FootprintsintheWind.com

We each have ingenuity we can put to use. More ingenuity than money. More ingenuity than politicians. More ingenuity than corporations. More ingenuity than challenges.

What we lack are 1, seeing that we have this ingenuity and 2, courage to take action. The action is simple: start. Speak, invite, do.

:- Doug.

It is now important that we encourage each other to see ourselves larger. There is more each of us can do. It is not simply recycle what we can, change our light bulbs, and then march on the government to get them to change the bigger things. (We are the government, at least in the West.)

There are things we can do. The very least of them is learn what others are doing. The very best of them is to invent new things to do. Together. In conversation.

We can help each other see new ways to earn a living that are not tied to causing harm to our nesting place—sure, people in the Gulf area have a lot of jobs tied to oil. Let’s figure out a bigger future.

:- Doug.

People point to the peccadilloes of politicians and the stupidities of CEOs and say, See, the human animal has not changed. What they are saying is, It is not worth making efforts to improve the world.

That is sad, because we can do better.

From modern brain science we learn that we have some things which were good at one time and not so good now: this is why we say the more things change the more they stay the same. So these folks are right, but they stop short. Controlling ancestral urges built in to the older parts of our brains is not like pressing a key on a keypad and a better thing pops up in our life.

Yet things do change and are changing and we are discovering new things about ourselves. For one, this very brain science lets us understand ourselves better and grow beyond the older urges. For another, we are learning that the more we are different from each other the more we are the same. For another, we are learning from each other’s history as we come together around the planet and discover each other’s points of view, metaphors, theologies and great stories.

We are able to go beyond.

And beyond we will make new mistakes. And the old ones all over again. And we will do better and larger things. If we work at it.

:- Doug.

This is the part of us that will be most productive for the world: See ourselves bigger: working on the planet, the Whole of humanity.

This is the key. How do we, together and individually, engage the Whole of humanity? This is not scaling up, as in speaking to thousands or millions at once. It is more like a batter, not simply whacking at, but swinging through, the ball.

:- Doug.

What could I do bigger?

:- Doug.