11 Comments

Thank you Patrick, here's another contender for touchstone #5. Chaos theory demonstrates that every leap in evolution, ascension to a new and more complex order, is preceded by period of chaos. Chaos is a partner to order, the other side of the coin as it were. For more on this, refer to "Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World" by Margaret J. Wheatley https://margaretwheatley.com/books/leadership-and-the-new-science/

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The point being, this too shall pass, and the world with shine the all brighter or something like that that Samwise Gamgee said.

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Gould and Eldredge found long periods of stability in the fossil record punctuated by rapid shifts when everything changed. They called it punctuated equilibrium. It takes these moments to shake things up. Resonant with my words, the darkness brings out the light. It’s clear we need a big shake-up, and looks like we’re going to get it.

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Yes and Baumgartner and Jones (2005) and many subsequent scholars have applied PET to the policy process showing strong evidence that policy punctuations lead to a new equilibrium. Wheatley applies similar thinking to leadership and policy in her book. These ideas gave me hope again after a life of anxiety and despair. I wrote a paper on all this in grad school last year.

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I think if all of us really really practiced point four, in which "others" includes humans and everything non-human, maybe you wouldn't need any of the other points and maybe we wouldn't find ourselves in the dire straits that we are.

Thank you Patrick for writing this!

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Agree. Echoes what I wrote in my previous post. “Here is what I know. That no matter what happens, to seek to live to the greatest degree in a spirit of kindness and compassion. To put ourselves in the place of others as much as we can. To understand that, unlike those who consider these qualities of weakness, it takes a certain strength to see beyond yourself. And this is the key to solving so many of the problems besetting our world. Maybe all of them.”

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Thanks Patrick!

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brilliant

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#5 is to organize so people for the good speak with one voice to make the massive shift of worldview that will motivate everyone to do 1-4 and more. Feel ourselves united as one family and we’ll create what will best insure that humanity even survives, let alone thrives. Each person doing their best won’t give us the force to make the changes we only will make as a united species that understands the difficult adjustments to our unsustainable exponential growth lifestyle we now enjoy.

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I support the thought, though this is what I was trying to get at in 2. It clearly is not just an individual matter. Though what each of us can do as individuals is important.

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I especially like the final theme…treating others and ourselves with kindness and compassion. The world has always presented all living things with terrible challenges and taking care of one another and all living beings is a gift that multiplies.

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