Find­ing our Way Amid the Drama

So, as you might expect, I “pulled up” this line watch­ing a slug­gish toi­let. Never a dull moment here, let me tell ya.

Any­way, I started to think about clients, the world, and liv­ing life in the “real world.” Part of this has to do with the drama of a brand new Olympics, and the war-let hap­pen­ing in Geor­gia, and the war games in the Atlantic, and the behead­ing in Man­i­toba, and on, and on. Then, the Sep­tem­ber issue of Shamb­hala Sun arrived, and it fea­tures a cou­ple of arti­cles on the same theme. I then received this weird e-mail from a mar­keter whose stuff I occa­sion­ally read, and he made ref­er­ence to the afore­men­tioned Atlantic War Games.

Stuff pil­ing up like that leads me to think, “Hmm. May­hap an article.”

One of the quotes in the Shamb­hala Sun arti­cle is from U of Toronto pro­fes­sor Thomas Homer-Dixon. He talks about our “cog­ni­tive char­ac­ter­is­tics,” and espe­cially one he calls slow-creep. He sug­gests that we are genet­i­cally pre­dis­po­si­tioned to not notice small, incre­men­tal changes. In other words, “…it’s what makes it pos­si­ble to get up in the morn­ing and not feel we’re in a strange new world.” This one thing, which is nec­es­sary for our sur­vival, also may be our downfall.

In Canada, for exam­ple, our gas is now at about 1.25 a liter where we live, mak­ing gas about 5.00 a gal­lon. I read an arti­cle when gas started head­ing up, and the writer sug­gested 1.60 and 2.00 a liter as “tip­ping points.” 1.60 will be where peo­ple start chang­ing their dri­ving habits, and 2.00 will be where dri­ving becomes next to impos­si­ble for many peo­ple. Here’s how “slow-creep” fits in. Six months ago, gas was around a buck. Even tak­ing into account the steady increase that hap­pened last month, most peo­ple grum­bled a bit, maybe slowed down dri­ving a bit, and then, went back to nor­mal. As gas has been drop­ping for the last week, I’m sure many are think­ing, “See. It will be back below a buck soon!” I guess I’m think­ing “we” will some­how accept even 2.00 gas, so as not to dis­turb our pre­cious lit­tle lives.

I know, cheap illus­tra­tion. But inter­est­ing point. My younger clients seem numb to the pos­si­bil­ity that any­thing sub­stan­tial could ever change. One told me how, at age 30, she was pre­pared to raise her kids, and then “catch up” finan­cially when she hits 45. This is the typ­i­cal cap­i­tal­ist view: that there are unlim­ited resources, and unlim­ited room for fis­cal growth, and also that tech­nol­ogy will solve every­thing. It’s the “gas com­pa­nies have been hid­ing fuel effi­cient cars for decades, and now they’ll just crank them out and every­thing will be well.”

I won­der if the Romans didn’t think the same thing when the bar­bar­ians were at the gates: “Rome has never been defeated. We’ll turn this around.”

Well, what if?

It’s no won­der that a Bud­dhist pub­li­ca­tion is sug­gest­ing a re-think. Mind­ful­ness is all about com­ing into a clear and present view of life, liv­ing and self. There is no place for “pie in the sky” think­ing. Rather, it’s about being relent­lessly realistic.

See How Sim­ple it All is?

There are entirely too many plates spin­ning, each depen­dent on “things stay­ing the same,” (unlim­ited resources / unlim­ited growth) and as any­one with open eyes knows, things never stay the same.

Zen is relent­lessly prac­ti­cal. One of the ear­marks of Zen Monas­ter­ies was their self-sufficiency. They real­ized that being sup­ported by the State was what we now call “being on the dole.” You either capit­u­lated to the State’s demands, or you starved. So, Zen Monks grew food and sold stuff and, of course, solicited dona­tions (a minor thing, mostly used to teach the Monks humil­ity.) Each com­mu­nity, in other words, depended on itself, and the strength for this came from med­i­ta­tion (zazen.)

Today, we sel­dom know our neigh­bours’ names. Most peo­ple haven’t a clue what a ham­mer does, let alone how to hold one. There exists this Pollyanna-like fool­ish­ness that it’s all going to come out just fine. Hint: this time, I’m not so sure.

Rather than get into dooms­day sce­nar­ios, (or to dis­par­age them and be like the neo-cons, who are, indeed, cons…) I say, find some like minded peo­ple around you, form a com­mu­nity, sit down, shut up, med­i­tate, and then learn to be more self-sufficient. Eat locally, cut costs, stop dri­ving every­where, save a few bucks, study some­thing that enlivens your soul. Become strong in your self.

More on this next issue.