I mentioned in a recent post that I am torn between
- the temptation to create Natural, Intentional Communities and
Natural
Enterprises as 'working models' that can help the survivors of our
civilization's inevitable collapse later this century, and
- the temptation to just walk away, be selfish, live a
radically simple lifestyle (a 'non-working model?'),
and be happy living in the moment.
Some of my readers have suggested that 'working
naturally', the
means by which Natural Enterprises should work, might be an oxymoron.
Look at creatures in natural environments, or even gatherer-hunter
human cultures, and you find almost all of their time is
spent doing four things: eating,
sleeping, playing/learning and relating.
Play in nature is serious business (it is the means by which the young
practice and learn skills they need to survive) but it is also fun and
lifelong (exploration, discovery and recreation keep wild creatures
fit, alert and connected without the provocation of stressful
situations, and are also part of what makes life worth living, and
hence leads to evolutionary success). I group playing and learning into
a single activity because in nature they are inseparable.
A fifth activity, fighting, enters the picture in situations
of scarcity, but in the world of abundance in
which 'uncivilized' species (mostly) live this is a rare occurrence (contrary to
what some
wildlife documentaries would have you believe).
A sixth activity, working, which is defined in the dictionary
as "extended activity directed to producing or accomplishing
something", but which generally connotes activity that is somewhat
onerous, tedious and stressful, is not, to them, a natural activity at
all. Gathering food in an area where it is abundant is not work, any
more than migrating or caring for the community's
young is work. If it is
work, that's a signal
that some change in behaviour is needed (moving to a different area
where food is more plentiful, reducing fertility so resources are not
so severely taxed, etc.) In
nature stress demands
adaptive change to eliminate the cause of the stress and put life back
into balance. Having to work means something is wrong
.
If you love doing what you're doing, however, even if
you 'work'
hard at it, it's not onerous, tedious or stressful. It's a 'labour of
love'. I would argue that in this case it's
organized and directed playing/learning and relating activity.
It has a conscious purpose, which distinguishes it from playing/learning and
relating that is purely recreational or social. But it is
still playing/learning
and relating, not onerous, tedious, stressful 'work'. Think about the
most joyful workplaces you know. Wouldn't you describe their 'work' as
mostly playing/learning and relating?
This is my idea of Natural Enterprise, the way 'work'
should
be -- playing/learning and relating activity directed to producing or
accomplishing something. My upcoming book will profile existing and
emerging Natural Enterprises and explain how to find, evolve and create
them.
Although Natural Enterprises can and do work in any economy,
ideally they will become part of the natural, networked 'world of ends'
economy illustrated above. In a Natural Economy, Natural Enterprises
are an integral part of Natural Communities, communities which are
largely self-sufficient, self-managed and self-selected (Intentional). The Natural
Economy consists of unintermediated, peer-to-peer networks of Natural
Enterprises offering their surplus production in 'price-less' exchange
for the surplus production of Natural Enterprises in other Natural
Communities. This enables struggling communities to 'catch up' to
affluent communities
without creating debt or
dependency in the process.
What
distinguishes Natural Enterprises most markedly from traditional
corporations is the absence of internal and external adversarial and
competitive behaviour in Natural Enterprises, behaviour that is the very hallmark of
traditional corporations, plus the fact that Natural Enterprises
replicate (what
works) rather than growing, so they always stay small.
All of this got me thinking about the people I would love to
'work' with in Natural Enterprises and live with in a Natural
Community. They would be people
who are already living
natural lives, people
who refuse to 'work' doing onerous, tedious, stressful jobs, and who
adapt themselves and their lifestyles so they don't have to.
Somehow
they are able to spend their whole lives eating, sleeping,
playing/learning, and relating, joyfully. This is partly a function of
a positive state of mind -- how they look at 'problems' and situations
-- and partly a result of considered choices about what they want, need
and do.
Zaadz entrepreneurship leader Siona argues that this starts with self-acceptance and
self-love, "the willingness to abandon the belief that I can
or should
be anything, or in any way, different, from what I am."
Such people do give a damn -- they are not deluded
that everything
in the world is perfect -- and they engage with others doing 'work'
that is "extended activity directed to producing or accomplishing
something", but because of how they approach it, it is always joyful,
never tedious or stressful. These are people who love everyone
and spend their entire lives 'making love' -- not in the sexual sense
but in the sense that all their playing/learning and relating
activities are infused with love and with creating love unconditionally
and reciprocally with others.
