If the right hemisphere of our brains is all about the here-and-now, the “we,” and the unity that is all of us, is this where abundant thinking comes from? If the left hemisphere is about linearality, and the past and the future, what can we learn … or unlearn?
Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a neural anatomist who “got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions — motion, speech, self-awareness — shut down one by one.” In this uplifting talk, she describes the process, including a feeling of oneness with the universe as the left hemisphere in her brain shut down. Listen to her talk at the TED conference…
1. Start small and simple. Make things from scratch. Pick 3 things to do like stop eating packaged foods, prepare your own food and cut out meat eating once a week. Compost. Plant and grow your own herbs. Or, get clear on the origins of your favorite food (Do you eat burritos more than once a week? Or coffee? Sugar? Rice?) – where do the ingredients come from? How was it made? Harvested? Who harvests the ingredients and how is it processed? What’s the impact of your choice?
2. Share your passions with others. What about this opportunity for change do you love? Get curious about others and what they’re doing. Ask farmers how they prepare foods, talk to your friends about their favorite foods. Do you have a cultural tradition to share and keep alive?
3. Unite and create coalitions. Gather at tables. Start conversations about food, taste, traditions, people who grow food, what we eat and how it reflects who we are.
4. Vote with your fork. You have a responsibility as an eater to know what you’re eating, for your health and the health of the environment. You also have consumer choice and this is a powerful force. Money talks and you have an opportunity to have your voice heard every time you eat. Look in your refrigerator. Throw out everything that has more than five ingredients. And, anything with the #1 ingredient as high fructose corn syrup should be the first to go. Stop drinking soda and that would be huge. While you’re at it, do the same with your cleaning products. Continue reading ’10 Ways to Support a Sustainable Urban Food System through Politics and Participation in the Food Economy’
In a time when we need to save money, reduce our ecological footprint, and band together to make change, Divvy may be just what the doctor ordered. Divvy.com helps people and communities to divide up use of various physical assets through a unique billing and asset scheduling system. So for instance, you can use Divvy to schedule the use of conference rooms, desks in a co-working space, a car, a snow blower, in fact, almost anything. And if you want to charge for use, there’s a built in payment system. The whole thing is pretty much self-service, so it doesn’t consume much time except at set up.
I had the good fortune to do some work for founder Aaron Freed on the launch of Divvy.com (disclosure: I earned a small number of options for my work). I got involved because I think that sharing our stuff will solve many problems at once. And I see a new economy and culture emerging based on sharing that can help us enjoy life more and avert societal collapse.
For the April confluence I am excited to introduceTodd Siler, PhD who will be leading us in a process he calls Metaphorming. Todd has developed this over many years, working with people of all types & ages, from school children to top executives at Fortune 500 companies.
He tells us, “this interactive presentation will provide you with some key tools, methods, knowledge, and experiences for discovering and applying your creative potential in new ways … the Metaphorming process provides a global common language that enables people to conceptualize, visualize, express and present their ideas, viewpoints, knowledge, and experiences in ways that effectively communicate the essence and details of their thinking.”
A friend forwarded this quote to me, which rings true:
“Money is like an iron ring we’ve put through our noses. We’ve forgotten that we designed it, and it’s now leading us around. I think it’s time to figure out where we want to go – in my opinion toward sustainability and community – and then design a money system that gets us there.”
Check out this cool video about letterboxing on Bay Area Backroads. Letterboxing is a treasure hunt in nature where you find a series of hidden letterboxes that contain handmade rubber stamps and a stamp book. When you find a letterbox, you stamp your “passport” with that box’s stamp and then leave your stamp in that box’s book. Watch the video, it’ll make sense.
This SXSW keynote by Jane McGonigal shows the potential of alternate reality games (ARGs) for changing the real world. What I like about her perspective is that you can use the discipline of ARGs to shape our social interactions in a way that the bring out the best in us – and of course have more fun in the process. This opens up the possibility of contributing consistently, feeling useful, engaged, and valued in the real world just like you can in well-designed multi-player online game. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Check out an ARG Jane designed for the Institute of the Future called Superstruct. It’s running for another four weeks, so jump in now if you’re interested. I’m not a gamer because I focus on improving my First Life, but I’m giving this a shot because the purpose is to try to improve the real world. The game is part of the institute’s 10 year forecast. And I sense I’ll learn something valuable.
Filling out the profile page and talking about social solutions in the Superstruct community will remind you of Abundance League meetings!
Check out Gil Scott Heron’s poem “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” with music and video. Joe Trippi wrote a book, which I highly recommend, about the use of the Internet in Howard Dean’s campaign using the same title as Gil’s poem, but Joe’s use of this title meant the revolution will be online rather than televised. But I think Gil is more on point, the revolution happens LIVE, which I take to mean face-to-face, not on TV or online, though the Internet can help bring us together in our first lives.
I have to give Trippi and co. credit where credit is due – even though the book is about the use of the Internet in the Dean campaign, bringing ordinary people together face-to-face was an important part of the campaign. It was LIVE.
I reject limited ideas of self. My profile picture on Facebook is now a social graph. The social graph is me. Free yourself. Join the…revolution?!
The image is from the Abundance League social network survey done by Doris and Harald of FAS.research in 2006. If you took the survey and you want a picture to use for your profile, let me know. I’ll send you one.
In a time when we need to save money, reduce our ecological footprint, and band together to make change, 
