Hope Beneath Our Feet_ Restoring Our Place in the Natural World - Martin Keogh [24]
So here are some things you’re doing that I’d suggest you keep doing:
Your practice of frugality—getting the maximum pleasure out of every morsel consumed—puts you in a good position to welcome limits as sanity, not deprivation, and to surf the waves of change. Keep teaching your frugality strategies. A lot of people listen to you. Give them something real to chew on.
Realize that there is nothing wrong in your past—it’s all useful. Appreciate everything you’ve done and see what good can come of it. That goes for your relationships, of course—but I also mean (and I can’t say too much about it) the whole exuberance of the oil-enabled industrial growth model. Stay open to the good in every technology and every innovation because they may be precursors of the future “light-structures” (in both senses of “light”). Question your assumptions, abandon your Luddite tendencies, and ask about everything, “What’s good about you that brought you into being?”
Use your bright mind to see the opportunities in obstacles. Joe Dominguez used to point out to us (you and me … funny to talk with you this way) that when there was 25 percent unemployment in the Depression of the 1930s, 75 percent of the people were employed. Evolution tends to favor the braver—those willing to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Pay attention to what is being born, even as you tenderly allow all that is passing away to go.
Be an opportunist—but on behalf of your community. The future is friendly to those who shift from “me” to “we.” Which brings me to …
Hint Four: Treat Everyone Within Fifty Miles Like You Love Them
You will need them as your friends. They are the raw materials of a sane future, if you want to be purely pragmatic. They are also your brain; alone you’ll never know enough to survive, but within fifty miles of home is all the intelligence and information you’ll need. If you’re friendly and generous these neighbors will come to trust you. Of course, friendliness actually takes guts—not the guts it takes to protest (which you will still do for years), but the guts it takes to risk rejection, care first, forgive, apologize, ask before you attack. In other words, loving the ones you’re with requires tolerance, acceptance, and letting go of selfishness. I might also point out that among the three million people within fifty miles of you now are probably every friend, lover, dance partner, big thinker, or young person you’ll ever need. Go find them. Trade with them. Network with them. Play with them. Help them through hard times. Share meals and homes. Call them to see how their interview or operation went. Ask them to coach you in reaching for your dreams. Even though they aren’t “exotic,” they’re interesting, remarkable, smart, kind, and skilled. Every one a gem.
Pay attention to “co” words. They are the future. Cooperation. Communion. Community. Collaboration. Communication. Your Conversation Cafes don’t quite fit the word pattern but they are important for people to practice and learn all the other “co” words. Consolation will also be needed.
Do all you can in pairs and teams. Do work parties and cleaning parties and shedding-stuff parties and investing clubs and buying groups and service groups. The era of the Lone Ranger and the Great Hero is passing. Build community. “If you invite them they will come.” Alone you are brittle. Together you are supple.
Hint Five: Pack Your Personal Ark
Just as airlines have a baggage weight limit, to cross the great ocean of time and catastrophe into the future you’ll need to pack carefully. What of your current life must you have in a future governed by “less, local, and love