A New Central Project for Humanity
From consumption and production to caring for all people and all planetary ecosystems as a movement of movements, acting in communities, nations, and planetary society
This Compassionate Conversation is full of questions, observations, practices, suggestions, and more. Hope it touches your heart-mind and calls you to action.
What if humanity launches a new Central Project of caring for all people and all planetary ecosystems? Years ago, Dr. Willis Harman, a physicist and president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in the US, wrote that our focus on consumption and production must give way to a Learning Society.
Many people including me are proposing a new central project of Caring for People and Planet. We can do this. We must do this to save life on Earth. We can turn our considerable intelligence and resources to doing this as what it means to be human on planet Earth, rather than promoting systems that destroy people and planet. Check out Harman's book Global Mind Change. We in ICA Venezuela were honored to bring him to Caracas to speak in 1987.
What do you think?
May we each have a change of heart and hand to right the wrongs that beset us, to heal the infections that plague us, to become new beings of compassion and truth, to create communities, nations, and a global society that care for all people and all the planet's ecosystems. May it be so.
Language is sometimes dismissed as a life force. We have all said or heard someone say, "oh, but those are only words; do something."
But words do change history. Words can launch a revolution. Words can heal or they can harm. Words are powerful beyond imagining. A few sounds or letters can create happiness or hurt, life or death. Words can create reality or illusion. Words can provide a story that gives life meaning or that takes it away. Words can turn internal ideas and feelings into external communication. Words can allow reflection to manifest in sight or sound, in meaning and movement.
After formal studies in language (English) and ultimate reality (theology), I plunged into a life of doing – conducting community, organizational, and leadership development initiatives, and designing and coordinating local governance projects, programs, and policies around the world. Throughout that time, I wrote some poems, essays, and speeches, but my focus was on action in the world.
When I began to teach grad school and give public talks, I rediscovered my commitment to and love of language. I began to focus on reflecting, writing, and speaking. I rediscovered the power of words, and of the miracle of interbeing-communication.
Then, one day, I felt compelled to share my words as books, and five books flowed out of my heart-mind and encircled the Earth. This was a form of prayer, the “action before the action”, calling all beings to peace, happiness, understanding, and compassion. Since then, interviews, podcasts, videos, and weekly essays are flowing forth. And almost each day, I write on social media to touch hearts and minds.
Because we humans are hyperconscious beings, language is a superpower. At this very moment, there are corporations creating and launching Artificial Intelligence (AI) large language models (LLMs) that are extremely powerful and can be used for good or for ill. Daily, we face much misinformation in the media.
May we each speak and write with love and truth and create a world of care for all Earthlings everywhere.
This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is...no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak. We write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” -Toni Morrison
The true purpose of a human economy is to care for all the people and all the Earth. Somewhere along the line, we forgot that, and began thinking that its purpose was to make a few people rich and keep everyone else in bondage, and to turn the bountiful Earth into extraction and money. We can wake up and do what is right.
Money has become electronic blips on the computer screen that we can move around to other computer screens. There is no reason that everyone shouldn't and can't have enough of these electronic blips or their equivalent to sustain their life and creativity.
We must awaken from the economic trance before we have completely destroyed life on Earth. Money cannot rightfully provide value to people and nature. People and nature give money its only value. Money is an abstraction, a token used in the exchange of human and natural goods and services. Tragically, money has become a value in and of itself, a self-referencing illusion that is no longer a useful tool for society.
We must return money to its servant role. One human being is of infinite value. How then can we allow the master to be enslaved by the servant? When a human being is born, it is society’s sacred responsibility to help develop and release the full potential of that human being. Otherwise, we are worse than the most savage animal, destroying our own children and losing forever the unique genius of that person and their contribution to the civilizing process.
Everyone has the same rights to be happy, to enjoy their life, and to relieve their suffering. How can we gain the knowledge of how this can be made real? How can we put this knowledge into action? It requires love, commitment and closeness.
Through skillful means compassion can be our motivation, our action, and our result. If your motivation is to benefit all beings, even one simple action can have a vast result.
