Gaia Community

compassion, collaboration & cooperation iN transistion

A New Economics That Works

for Business, Families ...

and the Planet.

The SOURCE of the LIGHT - IS - WITHIN


A prescription for an economic system that is both equitable
and sustainable. It should be read and used by everyone who
wants a better world!

Deepak Chopra



" The most important human creations are our cultures. The cultures we
create largely determine whether we kill one another and destroy nature’s life-support systems, or live in a humane and sustainable world.
And economic systems are a key element of ALL cultures.

I have in this book argued that we need a caring economics more congruent with the direction in evolution toward greater consciousness, creativity and caring. I realize that speaking of direction in evolution is today a kind of scientific heresy. At best, it’s acceptable to say there is evolutionary movement toward greater complexity and variability. But as Darwin himself noted, the movement in evolution goes beyond greater complexity and variability to the emergence of needs, capacities, motivations, and possibilities of a different order than those present in earlier life forms.

This does not mean that our species, as one of the last to emerge, is the apex of evolution, and thus entitled to lord it over other life forms. Nor does it mean there is a divine plan or intelligent design. We don’t have any way of knowing what ultimately lies behind evolution, and this is so whether we think
evolution is directionless or not. But it does mean that as life evolved on our Earth, it developed an ever greater capacity for consciousness, creativity, planning, and choice. And while these capacities are not unique to us, they are most highly developed in our species.

Whether these human capacities are expressed, however, largely depends on the kinds of social and economic systems we create. This makes us, quite literally, co-creators of our evolution.

We certainly can’t determine everything about our future. But we can join together to create the social and economic conditions that nurture, drive, and promote the expression of our positive rather than negative genetic capacities. Indeed, having unprecedented biological capacities means that it’s our evolutionary responsibility to use these gifts in positive rather than negative ways.
ALL LIFE FORMSfrom the smallest to the largest, from amoeba and plankton to elephants and whales – have to some extent altered our planet. Some have done so by simply appearing on the evolutionary scene. Others have built new structures: birds make nests and beavers construct dams. But no species has come close to what we humans have done. We can continue with “business as usual” – even though both science andWe have used our imagination and our capacity for turning visions into realities to create a whole new human-made world. Some of what we created is extraordinary: buildings as tall as mountains, airplanes that fly higher than birds, and technologies that reveal subatomic structures, explore outer space, and probe the mysteries of the brain. Some of it is exquisite: beautiful music poetry and art. But some of it is horrendous: gas chambers, torture chambers, nuclear bombs, and invisible biological weapons for instant mass annihilation.

WE stand at an evolutionary crossroads in our human adventure on
this Earth

Our native intelligence tell us that the mix of high technology 
and an ethos of domination and conquest may take us to an evolutionary end. Or we can use the great gifts we were given by evolution to create a new economic story and realitya caring economics that supports both human survival and human development and actualisation.

It is in our power to imagine the world we want for ourselves and our children. For most of us, this is a world where our basic needs for food, shelter, and safety, as well as our yearning for nurturing and love, for justice and peace, and for a sense that what we do has meaning and helps others as well as ourselves, are fulfilled.

Above all, it is a world where our children survive and thrive
.


It is up to us to help create the conditions that support this vision. We have been endowed by nature with an amazing brain, an enormous capacity for love, a remarkable creativity, and a unique ability to learn, change, grow and plan ahead. If we act now, we can use these capacities to co-create the economic and social systems that support the great gifts we were granted by evolution.

We can’t wait for our national and international leaders to act.
Every one of us can be a leader by using our imagination and
initiative to change consciousness, practices, and policies."