I'm sure you know people like this. They are
charismatic,
indefatigable, uncompromising and relentlessly positive. They attract
others (especially their opposites, the inconsolable and relentlessly
negative cynics) like moths to a flame. They evoke (alas) jealousy from
those who wish they could be like them, from those who worry that their
own loved ones will be seduced away by them, and, most of all, from
those who want to keep that generous love all to themselves.
The women I know who love everyone this way are always
worried by
male affection (because of their experience with males who
cannot be
trusted to love them back openly and unconditionally without resenting
sharing that love with others). The men I know who love everyone this
way have few male friends -- perhaps because their love is unnerving to
other men.
When I watch wild birds and animals in their
communities, I can
sense this constant unconditional love for other creatures and for
all-life-on-Earth. They are constantly 'making love' in the way they
live fully and joyfully in the moment, every moment infused with love
of life and love of their place and love of learning and
discovery and
love for the astonishing wonder of every creature they meet. Every
second is ecstatic, even the moments of intense fear, flight and death,
where they resign themselves to their life's ending, give themselves
back to the sacred Earth in partnership with the creature whose life is
sustained by their death. Perhaps this is why it is so easy for wild
creatures (other than the designated breeding pairs) to refrain
voluntarily from sexual activity to prevent overpopulation of the flock
-- because everything they do is 'making love'.
The people who are able to live like this can be
activists without
being angry, competitive and confrontational. They understand that the
purpose of political action is to reduce scarcity, to strive endlessly
and hopefully but without expectation of success to restore the balance
on Earth so that there is no longer a need for anyone to do onerous,
tedious, stressful 'work', and so that perhaps one day everyone will
once again be able to spend their lives joyfully eating, sleeping,
playing/learning, and relating. So that everyone can once again live a natural life.
I remember, when I was very young, living with this
state of mind
and this intentionality. It was not conscious or learned, it was just a
natural way to live. I didn't know any other way. But soon enough I
encountered negative people (including other children) -- people who
were jealous, critical, acquisitive, selfish, greedy, mean-spirited. And soon
enough, not understanding, I became depressed, shy, frightened. I
'learned' that I was living in a terrible world.
At various stages in my life I have tried, with varying
degrees of
success, to get back to that state of mind and intentionality. I think
when we fall in love we rediscover it -- that love makes us temporarily
immune to the negativity all around us, in our modern, crowded,
struggling, work-filled world. I vacillated between being a political
progressive (angry, confrontational) and a social progressive
(optimistic, loving, believing). I have always understood both, and
have never been particularly good at either -- I instinctively avoid
confrontation and handle stress very badly, but I see the world too
darkly to trust that just doing small things in our own sphere of
influence will ever be enough. The resulting paralysis has defined me
throughout my adult life.
Recently I have become disenchanted with the
possibility that
political activism can achieve any meaningful sustained change. I
believe that, as
The Rebel Sell explains, "you can't jam the culture" and that,
to some extent, our bankrupt and unsustainable corporatist society
depends
on angry progressives winning and being satisfied
with small illusory victories to co-opt and quieten them so that no
real change ever occurs. Perhaps, then, I am finally ready to start to
become one of those relentlessly positive, joyful people who have so
impressed and puzzled me (and made me feel inadequate by comparison)
all my adult life.
I say
start, because I suspect
that it will be a lifelong
and halting journey. I have a lot of fears to abandon, a lot of
cynicism to free myself from, a lot of trust in myself and others to
regain, a lot of important lessons to relearn. But I feel I am on my
way. I am free from my illusions that I will save our world from
civilizational collapse, and now believe that (as grim and tragic as it
will be) civilizational collapse will be how the world saves itself
from us. I am happier and more positive and more full of love than I
have ever been (save for those brief, ecstatic,
invulnerable times when
I was deeply, utterly '
in love').
Yet I am still impatient, still consumed with
unbearable grief
for Gaia. Still too often angry, disengaged, inattentive, weary. Cognizant
of Siona's words above, I have always believed I cannot
change who I
am. But perhaps who I really am is still hiding, waiting to emerge
when I am finally ready. And now perhaps I
am finally ready to emerge, and to become
who I always was. (Now you know the meaning of the butterfly on this blog's masthead).
If so then the dilemma of what to do that I outlined in
the first
paragraph of this article will disappear: I will no longer want to walk
away and be selfish, because the 'work' of creating and showing others
how to create Natural Enterprises and Natural Communities,
and
perhaps ultimately creating a model Natural Economy and being a model
of how to live a natural life, will not be work, it
will be easy,
joyful, playing/learning and relating, 'making love' with everyone, unconditionally, and living in the moment that never ends.
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