I continue to believe that good defeats evil, truth vanquishes falsehood, love conquers hate, and peace overcomes violence, if (yes, there is an if) you and I and enough other people promote the good, speak the truth, act with love, and foster peace.
Sometimes, I am overwhelmed with sadness to the point of sickness by the suffering in this world - mass incarceration, abuse of women and children, refugees fleeing war zones, extreme poverty, inadequate health care and education, global warming, corrupt politicians, mass propaganda, and the underlying ignorance, confusion, fear, anger, hatred and greed. It is my suffering. In the midst of this awareness I choose to be hopeful and energetic and even happy as I act, speak, write, teach and facilitate to relieve this suffering.
In this moment of an increase of hate, love more; an increase of greed, be more generous; an increase of fear, trust more; an increase of harm, be more compassionate; an increase of falsehood, stand up for the truth; an increase of ignorance, promote knowledge; an increase of bigotry, be more understanding; an increase of nationalism, be a global-local citizen; an increase of violence, be more peaceful; an increase of anger, be kinder; an increase of despair, be hopeful; and an increase of sadness, be happier. Yes, we can.
We can practice mindful breathing throughout each day and when we wake up in the middle of the night. May all beings everywhere realize peace, happiness, understanding, and compassion.
Breathing in, and breathing out
In the here, and in the now
In love, and in gratitude
Breathing in peace for this Earthling
Breathing out peace for the Earth
Breathing in happiness for this Earthling
Breathing out happiness for the Earth
Breathing in understanding for this Earthling
Breathing out understanding for the Earth
Breathing out compassion for this Earthling
Breathing out compassion for the Earth
Every decision you make, every action you take, creates a different life for yourself and for the world. Of course this is true, but sometimes it comes crashing into your consciousness. This morning, I was reading some letters I had written to my parents when I was in college. One letter written just before graduation told my parents that I had been accepted to teach English in Nigeria in the Peace Corps. I decided not to do that but to go to graduate school.
If I had gone to Nigeria for two years, I would not have gone to grad school in Chicago. I would not have met my wife to be. I would not have interned with a nonprofit in Chicago that took me around the world in service for twenty-two years. I would not have the two sons I have, or the two grandchildren I have. I would not have remarried after my wife passed away. Such mystery! And here I sit. Aware of this power.
What decisions and actions will you and I take today that will chart a different life for ourselves, our communities, and the world?
Every living being lives at the intersection of all time and all space. We each live in the here between the macro and micro and in the now between the archaic and the futuric. That is the singular point of consciousness and intentionality. It is here and now that we are each free to observe, weigh up, decide, and act. Gratitude for this mysterious calling. May we answer the call by catalyzing an ecologically sound, compassionate community and civilization.
Do you have a vocation or a calling? Some of us have had several. As a child, I was called to be a good boy. Then as a boy, I was called to be a useful man. Next, while a college student, I was called to be a social pioneer and care for the least, the lost, and the last. Then, I was called to awakenment, engagement, and fulfillment, and to help catalyze a new social vehicle and a new religious mode. Next, I was called to create sustainable human development. Then, I was called to save all sentient beings. Next, I was called to catalyze a compassionate, ecological civilization. Recently, I am being called to be self-affirming, humble, happy, caring, and kind, as part of the Earth-community.
What about you?
Why am I surprised and dismayed at the chaos swirling around us? Didn't I see it coming? Haven't I and others been speaking and writing about a whole system change, a civilizational shift, the dying of the old, the birth of the new? Well this is what it looks like, feels like. It is disorienting, nauseating, scary. It is precisely now that we must be fully aware, honest, kind to ourselves and others, courageous and take what caring actions we can day after day.
One big challenge I see for the movement of movements (MoM) is to identify effective strategies of transformation. Many former strategies and actions may no longer work or be feasible, such as marches, protests, sit-ins, blockades, and others. I would invite each of us to think deeply, read, discuss, and brainstorm actions that could affect and transform mindsets, behaviors, cultures, and systems. Then select one, and test it yourself or in your MoM circle. This could be at any level - local, state, national, regional, or global.