Riane Eisler


 
  JUST click on the Watch on Vimeo to watch this extremely important video
  as [IT] has undoubtedly presaged from my own perspective the advent of ONE
  As Arianna Huffington has recently stated - 
 
“If you didn’t care at all about people and you just cared about the deficit,
 this is just a stupid way to go about it. It doesn’t work. Austerity does not
 lead to deficit reduction. That we are continuing not to look at the facts,
 to me is stunning. It is the definition of insanity.
.
.
Access_public Access: Public

25 Comments


Print


views (1,908)













29 minutes later

KreaShine! said


We have been endowed by nature with an amazing brain, an enormous capacity for love, a remarkable creativity, and a unique ability to learn, change, grow and plan ahead.

We are love, sometimes we just forget.

Beautiful blog, Michael, just beautiful.

love to you… and the family please,
j


Michael : catalyst-producer

43 minutes later

Michael said


WE R LOVE indeed …

NOT JUST
merchants of LOVE


Michael : catalyst-producer

24 days later

Michael said


Ken Costa, Chairman of Lazard International and Chairman of Alpha International which promotes the ALPHA COURSE, published his Personal view in the Daily Telegraph yesterday entitled …

We must break the bonds of economic slavery and find a new way to live.

In his very appropriate “THEN & NOW comparison” he wrote …

Our task now is surely no less than to fix the character of our time.
Our finances are broken. Our moral fabric is breaking. Our political system is beleaguered. And our society is broken. Many of us feel ill at ease;
we know that all is not well. Secretly, we almost scream out loud for change.


What is the moral and spiritual character of our times? Today, we are
shocked by the slave trade's evil economics. However, because we have
given financial matters an exaggerated role in our lives, we often
forget the enslavement of the human spirit that this has caused.
The economics of slavery may have been a thing of the past, but the slavery of economics is very much of the present.”

ALL of which I agree with entirely.

MY ONLY PROBLEM with this, however, IS, as is the case with the vast majority of religious perspectives of THE ONE and ONLY GOD, that those perspectives are invariably seen ONLY in the context of one of many myopic interpretations of THE ONE and ONLY GOD, rather than an ALL-inclusive multi-faceted and potentially homogenous SINGULAR PERSPECTIVE.

Contrary to Albert's proposition IT IS for this reason that there can only BE ONE MODEL of a NEW HUMPTY DUMPTY solution rather than the cobbled together amalgam of the OLD HUMPTY DUMPTY solution which we now find broken at our feet.

GOD at WORK has NO THING to do with Hinduism, Budhism, Christianity, Islam or infact any other myopic interpretation of THE ONE and ONLY GOD, IT IS GOD awakening to IT SELF through the collective mindset of individuals who have themselves individually come to terms with their part as an independent but interdependent component of the integral whole which IS GOD, as a result of their spiritual connectivity with that which IS GOD.


Michael : catalyst-producer

about 1 month later

Michael said


IT WAS Pierre Teilard de Chardin who, more than any other, truly understood
the importance of “spiritual connectivity” when he wrote …

“That globalisation is about something far deeper than economics,
commerce and politics. IT IS an evolution of the human spirit.”

Stephen Green
, Chairman of HSBC, offers a challenge to the financial elite that sold its soul for profit in his book Good Value:Reflections on Money, Morality and an Uncertain World and poses the question …

“IF with all the technology and sophistication at our disposal,
the basic structure of the world economy is built on sand, not rock,
then WHAT IS the justification for all our labours?”



mimi : MOONCHILD

2 months later

mimi said


How did we get so far away from caring for and about each other? Over the years we have created a hideous model of society - greed, guns, fear, irresponsibility, laziness, lack of compassion or understanding of
basic human needs, ethics, manners. We have become uncivilized. Anyway, I am an old crone and believe in the golden rule, I am my brother's keeper. It is just now the inmates are in charge of the asylum.

