Michael wrote:
> It seems that the first column is mostly about someone
> else's perspective, while the second concerns
> your own.
Good point. This may be because we are 'taught' to want and endless list
of things. I tried substituting "being" for "having" and found many things
improved or at least more focused. See my 'drill' quote below.
Jeff and Michael wrote with my additions:
Having a degree --> Being educated (an ongoing process)
Having wealth --> Being wealthy (wealth is partially
attitude)
Buying Happiness --> Being happy through knowledge, etc.
Owning the land --> Being part of nature.
Good insurance coverage --> Good health
Having a family --> Being a family
Having nice neighbors --> Being a nice neighbor
Having children --> Being with your children
This reminds me of two quotes. One I first heard at a Permaculture course
and the second is from 'Beyond the Limits' (Meadows et al, 1992, p.216), a
book using a computer model to look at possible future patterns of
populations, energy use, pollution, food production, life span, etc. and
their relationships to each other.
"To really see a situation you have to remember that you don't want the
drill, you want the hole it makes."
"People don't need enormous cars; they need respect. They don't need a
closetful of clothes; they need to feel attractive and they need excitement
and variety and beauty. People don't need electronic entertainment; they
need something worthwhile to do with their lives. And so forth. People
need identity, community, challenge, acknowledgement, love, joy. To try to
fill these needs with material things is to set up an unquenchable appetite
for false solutions to real and never-satisfied problems. The resulting
psychological emptiness is one of the major forces behind the desire for
material growth. A society that can admit and articulate its nonmaterial
needs and find nonmaterial ways to satisfy them would require much less
material ad energy throughputs and would provide much higher levels of
human fulfillment."
Eric:
