A Seemingly Quiet Pause

I haven't posted anything for several days partly because of the Holidays and, well frankly, I've been indulging in some laziness.

But there's a further reality here and that is that there is so much I want to express, and the topics are so important, that I am having difficulty choosing which ones to go with first.

A peek into the queue in my mind:

Reactions and thoughts about the video "the Future of Food." The implications for going towards an organic diet become more and more important. Kitchen gardens will similarly become more important for self-sustainability and health and well-being.

Questions about the peak debt and peak oil. Along this line I have been reading a blog: SuddenDebt and anyone who is thinking about the financial picture of the U.S. and the world would do well to take a look and give some thought to what is presented there. By the way, I left several comments on that site as: SimplyTim

Along the line of "waking up" and "elevator pitches" I have been wondering if large numbers of people are simply in trance states, and if that is accurate how that comes about and what people can do to come out of that state. (One definite hunch that I have is that television may be one of the major portals both into, and out of, those states.)

Stay tuned.

Needed: A Few Good Elevator Pitches for Global Warming

Here in the northeast the weather is just lovely. Mid-50's today and the Patriots won. What more could you want for the week before Christmas?

On the other hand, all this continuing and truly unseasonable weather is further evidence of a basic planet wide system which is moving further and further "out of whack."

I started Friday by reading a "rant" by Jim at his blog. It's probably not a good idea to starting off my posting with a suggestion that you go and read his post, but that's exactly what I'm going to do. Go now; it's the posting for 12/15/06. While there also read the comments section. Especially the entries from Arcolaura, and mine under the name of SimplyTim. Oh, and by the way, don't forget to come back here for the rest of my post.

Now, where to go with all this. I tested the waters with several people over the past few days. The form of the brief conversations was:

"Beautiful day."

"Yes. But so unseasonable."

"I'll take it anyway. Rather this than snow."

I would put in a few comments, for example, "I wonder if this is what they mean by Climate Change," or "It reminds me of Al Gore's movie - 'An Inconvenient Truth,'" or "Changes are happening."

Well the truth is that I thought those last three comments but didn't give voice to them. Why? Why not say it? Why is it that with so many people who have concern about global warming that they are hesitant to bring those concerns up for discussion? I point the finger at myself as much as anyone else, maybe more so.

The simple truth is that the people I mentioned it to clearly weren't interested in going any further with a serious discussion, at least at that time. (In some of my previous posts I easily went into what could be called an elevator pitch by saying that I had recently taken a "vow...I will rush no more." In those instances, the conversation went from there easily. Why not with this topic? Maybe it's because with rushing almost everyone can identify with it and have multiple examples in their mind. With the weather, with climate, it's too abstract. Maybe that's the real problem here in terms of mobilizing people towards action, towards outrage.)

With one person I said after a pause: "the change is coming."

He said: "Yes."

I had the distinct impression that he was just saying that winter will get here eventually. But there was a question in my mind as to whether he saw what I was saying in a much larger picture but didn't want to get into it.

And that's where I am wondering what some good "elevator pitches" would be. People in business and politics and activists do it all the time. Why are there so many others who are so reluctant to get the message down pat and practise it so that it can bring the conversation a few steps further. I would love to hear what some of your thoughts are.

Arcolaura said that she tends not to come up with quick responses while some others can. My sense is that there was so much depth and perception in her comments that it would be hard to spontaneously come up with them on the spot. That depth requires time and mulling over. However, her ideas perhaps could be shunted back to some of the spinmeisters to polish "pitches" which can break through, or invite more discussion; not just of the presence of changes, but of the implications and also what can or should be done.

Some other thoughts:

1. On NBC nightly news tonight there was an "in-depth report on global warming." I didn't time it, but they think 120 to 180 seconds is sufficient for an in-depth analysis. I won't even say it - yes, I will, are they for real?

There was a "chilling" reference to a new report that it is now thought that all of the ice in the arctic may be gone by 2040. I want to say: "WOW!" But the reality is that I don't know what that really means. I can imagine that it is big but what does it really mean? Maybe that's part of the problem with taking the discussion further with lots of people. The implications for most people are unclear. And with that lack of clarity, it's easier to keep doing business as usual.