I shake my head in disbelief as I watch ignorant people in the USA shouting down health care for themselves and their neighbours. Crazed and pumped up by slogans they disrupt the social business of the the land. One would think they would be grateful to have the burden of illness removed from their lives. It is illogical, pure laziness, and mob mentality to oppose health care for everyone.
How can people be so stupid?
PS –I am a Canadian ;>) Funny….the Father of Universal Health in Canada, Tommy Douglas, was a little white
guy, about 5'4”. But he had the heart of a warrior, a soaring voice, and he took on the medical establishment (the doctors went on striked) and he won. All Canada benefitted and he is a Canadaian hero. Meanwhile Obama remains silent, and the ignorant speak and CNN broadcasts their rantings as “news”.

MacLuhan was right.


Asteri : StarChild

2 months later

Asteri said


Thank you Michael for sharing this book… The world will be sustainable if created within the Heart… The Companies/ Businesses will survive if
will be run with the Heart… The energy will not be a problem anymore
when we will respect the living Earth… We, humans, are amazing being
with extraordinary potential… and we just have to believe it… Actual
politics do not have anything to do with the future of Earth…
unfortunately…


j : awaken2love

2 months later

j said


We can’t wait for our national and international leaders to act. Every one of us can be a leader by using our imagination and initiative to change consciousness, practices, and policies.”

beautiful, thank you, Michael.


Michael : catalyst-producer

3 months later

Michael said


… and HOW REFRESHING Janie, to see you taking THE most positive of initiatives to establish a mindset of responsible caring and an economical attitude to match.


j : awaken2love

3 months later

j said


I am just handing over the decision making process to the children. It's easy.
They have as much wisdom, enthusiasm and potential in their hearts and minds, as a star nursery…It's time to let go, and watch them paint a
beautiful picture of consciousness on this planet. All I am doing is
bringing the canvas… and it is my honor to do so…


Michael : catalyst-producer

3 months later

Michael said


… and you might very well ask of EVERY SINGLE ONE of US, Asteri, the first & most important question of LIFE here on OUR PLANET, such that we might individually and collectively begin to understand that IT IS about an acceptance of the infinite consequences of the interdependence of independence within OUR holistic thinking - which will indeed awaken us to the words of Mark Lynas

“It seems to me that a low-carbon society would be one which remembers that our planet is a unique gift - perhaps the only one of its kind in the entire universe - which we are indescribably privileged to be born into.”


Michael : catalyst-producer

3 months later

Michael said


To put Riane Eisler's WHOLE concept into context, NO BETTER single-minded description of the REALLY BIG PICTURE dilemma that homo sapiens faces,
as custodian of ALL LIFE on our planet and possibly in the multiverse of
parallel worlds,
can be attained than by reading, learning and digesting
Richard Heinberg's Museletter 208 of August 2009 entitled …

Temporary Recession or the End of Growth?

in which he concludes …

” mainstream economists failed on the whole to foresee the current crash. There was no consistent or concerted effort on the part of Secretaries
of the Treasury, Federal Reserve Chairmen, or “Nobel” prize-winning
economists to warn policy makers or the general public that, sometime
in the early 21
st century, the global economy would begin to come apart at the seams.

One might think that this predictive failure—the inability to foresee so historically significant an event as the rapid contraction of nearly the entire global economy, entailing the failure of some of the world’s largest banks and manufacturing companies—would cause mainstream economists to stop   and re-examine their fundamental premises.

But there is little evidence to suggest that this is occurring.

At the risk of repetition: physical scientists from several disciplines
have indeed foreseen an end to economic growth in the early 21st
century, and have warned policy makers and the general public on many
occasions.

Whom should we believe?

My conclusion from a careful survey of energy alternatives, then, is that       
there is little likelihood that either conventional fossil fuels or alternative energy
sources can be counted on to provide the amount and quality of energy
that will be needed to sustain economic growth—or even current levels
of economic activity—during the remainder of this century.

But the problem extends beyond oil and other fossil fuels: the world’s
fresh water resources are strained to the point that billions of people
may soon find themselves with only precarious access to water for
drinking and irrigation. Biodiversity is declining rapidly. We are
losing 24 billion tons of topsoil each year to erosion. And many
economically significant minerals—from antimony to zinc—are depleting
quickly, requiring the mining of ever lower-grade ores in ever more
remote locations.


