Today’s post is by regular contributor, Richard Jurin. Before his retirement, Richard led the Environmental Studies programme at the University of Northern Colorado, where he launched a degree in Sustainability Studies. His academic interests are environmental worldviews and understanding barriers to sustainability. As ever, with our blogs, the views expressed are not necessarily shared by NAEE.
Richard writes:
“People do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing – refusing to participate in activities that make life bad” Leo Tolstoy.
In my book, Principles of Sustainable Living, I have a short section for each chapter that uses the vehicle of a woman (Esperanza – Espe) who is a 90-year-old woman recounting how that chapter’s principle was enacted through her long-life from 2010 to 2100. I will use that same idea to describe a sustainable future, without trying to guess the situations that might have created that future. If we know where we want to head, it is easier to plot a course to reach that destination, regardless of course corrections needed along the way.
My name is Esperanza and I am being interviewed on my one hundredth birthday. It is hard for people in 2124 to understand the destructive mindset of the world I was born into back in 2024. While the global transition from the ‘Industrial Blight Era (IBE – as we now call it)’ to full sustainable living took many years, it was a curious thing to live through and watch.
Moving to ‘Sustainable Living’ wasn’t a technological transition as so many back then believed it would be, it was a major socio-cultural-psychological one! What changed? Looking back, I can now say the key word to describe it, is we started to use WISDOM in all our decision making – using knowledge and wisdom with our innate intelligence and not just being smart. Situations were so chaotic we had to come together and in doing so collaborated on everything. We rejected hedonism that did not help people. We acted, not at the upper governmental systems, but at the local levels and in ourselves. We became more spiritual, less judgmental, more collaborative, and learned to express Love. This led us to achieve self-actualization?
Psychologist Abraham Maslow had it backwards with his ‘needs’ theory. Rather than be locked into survival mode, and work up the pyramid of needs, during the chaos of the 2020s, humanity started working primarily towards self-actualization. We learned to express ourselves creatively and accept the diversity of human capital as our greatest asset for change, which curiously was also most beneficial for our survival. We began to work more closely in connection with natural systems rather than trying to dominate them with technology. We expressed everything through wisdom, and because we made ourselves be open to it, it came to us from the unlikeliest of sources – ourselves. While the hierarchies of that time kept trying to set people against each other to keep them fearful, they inadvertently set up the conditions for a silent revolution.
To self-actualize, you must first reach self-acceptance and self-love, which requires non-judgmental self-awareness and a deep understanding of oneself. The lockdowns of 2020 allowed many people time to get to know themselves, their true needs, and to understand limitations imposed upon them. The lower needs derive from fear and separation, the higher ones from Love and connection. Today the very thought of knowingly, inflicting harm on any other living thing is abhorrent to us now.
Once people came together from the grass-roots, they started to control their own lives without looking outward for support. True communities arose out of the old urban and suburban neighborhoods. Living together and using technology was always judged on whether it was good for life and helped people and the natural world thrive. Ideas of progress through profit only, slowly fell by the wayside. True sustainability arose out of the chaos of the IBE naturally and organically, as recognition that the IBE way, was no way at all to sustain life at any level.
To Be Continued …
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Comments welcome. Richard can be contacted at: richardjurin@gmail.com