A few moments later one of the scientists put it well: "It's what we don't know (about the implications of continued global warming) that concerns me. What are the surprises waiting for us?" Well said. There was a report in the paper yesterday about how they can't find any more dolphins in the Yangtze river. The end of a species, they wondered. I'm sorry, I can't relate to that. Maybe I have this gigantic blind spot but what does that really mean to me? I know it's important but there's that blind spot again - it's like I can't just see over the horizon. Maybe that's where the spinmeisters need to help out with scripts that will move conversations and me as well.

What would be a good example of a sound bite or an elevator pitch which captures one's attention, and seems to stop opposition? Well, when vice president Cheney said: "the American way of life is non-negotiable," it seemed that all discussion stopped for a while. That's powerful. It had the effect, I think, of stopping alternative thinking and by default, let things go on as usual.

Thankfully the discussion didn't stop in my mind and just possibly it didn't in the minds of many others. It takes time to look at that and to see behind the words and the rhetoric. Could it be that in the recent elections that is what the electorate was saying, that the non-negotiability of it all, and the raw power which is used to maintain that position is inherently wrong. Following that logic, the majority of the people didn't really know what has to be done, but they knew that a change had to take place, and they voiced that with their individual votes.

A lot of maybe's here, but maybe that's why the collective "we" don't take the real discussion further, why we don't make a collective decision to slow down, to change direction, because the vice-president was right, that there is a part of us which doesn't want to change. We'd collectively rather rush forward towards maintaining so nothing is lost. But remember, there is the other side in that same collective mind which knows it has to change...but the path, the route, the actions are not as collectively clear. Maybe my elevator pitch to that when combined to global warming is: "I wonder if global warming gives a hoot about the non-negotiable American way of life?"

In a somewhat disjointed way, I keep thinking about that frog in the movie, An Inconvenient Truth; if the heat keeps going up very slowly he doesn't do anything. He doesn't jump until it's a reflex - is that what we're talking about here? It will take a surprise, a threat to not the American way of life, but to the safety of the planet to then change? The nation know that we are collectively taking in too many calories, and yet look at the obesity rates. Now change oil for calories and wonder what would get the "collective" to change. The mind-set which is perpetuating the current direction is monumental and pervasive. The change will have to come from within. It will be a simple awareness, perhaps captured by the clarity of an elevator pitch which is so direct, so stealthy in it's clarity, that it leads vast numbers to shift direction in one way that will make a difference. Then legislation will help the mind-set to move in a direction, not the other way around.

2. As far as I can tell the government has been doing nothing substantive to deal effectively with this problem. Individual politicians appear "green" and will posture this way and that way, but as a whole, the government is deadlocked as usual. I'm basically a pretty conservative guy, but really, the political process on this matter is a joke. Yes, I know how that is a terrible overgeneralization but that's just how I see it. The bigger joke is, I suspect, most people know it, just like most people know that we are witnessing climate changes, but don't know how to move the process forward, for real. What we need is a good "meme" which in it's simplicity changes everything in a positive direction, at least with to the question of global warming.

3. A step in the right direction would be to do what the province of Quebec did, change the speed limit to 60 miles per hour. AND enforce it! Not with giving a ticket if you go 5 miles over the limit, but if you go 1 mile over the limit. My solution would be not to give a financially crippling ticket, just a modest ticket, but take a long time to give it. And then do it again 3 miles down the road, and repeat the process over and again. That would work. It wouldn't solve the whole problem but it would be a step in the right direction.

4. Remember that the basic rule of storms is that they continue until the original imbalance which created them is resolved. If CO2 is one of the major culprits, and we keep producing more and more CO2, and ...

5. A good piece of news may help. I went to two stores today looking for a copy of Al Gore's movie: An Inconvenient Truth, and both stores were sold out.

Addendum: 12/18/06 - My elevator pitch is: "I will rush no more! " Here's why that is so sweet: with that the emphasis is off global warming, and yet it's related. Everyone can identify with the natural balancing which is contained in the mantra, it gets underneath the usual counterarguments. And since rushing is essential to the perpetuation of the life style which we have all been inducted into, to change that piece, from within, one individual at a time, the possibility of "viral marketing" is very real.

Societal "Know How" and Memory

I have been thinking about the implications of "peak oil," climate turbulence, quality of life and how to shift from living life on a cultural treadmill of running to just stay "caught up." Then I started thinking about some practical steps to increase my sense of self-sustainability. That led me to a startling conclusion. I realized that I have no cultural knowledge of how to grow any - ANY - of my own food. None, zero, zippo, nada!

