a pregnant pause

A pregnant pause..........is a metaphorical pregnancy that builds tension, in communication used to  build suspense.  In expanding the notion beyond communication it becomes a moment full of possibilities, full of as yet unrealized creative power. 

All creative processes are preceded by such a period - when ideas are churning, perhaps somewhat chaotically, awaiting order by the creator.  The pregnant pause may be understood as the quiet before the creative storm, or the perhaps somewhat random accumulation of information and materials from which a new creation will be born.  This period feels full of energy, full of impatience about the tension between the lack of order of all the accumulated ideas or materials, and the desire to build artistic order from it.  The intriguing thing about the pregnant pause is that the outcome is as yet unknown, yet is full of potential and possibilities.

It's not about the destination but the journey, as you know.  The pregnant pause is the time before the journey actually begins.  It's the point when you revve up the engine but have to hold back until it's time to start.  Winter is a pregnant pause before spring's burst of growth and unfolding.   Standing in in my kitchen in the evening, contemplating my dinner supplies and knowing I need to make a meal from what's in the fridge, is a pregnant pause.  I can create any number of meals from the many available ingredients, it's up to me to decide which ingredients to use, and what to make with them.

Culturally we are somewhat in the midst of a pregnant pause, a tumultuous time full of change, chaos, possibilities, chance for reconfiguration and redefiniiton, an incredibly creative time full of potential and possibilities.  What is your dream for the future?

watch the millennials

Did you know that creativity and innovation thrive much more under challenge and chaos than under privilege?  Did you know that the plague in middle age Europe helped to propel the Renaissance because it completely upset the apple cart?  And that the wealth and stability of Golden Ages promotes complacency?  Eric Weiner says so in his The Geography of Genius, which I am currently reading.

This is of relevance to our current cultural, political, and environmental drama, and seems to promise more creativity and innovation than in the relatively stable decades we have come out of.  As a matter of fact, as we watch the deconstruction of a very long yang-dominated era, an era characterized by warfare, domination, and competition, things seem to become quite a bit more messy out there.  This is a climate (pun intended) ripe for birthing new values, new ways of doing things, and leaving outmoded conventions behind.

The millennials are showing the way.  They've got it.  Look to the younger generation how they do things, how they think.  Tiny houses, cash instead of credit, sharing, less stuff and more sustainability, animal rights, women's rights, minority rights, hour exchanges, less work and more play - these are all examples of what's to come.  Sounds good to me.

 

unlimited energy

            And by this I don't mean your personal level of energy, I mean energy to produce electricity for transportation and machinery/electronics as a basis for our economy. 

            Rob Hopkins founded his Transition Movement in England in 2005 based on the idea that we are coming to the end of the fossil-fuel era and need to revert to local economies to reduce our reliance on oil.   One element of this reasoning, the suggested need to decrease our energy requirements, is now changing.  While the local economies movement is stronger than ever, it is for different reasons than the potential lack of energy. 

            We are now seeing a strong movement towards renewable energies, much of it based on solar and hydrogen, but also wind, geothermal, and others.  My prediction is that we will actually have way more energy than we have available now, an overabundance of energy, and that geopolitical alliances will shift because everybody will have access to enough energy, not just a few.  We will never ever run out of sunlight and hydrogen.  So even if a country didn't have enough sunshine, well - nobody will ever run out of hydrogen.  Iceland is such an example that is already energy independent and produces all of its energy from hydro and geothermal sources.

            Volvo, no longer Swedish but long owned by the Chinese, bets on the future of electric cars, and is throwing their Chinese power and money behind it.  Hydrogen is unlimited and may become one of our foremost energy sources in the form of hydrogen fuel cells.  Meanwhile the return to local economies, away from globalization, will remain a strong movement because people want agency, they want responsibility for, and involvement in, their local politics, be it for reasons of local customs and culture, sustainability, landuse, or general policies.  But the return to village life will no longer happen due to a lack of energy.

           

 

 

a better world

            It seems that many things in this world are currently a mess - the environment in general, the way we treat each other, social issues, climate change and erratic weather patterns, our medical paradigm and quandary, our food supply, our politics - oh my!

            But I truly believe that there is a better world under all this chaos.  We just need to create it, envision it, imagine it.  How do you do that?  You have to imagine it, then you have to live it - that's what Gandhi said. 

            There is indeed a lot of beauty already on this planet; there are a lot of wonderful, kind, compassionate people on this earth; the healthy food movement is growing stronger every day and we have all the inspirational models already out there; climate science shows what we need to do; we know that we want people to thrive, feel safe and secure, have easy access to good medical care, and easy access to good education; there are better ways of communication than judging, belittling, condemning, surmising, and berating. 

