As Human beings each of us has precious needs for comfort, freedom, joy, love and belonging (amongst others). As social individuals it is perhaps our needs for love and belonging balanced with our needs for freedom and autonomy that drive us most deeply. Cyclically, the choices that we make as individuals in an attempt to meet these needs, compound to shape our culture. In return our culture shapes what is meaningful and normal in respect to fulfilling our individual needs.
As individuals we become very powerful and creative when we are conscious of our needs and cognoscente of the fact that we have a choice in the strategies that we choose in order to meet them. In this way we become powerful contributors to the shaping of our culture. We begin to play a creative, truly free roll in affecting the influence of our culture on other individuals and our planet. I like to call this cultural democracy, the new democracy!
Because commodities have become cultural symbols of our belonging, as well as expressions of freedom and power of choice, our culture has become unsustainable. But, having the right new stuff is no longer a viable strategy in any respect.
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that our choosing to exercise our creative right in affecting our culture, by begin to choose more sustainable strategies to meet our precious needs, is crucial to the survival of our species as well as that of other creatures that have similar living requirements.
A man commenting in the 11th Hour put it in a way that I like. He said that based on our old model of seeing natural resources as inexhaustible, and ourselves as separate from nature, growth has become an end as opposed to a useful means. We need to heal this perspective and begin to see that growth is a means not an end in itself. Quality of life is the real end and growth at a certain point actually decreases quality of life as opposed to enhancing it.
We must as individuals, and in our small communities, begin to brainstorm new sustainable strategies to meet our precious needs. We must stop buying into the current misunderstanding. In this way we will exercise our creative power to affect our culture. We will begin to change the currently delusional ideas behind the actions of our consumption. If we chooses this path we will see our culture change from a dying one based on having more to a thriving culture based on having more well being.
The choice is ours.
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