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You are here: Home / Archives for Inner transformation

Not Giving up on Happiness: Care of the Self and Well-Being in a Plague Year

The specter of plague haunts our world, and it brings with it not only the ghouls of disease and death but vast economic and social uncertainty of a sort only the most elderly among us remembers (the Great Depression and World War II). My father is 90 and when I called him a child of […]

Filed Under: Happiness, Health, Inner transformation Tagged With: depression, happiness, health, mental health, pandemic, well-being

We Can’t Do It Ourselves

How to live a more sustainable life? This question generates a lot of debate that is focused on what individuals can do in order to address problems like climate change. For example, people are encouraged to shop locally, to buy organic food, to install home insulation, or to cycle more often. But how effective is individual […]

Filed Under: Climate Change, Environment, Inner transformation, Livelihoods and jobs Tagged With: climate change, consumerism, economic growth, economics, sustainability, systems thinking

Thinking Outside the Grid

Thirty years ago, a friend of mine published a book called 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save The Earth. It described the huge environmental benefits that would result if everyone made some simple adjustments to their way of life. Six hundred thousand gallons of gas could be saved every day, for example, if […]

Filed Under: Climate Change, Consumerism, Environment, Food and Farming, Inner transformation, Local energy Tagged With: climate change, community, corporations, local food, localization, renewable energy

Old Mother Forest

I live across a small stream from an ancient rainforest in Wayanad, Kerala. It has a constancy that’s baffling, appearing more or less the same to me for all the years I’ve been here. The forest sustains. As do you and I. Tangled beings brought together by strange and bewildering feats of alchemy. No matter […]

Filed Under: Environment, Indigenous worldview, Inner transformation Tagged With: climate change, culture, health, indigenous, technology

Groomed to Consume

This blog is also available in Russian and Spanish. With Christmas coming up, household consumption will soon hit its yearly peak in many countries. Despite homely pictures of tranquility on mass-produced greeting cards, Christmas is more about frenzied shopping and overspending than peace on earth or quality time with family and friends. As with so […]

Filed Under: Consumerism, Economic Growth and Degrowth, Inner transformation Tagged With: community, consumerism, corporations, economic growth, happiness, mental health, sustainability

Jacques Ellul: A Prophet for Our Tech-Saturated Times

By now you have probably read about the so-called “tech backlash.” Facebook and other social media have undermined what’s left of the illusion of democracy, while smartphones damage young brains and erode the nature of discourse in the family. Meanwhile computers and other gadgets have diminished our attention spans along with our ever-failing connection to […]

Filed Under: Education, Inner transformation, Technology Tagged With: corporate control, corporations, technology

Reading Tagore to Become Human

In 1922, Rabindranath Tagore published one of his most important works, the play Mukta-Dhara. The story, rich in symbolism, is a simple yet powerful one. A child of mysterious birth is found abandoned by a mountain waterfall. He is adopted by the royal family and raised as the crown-prince, Abhijit. As he turns into a […]

Filed Under: Development, Economic Growth and Degrowth, Environment, Indigenous worldview, Inner transformation, Technology Tagged With: climate change, community, consumerism, corporations, democracy, development, freedom, happiness, indigenous

Where Time Went (and why we have so little left)

“Sleeker. Faster. More Intuitive” (The New York Times); “Welcome to a world where speed is everything” (Verizon FiOS); “Speed is God, and time is the devil” (chief of Hitachi’s portable-computer division). In “real” time, life speeds up until time itself seems to disappear—fast is never fast enough, everything has to be done now, instantly. To […]

Filed Under: Economic Growth and Degrowth, Health, Inner transformation, Livelihoods and jobs, Technology Tagged With: community, corporations, degrowth, economic growth, economics, happiness, health

Livin’ the Screen Life: #productsmakemehappy

Important official legal disclaimer: This is a short work of fiction. Any resemblances to real people, people you may know, people you think you may know, etc., is entirely deliberate. When I’m at work I’m staring at a screen. When I’m not at work I’m staring at screens. Checking social media. Scrolling through updates. Scrolling […]

Filed Under: Community, Economic Growth and Degrowth, Inner transformation, Technology Tagged With: community, consumerism, culture, depression, economics, happiness, livelihoods, mental health, technology

Positive Thinking in a Dark Age

I recall a Buddhist parable involving a stick that appears from a distance to be a snake, causing fear to rise in the perceiver. As the perception shifts upon closer examination, the fear subsides and the relieved hiker continues down the path. Understanding and awareness have a lot to do with how we feel and […]

Filed Under: Inner transformation, Resistance and Renewal Tagged With: cultural change, economic change, global ]monoculture, globalization, localization, sustainability, systems thinking

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