Tag: Ecology

Reading some diaries and writings of my past it is interesting to see how my consciousness today is embedded in them. I can trace most of my ideas in an almost spiral movement back through time. I can see the exact points in time where various experiences led to various revelations, seeding ideas that have slowly sprouted and are now continuing to grow.

For example, in August 2008 I wrote for the first time about poverty. It was the first time, without reading the academic theorists who made these points, that I realised the purpose of poverty, and the dangers that result:

28 August 2008

I just realised for the first time that governments have actually set up systems the way they are on purpose. Our governments wanted to take over the world, have people working for them, and that is what they have achieved.

We have some horrible ancestors, but their attitude was fairly consistent with attitudes at that time: of  expansion, conquer and ownership of the world.

The way the world is right now has grown from their dreams, visions and plans.

After colonialism of places like India and China was abandoned, and the slave trade in Africa abolished, a new form of world conquer begun: Capitalism.

Our ancestors figured out that they could achieve the same goals in a new way, by manipulating markets, energy and development, and rule countries without occupying them. From abroad they could manage and manipulate millions of people, have them work 14 hour days for them, and pay them next to nothing. They could suck out the resources from countries in the same manner.

And today it continues. It’s not just our ancestors, but it’s us as well. It’s us that reap the benefits but consuming ridiculous quantities of products every day, at cheap costs. We need these slaves in poor countries to work for nothing so that we can have so many things for so cheap. We are driving the gap between rich and poor. Everytime we buy something cheap, someone else pays the price.

It’s not sustainable in every part of the chain.

1 Our resources are running out
2 Our slaves will eventually turn on us
3 Our consumption still isn’t satisfying us – happiness decreasing, suicide and depression aboud
4 Our pollutants are killing our atmosphere, warming and destroying our planet

What do we do about it?

WAKE UP.
First we must seek out truth about all these factors. Not live in the fantasy world that our ancestors, governments and big corporations have created for us. We must try to understand the dynamics of these international relations, and make a stand for equality among all humanity. We must come together and find solutions to this linear process before we smash into the wall. Solutions do exist or can be found to turn the linear into a circle, so that we can continue to live on this planet for many generations to come.

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Having since conducted research and written detailed essays on the subject, my conclusions haven’t changed. Strangely enough even although my newer writing is backed by statistics and references, I think this simple reflection is more to the point than anything I’ve written since.

Photo credit:

Rachel Carroll – Sydney artist (and travel companion) – some kind of beautiful flower taken somewhere in South America http://rachelcarroll.com.au/

This is a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh taken from: Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life.

Can we recognise ourselves in each other?

Please call Me By My True Names

Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow

because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and
loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my
hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to, my
people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

Thich Nhat Hanh

…

This is the essence of “interbeing,” the innerconnectedness of all things.

Sometimes I feel like a flea on a dog’s back. The great-great-great grand daughter of a family who decided to no longer jump from dog to dog, but instead thought it a good idea to settle down on one animal forever.

My ancestor-fleas thought themselves so smart: finding ways to prevent their eggs from falling down onto the carpet, and discovering ways to protect themselves from flea collars and other flea-rid products. Now the members of our family live for months instead of weeks.

My flea-ancestors were  so “smart” that they create ways to harvest the dog’s blood – with some fleas doing the blood sucking for the “more important” fleas, who sit back and enjoy the ride.

Food was so plentiful we started to multiply. Now our family is in the billions.

But we are starting to realise something… Our dog is not well. His blood is starting to taste different. It’s starting to run out. The host of our last few thousand generations has become anaemic and debilitated. Our dog is dying. It will only be able to provide for us for a couple more generations of fleas, maybe less.

We need to find a new host. The only problem is that after so many generations on this one, living such an easy life, we have evolved to live on that dog and no other. Our eggs can no longer develop in carpet. We are stuck on our dying dog. We are doomed.

Riddle me this: How many humans on earth will it take to become the fleas that killed their dog?

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Photo Credits:

Photographer: Brian Walker – www.lickthesun.com

Geez I have been bad at keeping my blog. I’ve had a lot on I suppose… what with uni essays, exams and my Opa slowly dying before my eyes 🙁 … So yeah, haven’t really been so inspired to write just for the pleasure of it. Also I’m soon going to upload some videos, so that will be fun. Anyway, so that I don’t go a whole week without a post I thought I’d share with you what I have learned this semester as I read, heard and wrote about my two subjects: the Politics of the World Economy, and Rethinking Poverty. These subjects, I discovered, are largely interconnected.