            Instead of condemning and fighting and criticizing what you don't want, just put yourself on the side you prefer - every day - with your words, your dollars, your thoughts and beliefs, and your world will change for the better. 

saying no

           I never wanted to be a soccer mom and always told my children that their freedom ended where mine began because everyone's needs in a family had to be met.  We also said no two years ago when a college with a $60K tag and no proposed contribution accepted our son.  We've got to eat, too.   And I said no to my daughter to Barbies (and not because we couldn't afford one...).

            My parents set clear boundaries when it came to expenses.  They said no when I learned to drive and had visions of grandeur, wanting a Triumph Spitfire - I got to share a car with my mom; they also said "we will only pay for one year, you've got to manage after that," when I decided I'd had enough of the Belgian university system and wanted to continue my studies in the US (and it was way less expensive then than it is now....).

            Wednesday's NY Times article To raise better kids, say no explains that always saying yes "fosters a sense of deficiency that can never be fully satisfied," while learning to do with what you have fosters creativity, flexibility, resourcefulness, and inventiveness.  It turns out that receiving some pushback teaches children to "solve problems more effectively." 

            Creativity, flexibility, resourcefulness, inventiveness, and good problem solving are are all qualities we most definitely need in today's complex world.  So let's convey to our children that nobody's resources, most of all not our planet's, are infinite.  Say no every one in a while, you'll do them a favor.

why live deeply

       Living deeply is about creating a meaningful life.  It's about putting the quality back into life by creating win-win scenarios.  This requires a shift in values, away from "profit above all," quantification, and our usual win-lose scenarios, to a value-based culture that is cooperative, sustainable, compassionate, and transparent.  It's about creating a good-for-all, not just a good-for-some, culture.       

      Any reason not to want this?

 

no waste

         Nature leaves no waste, only people do. Nature's waste is sustainable because its decomposition follows a sustainable cycle in which every part feeds the next step in the cycle endlessly.  Animal waste and dead plant material compost back into the soil, carrion eating birds and little critters take care of animal carcasses, trees absorb the carbon dioxide that animals and humans exhale.  It is only us humans who have devised production processes that transform natural materials into stuff that is either itself not recyclable (think plastics) and creates trash that way, or whose manufacturing produces side effects in the form of waste and pollution (any industrial process).

            Worldwide many towns and cities strive to become zero-waste by 2020.  The goal of zero-waste is to recycle and compost everything so nothing goes into the landfill.  It takes a strong commitment from the city and a persistent education effort to overcome people's initial resistance and learning curve - take a look at this video of a Japanese town that's almost there.  Then take a look at your household trash and recycling logistics.  Can you do better?  You may also want to re-read an older post - trash-free?    Since Nature leaves no waste let's remember that we, actually, are Nature, too.

 

 

 

money co-ops

             If there were a credit union in my town I'd transfer my money in a minute. The difference between a credit union and a bank is that banks are for-profit.  That means that the more fees they charge you and the less interest they give you the wealthier they become.  Credit unions, on the other hand, are non-profit organizations working for and on behalf of their members.   In a way a credit union is something like a banking co-operative.  In general their fees are lower than banks' fees, their interest rates tend to be slightly higher, their executive salaries are lower, they have fewer branches, and they are more locally oriented.   Their purpose is to work with and for you, as opposed to for their own self-preservation.  

            With social changes and tendencies towards more cooperation and more transparency, credit unions are becoming more and more popular because their practices are more customer oriented.  It is millennials that are driving the credit union growth trend,  and credit unions are growing faster than other financial institutions.

           Do you have a credit union in your town?

fun learning

            Curiosity motivates us to learn, encouragement inspires us to thrive.  If I were independently wealthy I would take classes all the time.  But - and here's the caveat - it's got to be fun.  More so than the all-season gray skies in Belgium, I left Brussels because I was fed up with the dusty post secondary academic system that seeped all the way into creative fields like my design studies.  I felt inhibited and put down, instead of motivated and inspired.  That's how I landed on the shores of this country where I found a much more open learning environment (I'll leave the financial picture out of the conversation because that's a whole other discussion).

            I find that in general college education here encourages inquisitiveness, individualism, creative thinking and doing, critical-analytical thinking, and is practically oriented.   Many institutions have beautiful facilities with new buildings, great lab and studio spaces, well designed sports and communal facilities, all of which foster a positive learning environment.  I have experienced encouraging, nurturing, personal relationships with professors who work with, not above, the students - a totally different atmosphere than I knew from Europe where I encountered condescending professors on pedestals assured of their superiority.

            A Parisian friend said to me a while ago that France's dusty, staid, academic environment discourages exploring and voicing novel theories and inhibits innovation in research.  The best learning environments foster an inquisitiveness of seeing the world through children's eyes, full of wonderment and curiosity and of "what if?".  I love learning.