I've put down some grass seed and a year ago I threw some clover seeds on my lawn. I was jokingly saying that I was going in the direction of biodiversity. I suspect I did that also because it reminded me of my good friend Gil who died last year; he had clover all over instead of grass.

But it also got me thinking that if I can throw down some seeds and let them do the work on their own and then enjoy seeing them grow and spread, then maybe, just maybe I could do something similar with a vegetable garden. Bright guy that I am (at least in my own mind) I figured that it can't be all that hard and that made it easy for me to keep coming back to it in my mind. Then I started asking people if they had gardens or if they grew any of their own vegetables and I sat back and watched their faces breighten if they did. I would ask questions like how big an area would you need for potatoes, have you ever considered asparagus, which herbs do you grow, how do you keep chipmunks from eating the roots, etc., etc. With every answer I received I filed it away in my mind and my "possibility mind" said maybe, just maybe I could do it.

Sounds funny doesn't it. I'm a fairly accomplished person. Clearly well educated in an academic and professional way. But the simple step of taking this step towards growing my own food seems so big by comparison. I guess that's why I'm saying that we are at risk of losing cultural awareness of how to do these things which are SO basic.

My parents didn't teach me how to grow vegetables. I never saw them do anything like that. Maybe that's where the broken connection was made even more broken. If I can learn to do this maybe then I can pass my new found knowledge on to my children and to others. It will show that it is possible. Of course I know it is possible, yet it seems like such a big step. The image that comes to mind is that of a rock formation on the Maine Coast (Nubble Point) where I saw a child hesitating to step from one part of the rock to the other even though they were separated by only a foot. The problem was that the child was looking down into that foot-wide divide which was many feet deep. The cross-over is easy - once you've done it. Before that it's surprisingly more troublesome. The knowledge that it really is not that big of a deal makes it more difficult rather than easier until you take that step.

On a slightly different note I came across a reference of a seed depository which Norway is establishing to ensure that our world does not lose the diversity of seeds which our planet already has. What are they thinking of which leads them to do this?

Cultural memory will not be found in the supermarket. Seeds once lost in the Amazon may well be lost forever if it were not for what the Norwegians are doing. Gardening is just gardening until no one remembers how to do it. Then we would be in deep compost.

By the way, I have found the book called: All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew and also the website http://Pathtofreedom.com to be invaluable. They have taken me many steps forward in having a plan laid all out for me for putting a garden in my back yard this spring. I will wait and at the same time I can't wait.

By the way #2, if YOU have this knowledge, pass it on to several others. Don't wait. You may take it for granted but take it from this guy who has never had a green thumb that it is important to share your hard earned know how with others.

Seed Depository Reference: http://www.dep.no/lmd/english/news/news/049001-210044/dok-bn.html

It begins - the short version

It started about a month ago when the phrase "I will rush no more!" popped into my head. It came somewhat out of the blue, but not really since I have been thinking about quality of life and pace of life for some time now.

But the phrase caught and summarized a significant part of my thinking and it was easy to remember - that's a big plus. I started to put more energy into it by sharing it with some others and the response was very positive. They listened. They "attended" and became receptive and seemed to be trying it on for size for themselves, and wondering how that would manifest for them.

A few weeks ago I read an article in the Boston Globe about the trauma unit at Boston Medical Center. A senior nurse, Patty Harrison, was quoted as saying: "You're always so close to death here, I walk out of here with an appreciation of life." It reminds me of Don Juan of Carlos Castenada fame, who suggested that a person of intent, of power, chooses to make "death his ally."

I believe he was talking about cultivating a sense of immediacy, a sense of presence, a kind of fear and trembling and awe and mindfulness all rolled into one. A willingness to be, to do, and to move, at times fast, but not to rush.

Then last night I had a dream in which I was on the shore. I saw a "buoy" off shore a bit. Then I was on a wooden deck jutting out into the ocean with an old friend. The "buoy" was just about to hit against one of the pilings and I knew that could create problems but it was just bumping up to the structure. The water then was much closer to the deck and in the dream, I was looking at a very large wave which was coming right towards me. I took a breath and found myself saying "make yourself into a compact ball and see if you can ride it out."

I guess this was me connecting with an original part - the "boy" - in a context of a sea-change moment.

Let's just see how all this rolls and bounces.