Thus the Peak Oil crisis is really just the leading edge of a broader Peak Everything dilemma. In essence, humanity faces an entirely predictable peril:  
our population has been growing dramatically for the past 200 years  (expanding from under one billion to nearly seven billion), while our             per-capita consumption of resources has also grown. For any species,           this is virtually the definition of biological success. And yet all of this has    taken place in the context of a finite planet with fixed stores of non-renewable
resources (fossil fuels and minerals), a limited ability to regenerate
renewable resources (forests, fish, fresh water, and topsoil), and a
limited ability to absorb industrial wastes (including carbon dioxide).


If we step back and look at the industrial period from a broad historical perspective that is informed by an appreciation of ecological limits, it is        hard to avoid the conclusion that we are today living at the end of a relatively brief pulse—a 200-year rapid expansionary phase enabled by a temporary energy subsidy (in the form of cheap fossil fuels) that will inevitably be followed by an even more rapid and dramatic contraction as those fuels deplete.          The winding down of this historic growth-contraction pulse doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the world, but it does mean the end of a certain kind of economy.

One way or another, humanity must return to a more normal pattern of
existence characterized by reliance on immediate solar income (via
crops, wind, or the direct conversion of sunlight to electricity)
rather than stored ancient sunlight. This is not to say that the
remainder of the 21st century must consist of a collapse of
industrialism, a die-off of most of the human population, and a return
by the survivors to a way of life essentially identical to that of 16th
century peasants or indigenous hunter-gatherers. It is possible instead
to imagine acceptable and even inviting ways in which humanity could
adapt to ecological limits while further developing cultural richness,
scientific understanding, and quality of life (more of this below). But
however it is negotiated,
the transition will spell an end to economic growth in the conventional sense. And that transition appears to have begun.”

and IF that IS NOT convincing enough just ask yourself …

Is the Global Oil Tank Half-full or Half-Empty … or are we Running on Fumes


Michael : catalyst-producer

4 months later

Michael said


Whom should we believe? INDEED


Michael : catalyst-producer

4 months later

Michael said


… better that WE ALL take note of individual initiative taking
such as this message to Obama


martha : wildlygentle

4 months later

martha said


Hi Michael,

Thank you for posting about this book as you did last summer. I'm still too addled to have read all your comments. My attention span is a little
screwy. Oh well. I wanted you to know I come back once in awhile and
read.

Love to you,
M.


Michael : catalyst-producer

5 months later

Michael said


I start with a basic truth. A persistent pattern of violence against people, community, and nature is inherent in the institutional structure of our existing economy. You
don't treat a cancer with Band-Aids, and we can't resolve our current
economic crisis with marginal regulatory adjustments. It is time to
rethink and restructure.”

David Korten - Path to a Peace Economy


Michael : catalyst-producer

5 months later

Michael said


THE China Conundrum - INDEED

The world economy is still skating on thin ice. The West is sated with debt, the East with plant. The crisis has been contained (or masked) by
zero rates and a fiscal blast, trashing sovereign balance sheets. BUT the core problem remains.
The Anglo-sphere and Club Med are tightening belts, yet Asia is not
adding enough demand to compensate. It is adding supply.


My view is that markets are still in denial about the structural wreckage of the credit bubble. There are two more
boils to lance: China's investment bubble; and Europe's banking
cover-up. I fear that only then can we clear the rubble and, very
slowly, start a fresh cycle.”

China has now become the biggest risk to the world economy
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - The Daily Telegraph - 16th November 2009


Michael : catalyst-producer

5 months later

Michael said


… as one crisis recedes, the fiscal one may be only just beginning and as
Jeremy Warner said earlier in the week ”In the meantime, fiscal deficits throughout the developed world are rising to levels which even the most sanguine of observers find truly scary.
Some idea of the scale of this deterioration is given by the latest
edition of Moody's sovereign debt “statistical handbook”. Preliminary
estimates suggest that the total stock of sovereign debt will rise by
nearly a half to around $15.3 trillion by the end of next year.”

