Living in Our New World Part 9: To do Right
October 7, 2008 We're stuck. And let's face it, right now, stuck is not a good place to be. It's not good for us, not good for our family and community, for those who are poorer and less powerful, or for the other species who are trying to live on this planet with us. There's nothing above us on our ladder of technological progress, so we can't go any higher. And so far, most of us don't consider going down an option. So we're stuck, unable to go up and refusing to go down.
But we are about to become unstuck. Even as we tighten our grasp on our ladder rung, the force of what is happening is rattling that ladder and eating away the rungs that we are so desperately clinging to. We're already seeing some people fall off as their homes are lost to foreclosure or hurricanes or tsunamis, or because we want others' food to run our cars. As increasing numbers of people fall off, they take still others with them. At some point, large numbers are gone. Unstuck.
Fortunately, there is still time to unstick ourselves if we act quickly enough. We don't have to wait for the forces of change to push us. Only time will tell exactly what each of us will give up. But let's face it, a lot of what we have right now isn't making us happy anyhow. We've consumed our way through so much of our finite resources that we're at the peak of oil and natural gas, and approaching peak coal and other resources. We're exploiting our planet more than ever before in history and hitting historic highs in resource depletion, soil degradation, air and water pollution, and pushing the boundaries of climate change.
We've used up much of the world's natural resources. Fortunately, we still have our inner resources. As Richard Heinberg, a peak oil writer, has said there are "some good things that are not at or near their historic highs...":
- Community
- Personal autonomy
- Satisfaction for honest work well done
- Intergenerational solidarity
- Cooperation
- Leisure time
- Happiness
- Integrity (Peak Everything, pg.14)
Adding spirituality and personal growth to this list, we'll see that among
the losses, often of things that aren't making us happy anyhow, there will be
much to gain. Somehow, we became distracted by all of our technological
helpers. Most of us didn't realize they were actually lowering our quality of
life and anesthetizing our spiritual selves.
When times are extremely difficult, we have to struggle just to survive. When things are going well, we become lulled into complacency. It’s the conditions in between that seem to bring out the best in us. We seem to need a challenge, an urgent challenge, to get our attention and wake us up. We have that challenge today. And opportunity. For life as we know it is about to change dramatically.
We are poised to descend the technological ladder, but integrity, satisfaction for meaningful work well done, community building, family solidarity—and spiritual growth—can still be ours. They do not depend on oil or other natural resources. They are a product not of what we dig out of the earth but of how we choose to live our lives.
It is time to realize that we have conducted a massive experiment in complicating our lives, not improving their quality. And the experiment is failing. It produced some wonderful things, like medical care, public schooling, museums, and worldwide access to information. But the cost is proving too high as even these accomplishments are now in peril.
How much we can carry down the ladder with us we do not know. So we need to choose wisely what we try to retain. As a wise woman I know has said, if we live as though there is no tomorrow, there will be no tomorrow.
Hopefully, we will be able to descend our ladder with grace and honor. It will not be easy. But it is the right thing to do.
Reader Comments (1)