Poverty, I realise now, is the result of the world’s political economy. It sucks. It’s not fair. It’s a very exploitative system that is designed to take from the poor and give to the rich. Anyone living on more than $2 a day is considered middle class, so probably anyone who is living in Australia, with access to even the most conservative welfare payments, should consider themselves in the rich bracket. We have far more than we need, and we only have it because of so many people don’t. People in poor countries work 12 hour days picking coffee beans so that we can drink our coffee. Then we sell them back some instant Nescafe for 10 times what we pay for their rich delicious coffee beans.

And what I discovered is the worst thing about our system, as I think I may have raved on about in my last entry, is that the economic model our system is based on completely ignores where it gets its inputs from, and where the outputs go. An economist from the world bank wrote in New Scientist magazine that he drew a circle around the economy model and wrote the environment, inferring consideration must be given to the limited resources and limited ability of our planet to absorb our pollution and wastes, but they threw that diagram away as it was too hard for them to contemplate. And so we continue to live in our fool’s paradise, accepting the costs it brings to other’s lives, and the costs it will bring to our own lives in 20 years time, and the lives of our children and their children.

What I am posting below is were conclusions drawn from my last essay Rethinking Development: Seeking Sustainable Alternatives. I’ll post the essay after it is marked but in short the argument it made was that “Development” has largely failed because poverty is not a consequence of the system, it is designed into the system and its eradication, scholars say, has been permanently postponed. In frustration after I finished the essay I wrote this one-page summary of how I see those in the developed world who want to help people in the developing world, can best help. And it is not by giving them money…. but by learning from them. More than anything it is us in the developed world that have to “develop” our own humanity. Developing our own sense of true identity (not one based on ownership and consumption) – and from indigenous cultures like the Incan mother and daughter in the picture from Cusco above.

Ok, so this was my rant:

1. Stop exploiting them

Stop imposing our worldview on them, stop imposing structural adjustment programs on them, stop giving them aid they don’t need, help them recognise their own powers, reinvigorate their own cultures, replace our cash-crops with bio-diverse food produce, help them develop their own independent self-sustaining society, remove our barricades, leave them free to design and implement their own solutions and help them only when they ask for it.

2. Take a look at ourselves

Do not think for a minute that we are more advanced than they are. Take a look at our own primitive actions, our lack of cultural and spiritual awareness, the way we are destroying the planet for everyone. We are not the super heroes of this world. We couldn’t be further from it. We may have had good intentions, but they were misplaced. We must try to reverse the damages of colonialism. Where gold, land and other resources have been stolen from abroad, work to give it back as we can, at the very least cancel the debt we think they owe us. Share our knowledge (when they ask for it), share our technologies (when they are wanted), and share our resources until they have recovered from the damage we have caused.

3. Rediscover our true identity

We must work to revitalise our own cultural roots, identity does not come from ownership of goods, buying this or that gadget, car, designer clothing, or house is not going to make us sexy, loved, safe or happy. Nor will the forty years of forty hours of work per week in jobs we do not enjoy. We need to seek ideals that are not dictated to us by advertising. We need to seek the truth behind political ideologies and religions, and see how power has changed them into dogmas they are not. We must think critically, learn from other traditions, religions and cultures, and transcend our problems with creative solutions. Shame those who are rich – everyone knows their wealth, whether directly or indirectly, has come at the expense of others. We must crack down on tax havens, stop giving the banks more money, stop over-consumption and avoid the obesity it brings. Redistribute money to those that don’t have it so that they too can have food and shelter.  Share the work and share the income. Enjoy time for self-development, relationships, leisure and creativity. Decrease stress, decrease consumption, decrease wastes, decrease pollutions; allow resources time to replenish. Bring our children and grandchildren up in a world of peace and non-materialistic prosperity.

The first step is the CESSATION OF EXPLOITATION. A fairer world is a friendlier world. As poverty decreases, so will population, and so will security. There will be less need for weaponry and war, populations will stabilise or decrease, the world will be a safer and happier place.

Human beings created the system. Human beings maintain the system. Human brings can change the system. The power is in the hands individuals. Every individual.

Together let us work toward discovering life’s true potential.

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Enough social movement self help benevolent hype for now… I promise that some more light-hearted fun stuff is going to pop up on my blog very soon 🙂