Last night I spent some time talking to my step-kid, who is a teenager, about the future. He was wondering if there’s any point to doing things that support the health of the planet because it might already be too late. Looking around at the American kids his age, for every kid who seems interested in justice, climate, or any other kind of activism, there seem to be 10 more who are coveting Jordans, eating hamburgers, and spending hours a day on social media. What does this portend for the future? It’s a self-reinforcing paradox that is not confined to teenagers.
There are radical changes needed to shift things and even the people I am around who are doing deep thinking about these things often manifest what seem like irreconcilable dissonances between their behaviour and thought. We, either as humans or specifically as people who live in this dominance-driven culture, seem to regard self-honesty and taking the actions within our power as impositions, as “what someone else thinks we should do.” For Americans (and Canadians), if ‘doing the right thing’ might involve any level of ‘not doing what I want right now,’ then it becomes a weird political thing, or a way we shame one another.
There’s frequently a big gap between behaviour and viewpoint. Someone says they are very concerned about climate collapse, who even work on green initiatives, but still eats beef or takes frequent flights. There are many folks in my world of ‘healthier tech’ who are posting and scrolling for hours a day. I have found myself among them. I know the challenge in choosing something different, something that may risk me being left out or feeling invisible. (Or not getting my package in two days for free).
This is the state of affairs when we’ve abdicated our freedom- we think that our individual actions “don’t matter” and that it’s all about what politicians or billionaires decide to do.
My experience is that it’s quite the opposite. When I am coming into a situation and feeling into my own complicity, I recognise my agency and can work towards solutions in an embodied way, in a way where I am not living in pure denial and cognitive dissonance. The process of divesting doesn’t happen all at once and I expect to be doing things that are out of alignment for all of this lifetime, but I’m closer to freedom when I see my behaviour and seek to be in more right relation to the earth and to other people. I’m more alive when I am not policing other people or waiting for someone to decide my fate while I consume and pleasure-seek.
This is why communities of practice are essential. Doing this work alone is nearly impossible. A community of practice helps me to feel like I am not alone in holding myself to account, and it also allows me to see into my blind spots, to recognise areas for growth that I was unaware of. In a community of practice, I encounter people who seem stone-cold real with themselves and people who are currently going through inquiries or challenges that I wrestled with in the past and have now worked through. I can see my growth and my opportunity to grow. I am able to feel the love in the practice, to feel the deep and unconditional regard I have for myself and other people as we do our best.
In a community of practice, we can begin to experience what the future might look like when we become forced to recognise out interdependence. Our survival depends on our ability to cooperate and collaborate when we don’t have predetermined hierarchies or state-enforced power. In disasters, people often come together for a time to help, to work toward common goals, to surpass their own idea of what they are capable of. I’ve found something quite similar when people come together to do their own work and to begin to develop relationships that reflect a sense of total inclusion, where we are fully welcome, there by choice, willing to contribute.
The structure of communities of successful communities of practice allows us to experience collective purpose, strong norming, reflection, being witnessed, and witnessing others. It makes everyone a welcomer, even when they are practicing for the first time. Strong structures allow for every person to be there by choice, for there to be no individual who matters more than others, to function even when someone with a role or responsibility isn’t able to participate or doesn’t show up. They function as a reflection of the complete dignity and autonomy of each member while simultaneously creating a container of total belonging and connection.
There are many things we might do to contribute to a future that, as Buckminster Fuller put it, works for ‘100% of humanity.” It’s a collective hallucination to believe some people are more entitled to anything than others, that any of us are not completely responsible for our own roles in creating the future, or that we are required to participate in systems of dominance and extraction. That doesn’t mean it’s as simple as saying ‘no’– but if we’re thinking along these lines, we can start to innovate in powerful ways. The most important thing I have to contribute is my own self-ownership, my own freedom, and a recognition that my honesty, openness, and willingness to practice emerge in collective.