The Necessary Revolution - Peter Senge et al - Part 6

The Necessary Revolution - Peter Senge et al

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 61

  March 2, 2017 

Book 17 - The Necessary Revolution:
How Individuals and Organizations are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World
by Peter M. Senge, Bryan Smith, Nina Kruschwitz, Joe Laur, Sara Schley (2008)
 Part 6 - pages 281-381
Reading Time - 2 hours

Now we're getting to some good stuff. Basically, we've ended up with a society in which companies make stuff to make a profit. And we buy stuff and use it for a short period of time and then we throw it away into a landfill in order to buy some newer stuff that the companies made. It's kind of crazy. Some of the stuff in landfills will be there for 100s if not 1000s of years. All so we could have the fleeting pleasure of using that stuff for a couple of years. I learned a few cool things... like car manufacturers in the EU have a system of making cars that makes them essentially recyclable. If they sell it... they have to take it back at the end of its life. And Xerox... back in the 1990s designed a completely new copier from scratch that is built along similar lines. Something that can be taken back, disassembled and either recycled or used again. Now... that's progress!

The thing is... so many of us end up tilting against windmills. We end up fighting against the world we don't want. We are anti-war or anti-Trump or anti-pollution or anti-misogyny or whatever. That's rooted in fear... and fear hampers imagination. It's not going to work. So what will work? A two pronged approach.

Figure out where we are. What is our current reality.

Then... focus on what we want. What is our vision for the future.

Then you look at how where we are differs from where we want to go. That is called tension. That tension creates energy for change. It also creates stress and fear and anxiety... but those are just things we need to move through.

So Current Reality + Future Vision = Tension which creates Energy for Change. It's about emphasizing opportunity over remediation.  Of course we will need to adjust as we go along but... that doesn't negate the power of the vision. It also requires relationships, partnerships.

The authors suggest that we are going to see a transformation in how corporations operate because right now we are all trapped in a system that serves very few.

The other thing that resonated with me is this... how we harm the earth affects all people. Essentially, as we have fallen out of relationship with the earth, we have fallen out of relationship with each other. And I would add... out of relationship with ourselves. How many of us really connect with the earth or nature anymore? Nature is food for our soul. It's not wonder there is such a proliferation of mental illness... we are starving for some soul food.

We need to remember... like pre-Christianity... that we are not the centre of the universe. We are NOT the most important species on the planet. The First Nations people have it right when they say "all my relations". It's not just human relations... it's every species on the planet.  How can we contribute to the earth, rather than pillaging it? It's a good question.