Movement of movements (MoM) circles are needed at every level: local, national, regional, and global.
Each MoM circle should strive to include people from each movement, for example, the environmental/climate movement; the women's movement; the social justice movement; the democracy movement; the human rights movement; and the peace movement; and others.
Each MoM circle needs to articulate through facilitated participatory processes: the values underlying its work; the social vision that guides it; its mission statement; and the strategic actions that it is committed to.
Each MoM circle needs to strengthen collaboration among the many movements in communication, interchange, planning, training, action, and self care.
What do you think? What would you add, change? How would you go about doing the above in your life, in your place?
You are not living on planet Earth. You are part of planet Water.
"You are comprised of 84 minerals, 23 elements, and 8 gallons of water spread across 38 trillion cells. You have been built up from nothing but the spare parts of the Earth you have consumed, according to a set of instructions hidden in a double helix and small enough to be carried by a sperm and egg. You are recycled butterflies, plants, rocks, streams, firewood, wolf fur, and shark teeth, broken down to their smallest parts and rebuilt into our planet’s most complex living thing. You are not living on Earth. You are Earth." - Aubrey Marcus
Even in the midst of grave danger, I am feeling better, more settled, more resolved, more in community with so many others who share the vision and hope of living in harmony and service to people and planet. We cannot be certain of the outcome, but we can be sure of what we choose to think, be, do, write, and say.
With strong emotion, I am remembering with awe and gratitude our ancestors. You and I and everyone alive today would not be here were it not for the struggles, joys, and perseverance of countless humans who lived and died during the past tens and hundreds of thousands of years. Scientists have recently found in Africa the grave of a young child who died 78,000 years ago, showing that humans have conducted burials for at least that long. May you and I be faithful ancestors of those living 78,000 years in the future. May we help give birth to an ecological, compassionate civilization.
An "independent" self is a confusing and dangerous illusion. There is no "self" whatsoever without interdependence with all others - people, animals, plants, air, soil, water, minerals, culture, institutions, the Sun-star, the galaxy, and on and on. Gratitude.
There are simple practices of mindfulness that can transform delusion, anger, hatred, despair, and greed into happiness, understanding, and compassion. Widespread teaching of these practices is urgently needed in the face of our current epidemics of racism, misogyny, wealth inequality, fossil fuel addiction, fascism, and violent conflict.
Social media can be a wonderful way to engage in meaningful sharing and dialogue with many other people. It can also be addictive and can remove us from our physical, relational, intellectual, emotional, actional, and spiritual lives and transport us to a world of pictures, reactive clicks, a few written words or sounds, and shots of dopamine. May we achieve a helpful balance. What is your experience? What do you think?
I find myself sighing again and again throughout the day. So much tragedy happening everywhere is so hard to bear. I then pause, breathe, move my shoulders, sit up, accept, comfort my heart-mind, and resolve to do what I can each moment of each day. Repeat.
Moment by moment, remember and manifest that you only exist because of the human-community, and the human-community only exists because of the Earth-community. There is no you without these two communities. If you are to be happy you will make people and planet happy.
Remember moment by moment that we are in the critical decade of mitigating and adapting to climate chaos and ecocide. In order to do that, let us also promote gender equality, socioeconomic justice, participatory governance, cultural tolerance, and peace and nonviolence.
A few days ago, I practiced mindful depression. I acknowledged it, accepted it, welcomed it, was gentle with it, cared for it, analyzed its causes and conditions, breathed with it, expressed gratitude for many aspects of my life, and eventually it evolved into yet another state of mind. Gratitude.
Many of us are living in cognitive dissonance between our everyday reality of staying alive and enjoying our life on the one hand and ecological and societal collapse on the other. Let's not let our everyday lives block us from taking action in the face of systemic collapse or let systemic collapse block us from enjoying being alive. How do you dance this dance?
So many questions. Our discernments, our decisions, and our actions matter today, and forever.
Note: The photo at the top of this essay is of “People & Planet”, the largest student network in the UK campaigning for social and environmental justice.