To which cyndi replied … Excellent analysis from Jeremy followed by astute comments from his readers. Illuminating.


Hardly surprising then that the next day SURPRISE SURPRISE …


Michael : catalyst-producer

5 months later

Michael said


IF COUNTRIES begin to fail with Dubai in crisis,

WHO WILL save them from ALL that DEBT?

An emerging market wake-up call indeed

and even more so in the context of CHINA, GOLD and the civilization shift


Michael : catalyst-producer

6 months later

Michael said


… and AS IF that weren't enough Paul Volcker has recently stated that there is
little evidence innovation in financial markets has had a visible effect on the productivities of the economy.”

Mr Volcker told delegates who had been discussing how to rebuild the financial system to ”wake up”. He said credit default swaps and collateralised debt obligations had taken the economy ”right to the brink of disaster” and added that the economy had grown at “greater rates of speed” during the 1960s without such products.

When one stunned audience member suggested that Mr Volcker did not really mean bond markets and securitisations had contributed “nothing at all”,
he replied: ”You can innovate as much as you like, but do it within a structure that doesn't put the whole economy at risk.
He said he agreed with George Soros, the billionaire investor, who said investment banks must stick to serving clients and ”proprietary trading should be pushed out of investment banks and to hedge funds where they belong”.


Michael : catalyst-producer

7 months later

Michael said


In the context of Roger Bootle's statements that Greed isn't good - its dangerous
and that from where we stand the road ahead forks, one must now consider Richard Heinberg's final note to his January 2010 Museletter 212 namely that …

” As 2010 begins we are about to enter the second decade of the 21st century. Historians often remark that the character of a new century
doesn’t make itself apparent until its second decade (think World War
I). Perhaps peak oil, the global financial crash, and the failure of Copenhagen are the signal events that will propel us into the
Century of Decline.
If these events are indeed indicative, it will be a century of economic
contraction rather than growth; a century less about warnings of
environmental constraints and consequences than about the
fulfillment of past warnings; and a century of local action rather than grand global schemes.

I suspect that things are going to be noticeably different from now on.”


Michael : catalyst-producer

7 months later

Michael said


Klaus Schwab, founder & executive chairman of the World Economic Forum [WEF], said the 2010 report underlined the need for a set of values which must be applied to global economic institutions.

Our present system fails to meet its obligations to as many as 3bn people in the world. Our civic, business and political cultures must be transformed if we are to close this gap.”

He said the WEF's 2010 annual summit in Davos next week, which will be attended by many of the world's leading businessmen and politicians, would be a …

platform to rethink the values underpinning the “global system of cooperation.”

When asked to identify which values were most important for the global political and economic system, almost 40pc chose honesty, integrity and transparency, 24pc chose others' rights, dignity and views, 20pc chose the impact of actions on the well-being of others, and 17pc chose the preservation of the environment.

Almost two-thirds of respondents felt that people do not apply the same values in their professional lives as they do in their private lives. When
asked whether businesses should be primarily responsible to their
shareholders, their employees, their clients and customers, or all
three equally, almost half of the respondents chose
all three equally
.


Michael : catalyst-producer

7 months later

Michael said


IN the context of the tragedy which IS HAITI

the PATH to a PEACE ECONOMY

must start here


Michael : catalyst-producer

7 months later

Michael said


As Rory Bremner, the UK's Premier Comedy and Satirical Impressionist, has said …

Banker's complain, but the party goes on

One of the more ludicrous pieces of revisionism is the attempt to blame the regulators for not preventing the crisis. True, our FSA could have done more to see the bubble expanding, but the whole point about regulation under successive chancellors since the Big Bang
in 1986 was that the City asked for lighter and lighter supervision –
and boy, did it get it.


