what we’ve learned about how life works on our sparkle dot of diamond dust in space…..they haven’t assimilated the last century’s breakthroughs: that all life is related by lineage…..haven’t adjusted to new realizations about how we can push the planet’s systems into dysfunction. —Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point

Let me admit right off that I’m exhausted. There is so much happening in this world right now, that I find myself trying to fit just a little more work to save it and a little more pleasure to save myself into each day. But it’s not just the doing that is exhausting; it’s the contemplating of just what humanity is doing to this planet and itself that has me so weary by the end of the day. So, in my weariness, I’m going to cheat a little and rely heavily on a wonderful book I just finished – the one quoted above. I just love the way Safina succinctly explains the obvious; that our institutions have outlived their usefulness and have become destructive of what is important in life. It’s closely related to what I wrote in the last issue about conventional wisdom not being wisdom.

It’s time to question all the platitudes and givens. It’s easy to see the ways in which capitalism, that pyramid scheme, is wrecking havoc. But we must have alternatives. This is where things get difficult. For instance, at a recent nationwide rally, a slogan was “Preserve the American Dream.” Well, I want everyone to be comfortable. I like being comfortable myself, but at some point we have to realize that the American Dream, as currently defined, is not sustainable on this planet. So we’re going to have to create a new American Dream and drop “American” and substitute something like “Global” and bring in all the other life forms. So this gets complicated and hard to fit on a rally placard! Therefore, we tend to stick with tried and true and not stretch our minds to where they need to go.

But we can do this! Einstein wrote, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” And he’s not just talking about his intuitive mind, but yours and mine, as well. We can’t sit around waiting for a genius to save us. We have to do this now and together. (My first idea? If Gov. Walker of Wisconsin fires protesting employees, George Soros should step in and pay them so they can continue to protest and drive that guy from the State House. Anyone have George’s phone number?)

Safina writes, “Life’s most fortunate ironies are that what’s best for the long run is best now, and selflessness serves our best interests far better than selfishness. The wider our circle of considerations, the more stable we make the world.” All over the world, people are coming together to demand something different. As Sonoma State professor Cynthia Boaz said about Egypt, “It’s not just about removing the old system from power…..Egypt represents a systemwide demand for a new alternative.” Our replacements for old, repressive forms of government (here and abroad), for exploitative forms of work, for energy sources that threaten our very existence must be new and imaginative. And they must be shared by the many, not the few.

I am constantly exhorting people to get active, to get involved. The world feels ready. If we don’t do it now, we may lose our last, best chance.