Chapter 8
Beginning
“When an old culture is dying, the new culture is created by those people who are not afraid to be insecure ”Rudolph Bahro
To end, a simple invitation to begin…
Begin noticing, revealing and letting go of the harmful ‘horror stories’.
Begin noticing, spreading, creating and carrying the healthy ‘love stories’.
Begin humbly making space for the marginalised and oppressed voices who already carry them.
Begin letting go of the deeply engrained ‘horror stories’ within us, knowing how hard that is to do.
Begin healing our traumas and divides to unite us as members of that same natural family.
Begin repairing our relationships with the world, our relationships with reality.
Begin unravelling the narrative of separation and weaving the narrative of interbeing.
Begin designing the Economy in Service to Life.
“It is difficult to speak of or to practice love, friendship, generosity, understanding, or solidarity within systems whose rules, goals, and information streams are geared for lesser human qualities.
But we try and we urge you to try.”
“The times are urgent let us slow down, the times are urgent let us weird up, the times are urgent, let us play.”
Below we have included a table that summarises the questions we posed in Chapters 6 & 7, along with an overall question – if you were to only take one thing away website, make it that.
We have also outlined a few additional jump-off points, inspired by the two horror-to-love story revolutions:
The ‘Threads’ table lists some other ways that the two horror-love revolutions might be showing up, and how we might re-spin those threads to spread love and weave interbeing instead of separation.
In the second table, you’ll see a set of broad ‘Principles’ we might consider, prompted by the story revolutions.
And finally we’ve included a ‘Narrative toolkit’, inspired by the work of Race Forward in the US, which can help you notice and map how the horror and love stories are showing up in your life and work.
We hope these will lead you to further explorations.
Questions
| Overall |
|---|
| Are our stories helping everyone realise that nature is our family, and wellbeing is success? |
| Drop the Horror |
|---|
| If we keep telling ourselves to fear, control and destroy the natural world, why would we look after it? |
| If we keep telling ourselves that productivity is all that matters, what happens to our life? |
| Carry the Love |
|---|
| How can our stories encourage us to love and care for the natural world? |
| How could our stories help us understand the true ecological cost of our economy? |
| How might our stories create allyship and connection between our fellow human beings and the more than human world? |
| How can our stories help us recognise the wealth in wellbeing? |
| How can our stories help us imagine a future in service where we serve life? |
| How might our stories help us better see where we’ve been, and imagine where we could be going? |
Threads
| Productivity is Success | → | Wellbeing is Success |
|---|---|---|
| The strongest survive | → | We’re all in this together |
| Race to the top | → | Smell the roses |
| Get ahead | → | Get along |
| Greed is good | → | Givers get lucky |
| More More More | → | Do more with less |
| Push it to the max | → | Enough is enough |
| Nature is our slave | → | Nature is our family |
|---|---|---|
| Nature is dangerous | → | Nature feels good |
| Nature is for us | → | Nature is us |
| Nature is a commodity | → | Nature is our community |
| Nature is our property | → | Nature is a gift |
| We must consume | → | We must repair |
| Conquering hero | → | Stewarding hero |
Principles
| Productivity is Success | → | Wellbeing is Success |
|---|---|---|
| Grow | → | Thrive |
| Short-term | → | Long-time |
| Maximise | → | Optimise |
| Competitive | → | Cooperative |
| Efficient | → | Resilient |
| Scarce | → | Abundant |
| Nature is our slave | → | Nature is our family |
|---|---|---|
| Extract | → | Exchange |
| Pollute | → | Relate |
| Useful matter | → | Living creatures |
| Monoculture | → | Diversity |
| Isolation | → | Belonging |
| Individual | → | Ecosystem |
Toolkit
“The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.”
“Make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone”
“If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear.”
Thank you for spending your time here.
We hope you have questions, and ideas, and challenges – find us if you do.
This is just the beginning…