It was part of the Faustian pact that got New Labour into power in the first place. (“What you in the City have done for financial services,” enthused Gordon
Brown in 2002, “we as a government intend to do for the economy as a
whole.”
He got that right.)

So it's a bit much to blame the regulatory system now. It's as if, having
been arrested for breaking into a house and stealing the family silver,
a criminal has refused to pay compensation, instead putting the blame
on the householder for leaving a window open.

Let's be clear: it wasn't regulatory failure. It was, in large part, greed and ineptitude
on the part of those who coined large bonuses even while they failed to
understand (or didn't attempt to understand) what they were doing.

The huge profits posted recently confirm what we already suspected. The
banks retain their mystical ability to conjure up unimaginable amounts
of money out of thin air, even if they don't really know how they do
it. If anything, the government bail‑outs make it just a little easier:
with the state acting as guarantor, banks can mend their balance sheets
and go back to what they were doing before, but without the
inconvenience of moral hazard – the risk that they might fail. Having
literally been given more chips, in the form of quantitative easing,
the gambler can go back in the casino.


Michael : catalyst-producer

8 months later

Michael said


We need to redefine prosperity – beyond the maternal concerns of modern economics, to its social and psychological dimensions. Development amplifies our capabilities for
flourishing. As economist Amartya Sen has noted, our capabilities for living lie well beyond mere freedoms, but are bounded by the finite ecology of our planet.

The probability is that humans can flourish not only by consuming less but
by living lives involving useful and meaningful work, the respect of
our peers and a sense of belonging and trust in our communities and
enterprises.


Michael : catalyst-producer

9 months later

Michael said


Four Propositions

The following summary statements are fundamental both to grasping our current situation and managing our way toward a desirable future:

1. We have reached the end of economic growth as we have known it. 
The “growth” we are talking about consists of the expansion of the overall size of the economy (with more people being served and more money
changing hands) and of the quantities of energy and material goods flowing through it. The economic crisis that began in 2008 was both foreseeable and inevitable, and that it marks a permanent, fundamental
break from past decades—a period in which economists adopted the unrealistic view that perpetual economic growth is necessary and also possible to achieve. As we will see, there are fundamental constraints
to ongoing economic expansion, and the world is beginning to encounter those constraints. This is not to say the U.S. or the world will never see another quarter or year of growth relative to the previous year.
Rather, the point is that when the bumps are averaged out, the general trend-line of the economy (measured in terms of production and consumption of real goods) will be level or downward rather than upward
from now on.

2. The basic factors that will inevitably shape whatever replaces the growth economy are knowable. To survive and thrive for long, societies have to operate within the planet’s budget of sustainably extractable resources. This means that even if we don’t know exactly what a desirable post-growth economy and
lifestyle will look like, we know enough to begin working toward them.

3. It is possible for economies to persist for centuries or millennia with no or minimal growth.
That is how most economies operated until recent times. If billions of people through countless generations lived without economic growth, we can do so as well—now and far into the future. The end of growth does
not mean the end of the world.

4. Life in a non-growing economy can be fulfilling, interesting, and secure. The absence of growth does not imply a lack of change or improvement. Within a non-growing or equilibrium economy there can still be a
continuous development of practical skills, artistic expression, and technology. In fact, some historians and social scientists argue that life in an equilibrium economy can be superior to life in a fast-growing economy: while growth creates opportunities for some, it also typically intensifies competition—there are big winners and big losers, and (as in most boom towns) the quality of relations within the community can suffer as a result. Within a non-growing economy it is possible to maximize benefits and reduce factors leading to decay, but doing so will require pursuing appropriate goals: instead of more, we must strive for better; rather than promoting increased economic activity for its own sake, we must emphasize whatever increases quality of life without stoking consumption. One way to do this is to reinvent and redefine growth itself.

