Heroes Not Zombies

Yesterday I wrote about my thoughts in relation to the pandemic and how it’s shone a light on pre-existing problems, from inadequately resourced and staffed health care systems to the absence of curative treatments.

Connected to that thinking is the need to dream and plan bigger. “Cathedral thinking”is a well known term for explorations of wider horizons, both in relation to timescales but also in relation to ambition.

It seems pretty clear to me that short term, quick consumption, fast profit approaches are simply inadequate. Between the pandemic and the climate crisis isn’t it obvious that we need to apply our fabulous creativity, our imaginations, and our abilities to form extensive social networks and come up with different ways of living together – not just we humans living together, but we and all forms of Life on this little blue planet.

Money, finance and economics are all tools we’ve invented to help us achieve what we want to achieve. They are often presented as constraints but we humans invented them and we have the imagination and the ability to make them work better for more of us. We can use them to mobilise resources and talents to create a more sustainable, more just and more caring world. If we want to.

When I was a teenager I remember being told my idealism would disappear as I got older….once I had responsibilities and had to “deal with reality”. Well my idealism, my ambition and my desire to contribute to the creation of a better world never went away.

As to realism – is it realistic to consider the Earth as a lifeless resource to be plundered in pursuit of never ending “growth”? Or is it more realistic to understand the planet as one vast living organism….complex, adaptive, resilient, but also finite, balanced and vulnerable to harm?

Dream big my friends. Stir up your ambition and let’s create a better, more realistic, way to live together. We humans and we non-humans.