A Psychopathic President, Staying Awake, and One Planet Thriving
A psychopath is going to the white house. Four lessons to learn and act on.
societal collapse
Thriving on One Planet: The Big Picture
The big picture of One Planet Thriving: (1) Our modern way of life is the largest, most unethical failure in human history. (2) We know how to reverse that failure and thrive on one planet’s worth of resources. (3) The trick is transitioning to that way of life. For more detail, read this post which, in turn, has links to more detailed posts and resources.
Saving Our Children: Connecting to Ourselves for Sustainable Well-being (video)
Video of a recent 60-minute talk with music in 9, bite-sized bits, entitled: “Saving Rumi: Connecting to Ourselves for Sustainable Well-being”. It’s a good summary of the sustainable well-being project. Through words and music, the talk discusses how our current way of life is the largest failure in human history, advocates making changes to maximize sustainable well-being, describes some psychological principles needed, and suggests solutions, ranging from a scientific and cultural project called “Open Source Life Design”, to solutions being modeled by pioneering communities throughout the world, to an incubating idea for a Community Supported Sustainable Lake House (CSSL).
The Dysfunctional Status Quo of Gradual Societal Collapse
For those who like to put things in context, read this short post covering the big picture of One Planet Thriving. The point of life is sustainable well-being: happiness, health, and long lives achieved in a way that can be sustained over multiple generations. That means we have to achieve our well-being while using only …
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Unrealistic Optimism: The Woman with the Angel-Demon Tattoo
It doesn’t matter whether we view a glass as half-full or half-empty unless that view affects the risks we take in our behavior. If we collapse in despair because we are too half-empty, that is not helpful. If we are an overjoyed bull in a china shop because we are too half-full, that is also not helpful. The point isn’t whether the glass is half-empty or half-full but whether this amount of water is enough for the purpose at hand.
Dialog with Sustainable Business Students
I just gave a talk on sustainable well-being to Tom Eggert’s class, Topics in Sustainable Business Practice, at UW-Madison. I’ve given a talk every year for the last 5 or so and every time it’s very rewarding, stimulating, and encouraging to hear thoughtful students engaging with this fascinating subject. In the past, I’ve spent more …
Be here, now, Canary
How absurd would it be if the coal miner, who brings a canary with him to warn of poisonous methane gas in the mine, then died because he ignored the canary’s warning?! This little musical story is a modern version of that (see below, but there’s a visual version of the same point that isn’t …
Sustainable Well-being Retreats: Version 2.0
For the beginning of our third year of Swabi retreats, we started to explore transitioning the group to another phase. These videos explain this transition while also providing some idea of what the retreats are about. Part I, New Ways of Living, shows examples of cohousing and permaculture-inspired ecovillages as potential models for living sustainably. …