The transition to a no-growth economy (or one in which growth is defined in a fundamentally different way) is inevitable, but it will go much better if we plan for it rather than simply watching in dismay as institutions we have come to rely upon fail, and then try to improvise a survival strategy in their absence.

In effect, we have to create a desirable “new normal” that fits

with the constraints imposed by depleting natural resources.

Maintaining the “old normal” is not an option; if we do not find new goals for ourselves and plan our transition from a growth-based economy to a healthy equilibrium economy, we will by default create a much less desirable “new normal” whose emergence we are already beginning to see in the forms of persistent high unemployment, a widening gap between rich and poor, and ever more frequent and worsening financial and environmental crises—all of which translate to profound distress for individuals, families, and communities.





Leave Your Wise and Insightful Comment

Views: 424

Comment by Michael Grove on March 5, 2011 at 9:52

 

We prevented a Great Depression ...

but people have a right to be angry

 

"Adam Smith provides the model of the right way:

his economic theory in The Wealth of Nations was wise and true,

but Smith's other book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments proves

that there's more to life than economics. The two must be taken together."

                         Mervyn King - Govenor of the Bank of England

 

Comment by Michael Grove on January 9, 2012 at 16:51

" More di­rectly posed: com­mu­nity is nearly im­pos­si­ble in a highly mon­e­tized so­ci­ety like our own. That is be­cause com­mu­nity is woven from gifts, which is ul­ti­mately why poor peo­ple often have stronger com­mu­ni­ties than rich peo­ple. If you are fi­nan­cially in­de­pen­dent, then you re­ally don't de­pend on your neigh­bors—or in­deed on any spe­cific per­son—for any­thing.

You can just pay some­one to do it, or pay some­one else to do it."

Comment by Michael Grove on June 16, 2012 at 10:03

Gordon Brown -  the man who claimed "to have ended the cycle of boom and bust for the UK" - Didn't he also save the world as well from ALL of its financial woes? - is here again at the penultimate moment of the Euro Crisis expounding the fact that IF the G20 doesn't get its act together to help keep the Euro alive we shall all be faced with potential bailouts for France and Italy as well.

Surely its the founding members of the Euro project - Germany, France and Italy - who should now be realising that the wheels are falling off the charabanc because they chose not to fit tyres to the wheels in the first place.

Comment by Michael Grove on July 2, 2012 at 9:41
As Arianna Huffington has recently stated - 
 
“If you didn’t care at all about people and you just cared about the deficit, this is just a stupid way to go about it. It doesn’t work. Austerity does not lead to deficit reduction. That we are continuing not to look at the facts, to me is stunning. It is the definition of insanity.
Comment by Michael Grove on December 25, 2012 at 9:56


"ONLY together
, [as merchants of LOVE ] , can our starlight help

us find our way, in this cosmic soup of choices and beauty."

 

                                                                                                                              Janie Hedrick

Comment by Michael Grove on May 11, 2013 at 8:10

Acting to Ease Others’ Suffering

I can also act in ways that I believe are compassionate to the people

right in front of me, and you might think, “Isn’t that compassion for

others?” But really, it’s compassion for myself in another form. 

It’s another self-compassion method.

Imagine the pain you feel when you see someone else suffering -

the suffering you feel is real suffering, just as the other person is

suffering. Yet, most people don’t actually ease that suffering

in themselves.

So, how do you ease that suffering in yourself when you see

someone else suffering?

You reach out, empathize, make a connection, and look for a way to

reduce the other person’s suffering, and your own. If the other person

opens up, that’s great. If not, that’s OK, because you’ve reached out

and let them know that you too suffer when you see them suffer.

That’s a powerful thing.

And so your ease your own suffering, and it’s a selfish sort of

compassion. But that’s the only kind there is.

Comment by Michael Grove on July 22, 2022 at 12:24

Add a Comment

You need to be a member of Gaia Community to add comments!

Join Gaia Community

© 2024   Created by Michael Grove.   Powered by

Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service