I assert that what matters most to all of us is the health and well-being of life: clean air, clean water, healthy food, comfortable shelter, healing medicine, and authentic connections with life (human and non-human) around us.*
We want ourselves and our families to have easy access to all of that, including great relationships. And if you're willing to authentically look, we want it for everyone else too.
Pathologies aside, we're all naturally compassionate and connected, and we have a fierce desire for fairness. These traits we can cultivate.
There is nothing I'd rather feel than my love for my kids. I'm pretty happy to see that I can actually begin to expand that raw love to my wife and our relationship in new ways. And now to my friends and students and colleagues and strangers.
We can actually grow our ability to feel compassion for and to authentically connect with others.
The survival instinct's pathological partner, greed, takes over sometimes. It's there too. It can be managed and cultivated as well. We live in an economic system that flourishes on the cultivation of this trait.
Compassion and authentic connection to life provide a greater level of fulfillment than material greed will ever provide.
We live inside of a political economy that values an entity's rights to financially prosper through the ownership and/or manipulation of the necessities of life to the detriment of most of us and in the end, all of us. We need governments willing to step up and smack the greedy hands of corporation shareholders, block their access to life-destroying resources, processes, and products. We need governments willing to stand for all people getting the necessities and most meaningful treasures of life (which really aren't material).
It's all we really want - clean air, clean water, healthy food, comfortable shelter, healing medicine, and authentic connections with life around us.
* "Fulfilling God's Will for us" comes to mind as a possible addition to this list. I don't currently believe in God, but I bet God's will for any of us has something to do with providing these 6 things to others and making sure we're using God's gifts justly.
We want ourselves and our families to have easy access to all of that, including great relationships. And if you're willing to authentically look, we want it for everyone else too.
Pathologies aside, we're all naturally compassionate and connected, and we have a fierce desire for fairness. These traits we can cultivate.
There is nothing I'd rather feel than my love for my kids. I'm pretty happy to see that I can actually begin to expand that raw love to my wife and our relationship in new ways. And now to my friends and students and colleagues and strangers.
We can actually grow our ability to feel compassion for and to authentically connect with others.
The survival instinct's pathological partner, greed, takes over sometimes. It's there too. It can be managed and cultivated as well. We live in an economic system that flourishes on the cultivation of this trait.
Compassion and authentic connection to life provide a greater level of fulfillment than material greed will ever provide.
We live inside of a political economy that values an entity's rights to financially prosper through the ownership and/or manipulation of the necessities of life to the detriment of most of us and in the end, all of us. We need governments willing to step up and smack the greedy hands of corporation shareholders, block their access to life-destroying resources, processes, and products. We need governments willing to stand for all people getting the necessities and most meaningful treasures of life (which really aren't material).
It's all we really want - clean air, clean water, healthy food, comfortable shelter, healing medicine, and authentic connections with life around us.
* "Fulfilling God's Will for us" comes to mind as a possible addition to this list. I don't currently believe in God, but I bet God's will for any of us has something to do with providing these 6 things to others and making sure we're using God's gifts justly.
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