Discuss: The Consolations of Extinction

AE…

See, people aren’t so different after all.

Time is probably the most fascinating subject for me. But that’s for another time.

Part Two {response to A. E. Foster}

The way I begin to make changes in behavior result from a process of questioning fundamental assumptions and values.  What I am forever looking for is an answer to one question, “Is doing what I am doing, getting what I want?”  If so, I can feel good because I believe that if I simply keep doing what I am doing, then I will keep getting what I am getting.

On the other hand, let us consider that what I do is not getting me what I want.  In this case, I want to carefully examine my crucial assumptions and values, the ones underpinning my current behaviors.

Let say I am no longer satisfied with what I am doing because the behavioral repertoire is not getting me what I want, then there are behavior changes to consider, the implementation of which would could be expected to produce change at different levels within my social hierarchical framework; namely, individual, family, local community and global human community.

For example, at the global human community level.  Let’s say that I come to an unanticipated realization relatively late in life, based upon good scientific evidence and common sense, that the humanity could be taken by arrogant and sophistic leadership down a primrose path that could soon threaten life human and environmental health. My children could put at risk.

Up to now I have been very pleased with my life cycle and have felt successful. The leadership was good enough. Now the world looks different.  What am I to do?

First I look at the assumptions and values that underlie the life choices I have made up to now.  What once worked does so no longer. Perhaps, I think, I need not only to do something different but also to do something new.

A.E., you have pointed to changes at the individual level that you have made.  These are good things.  Every one of them, as far as I say. OK.

I also make such individual changes.

If it is all right, what I want to focus upon now is a category of behavior change that is not so readily and often considered:  that is, the doing of something new.

Please recall that I am a psychologist. My job is to sit quietly and keep my mouth mostly closed. I like to think of myself as a competent listener as well as adequate communicator, when the moment to speak arises.

People have not called my listening skills into question; however, it is my communication skills that apparently have escaped me.  Since 2001 I have been engaged in the AWAREness Campaign on the Human Population.  My new behaviors have to do with this campaign. This work is important to me.  I am very active.  At the risk of being immodest, let me give you some examples of what I have been doing that are new and unaccustomed behaviors.

1) Organized and hosted 5 Annual Earth Day Summits on the Human Population, 2001-2005.

2) Attended the Earth Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, 2002; the World Bank’s World Water Week conference, 2003; The Foundation for the Future’s “This Tiny Planet” Workshop as a participant, 2004; The Annual Meeting of the Club of Rome, 2005; The State of the Planet conference at Columbia University, 2006.

3) Published four letter to the editor in the journal, Environmental Health Perspectives, 2004-2006 and published a series of 21 letters to the editor in the Chapel Hill Newspaper, 2005 - present.

4) Become a full member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP).

5) Submitted a Presentation Proposal for the 2009 IUSSP Meeting regarding “A New View of Human Population Dynamics.”

6) Plan to attend the 2008 State of the Planet conference and the 2009 IUSSP International Meeting.

These are some of the ways I walk my talk.

For the moment, I am going to stop. 

At least to me, this remarkable discussion is one that needs to be continued.  Please accept my apology for anything said earlier in this discussion that was offensive.  No offense was intended.

Sincerely,

Steve

Hi Steve,
Fundamental assumptions are always about “right and wrong”. Everyone wants to be right, to do the right thing, to avoid being and doing wrong. If changing your behavior is based only on the question “Is doing what I am doing, getting what I want?” what you end up with are the same assumptions in different clothing - “right and wrong”. You may assume you are doing the right thing, and it may appear as if you are thinking and doing something new, but it is, in reality, just another form of the same way of thinking - the same paradigm.

This is not to diminish the value of anything you or anyone is doing for change. What I am attempting to convey is my own inquiry. Human beings are very uncomfortable with uncertainty and anything paradoxical. As a result of our discomfort we are forever behaving as if we are, or can be, absolutely certain. All our energy is expended on nailing down that absolute - freezing reality to fit the most convincing and current assumptions about right and wrong, true and false, etc. All the while, in all our efforts, we are just running on the same endless treadmill of proving things are right and wrong, true and false.

The question “Is doing what I am doing, getting what I want?” contains an opportunity or a trap. The trap is in the “getting what I want” portion of the question. Breaking this down further, it is the “what I want” and what finally springs the trap, “I” and “want”. 
The opportunity is difficult to convey because it cannot be comprehended from within the perspective of the “right/wrong-true/false-good/evil” paradigm.

So I say Steve, certainly continue your quest, but also consider that there are opportunities for something being “authentically” new and different by transcending this old war. “I” cannot change because “I” always wants something. Nothing in “what I want” will ever be enough for “I” because the nature of “I” is always wanting something. The “something” in what “I want” is always changing.

To live in the paradox, to transcend the quest-ion for what is right and what is wrong - “I” cannot answer, because “I” cannot know.

A.E. Foster

Dear A. E. Foster,

From every post I have made to the Orion Community, it is likely clear to one and all how much your sentiments, impressions and insights are valued, even though I do not always understand them.

Let me express my complete agreement with one understandable point you make above.  Wherever there are opportunities, there also are dangers.  No doubt about that, so far as I can see.

The posting above is appreciated. Please know how much it means that you recognize the ‘Quest’in which I unexpectedly find myself.  Who among us ever expects late in life to be playing a role like the one of Don Quixote as he jousted with windmills? Yet such a strange situation seems to most adequately describe my circumstances, as you know so well.

Sincerely,

Steve

Take this arrow to your heart,
Spiritus Mundi.
Remember,
Spiritus Mundi.
You are the spirit of the world,
Spiritus Mundi.
The hour has come round at last.
Nothing more is needed;
Nothing less will do.

Dear jon b, a.e foster and veet martyo,

Thanks for being there, for your humanity, for your fidelity to science, and for all the great work you are doing.

It appears the human community cannot keep growing in the unbridled ways we are now because the gigantic current scale and rapid expansion of distinctly human overpopulation, overconsumption and overproduction activities in the wondrous, finite world we are blessed to inhabit could become unsustainable soon. What worries me most is that many people in the human family do not yet even see what we have before us as a formidable predicament, let alone its forbidding and growing magnitude. From my humble vantage point, many too many pathologically arrogant and greedy leaders {aka, self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe} who do see the huge global challenges {climate destabilization is one of them} that could soon be confronted by the family of humanity have chosen not to speak of them, but to remain electively mute and in denial. Come what may for our children and coming generations.

Although I am an ageing old worry-wart whose sight is failing and faculties are diminishing, it is necessary now for me to fulfill a “duty to warn” by reporting loudly, clearly and often that I see the potential for a colossal, human-induced ecological wreckage looming on the horizon. Hopefully, I am mistaken.

Perhaps the necessary changes are in the offing.

Godspeed,

Steve