Possibility

"Don't be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done."

Paul Hawken

Thoughts for a Thursday morning in the sixth week of the COVID 19 Pandemic Stay Home Save Lives world: 

What if we respond to a suggestion or idea put forward by a friend, our children, anyone ... with; let's see what's good about this and a genuine interest and detached ego, rather than shooting it down with all the impediments that come to mind? 

Hey, what if we stopped trying to have all the answers and let some of our questions lead us to curious and exploratory places and embrace not knowing so we can find out more and not limit ourselves to what we believe we know. 

What if Interest, Curiousity and Learning could be come our natural state?? 

What if we didn't have to judge everything as good or bad, right or wrong, fair or unfair and we let empathy and respect for all guide our thoughts and actions ... 

Hey guys, what if we could change the world because we stopped telling ourselves we can't??

Cheers

Jeanne

Paul Hawken

http://www.paulhawken.com/biography/  

 Paul Hawken is an environmental entrepreneur, author and activist who has dedicated his life to environmental sustainability and changing the relationship between business and the environment. He is one of the environmental movement’s leading voices, and a pioneering architect of corporate reform with respect to ecological practices. His work includes founding successful, ecologically conscious businesses, writing about the impacts of commerce on living systems, and consulting with heads of state and CEOs on economic development, industrial ecology, and environmental policy. Paul is Founder of Project Drawdown, a non-profit dedicated to researching when and how global warming can be reversed. The organization maps and models the scaling of one hundred substantive technological, social, and ecological solutions to global warming. 

Paul has appeared in numerous media including the Today Show, Bill Maher, Larry King, Talk of the Nation, Charlie Rose, and has been profiled or featured in hundreds of articles including the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Washington Post, Business Week, Esquire, and US News and World Report. His writings have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Resurgence, New Statesman, Inc, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Mother Jones, Orion, Libération, and other publications. 

Paul authors articles, op-eds, and peer-reviewed papers, and has written eight books including five national bestsellers: The Next Economy (Ballantine 1983), Growing a Business (Simon & Schuster 1987), and The Ecology of Commerce (HarperCollins 1993) Blessed Unrest (Viking, 2007), and Drawdown, The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming (Penguin). The Ecology of Commerce was voted as the #1 college text on business and the environment by professors in 67 business schools. Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (Little Brown, September 1999) co-authored with Amory Lovins, has been read and referred to by several heads of state including President Bill Clinton who called it one of the five most important books in the world during his tenure as President. His books have been published in over 50 countries in 30 languages. Growing a Business became the basis of a 17-part PBS series, which he hosted and produced. The program, which explored the challenges and pitfalls of starting and operating socially responsive companies, was shown on television in 115 countries and reached more than 100 million people. Paul co-authored and edited Drawdown in collaboration with its extraordinary research team. He is currently writing Carbon, The Business of Life, to be published by Penguin RandomHouse. 

Paul has founded several companies, starting in the 1960s with Erewhon, one of the first natural food companies in the U.S. that relied solely on sustainable agricultural methods. He went on in 1979 to co-found Smith & Hawken, the retail and catalog garden company. In 2009 Paul founded OneSun, an energy company focused on ultra low-cost solar based on green chemistry and biomimicry that is now known as Energy Everywhere.

In 1965, Paul worked with Martin Luther King Jr.’s staff in Selma, Alabama prior to the historic March on Montgomery. As press coordinator, Paul registered members of the press, issued credentials, gave updates and interviews on national radio, and acted as a marshal for the final march. That same year, he worked in New Orleans as a staff photographer for the Congress of Racial Equality, focusing on voter registration drives in Bogalusa, Louisiana and the panhandle of Florida, and photographing the Ku Klux Klan in Meridian, Mississippi, after three civil rights workers were tortured and killed. In Meridian, he was assaulted and seized by Klan members, but escaped due to FBI surveillance and intervention. Paul has spoken, conducted research, and traveled extensively throughout the world, undertaking journeys into insurgent-held territories of Burma to research tropical teak deforestation, as well as a 1999 humanitarian/photojournalistic trek to war-torn Kosovo .

As a speaker, Paul has given keynote addresses to the Liberal Party of Canada, the King of Sweden at his inaugural Environmental Seminar, American Bookseller’s Association, Urban Land Institute, SRI International, Harvard University, Stanford University, the Wharton School, Cornell University, Prime Minister of New Zealand’s Conference on Natural Capitalism, U.S. Department of Commerce, Australian Business Council, Yale University and Yale University Commencement, University of California, Berkeley Commencement, France’s Ministry of Agriculture, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Prince of Wales Conference on Business and the Environment—Cambridge University, Commonwealth Club, Herman Miller, National Wildlife Federation, State of Washington, American Society of Landscape Architects, American Institute of Architects, American Institute of Graphic Arts, American Solar Energy Association, Apple, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Cleveland City Club, Conference Board, U.S. Forest Service, Ontario Hydro, Environment Canada, EPA, and several hundred others. PBS named his 2009 commencement speech at the University of Portland the best commencement speech of the year.

Paul has served on the board of many environmental organizations including Point Foundation (publisher of the Whole Earth Catalogs), Center for Plant Conservation, Conservation International, Trust for Public Land, Friends of the Earth, and National Audubon Society. He has received numerous awards and recognitions, including: Green Cross Millennium Award for Individual Environmental Leadership presented by Mikhail Gorbachev in 2003; World Council for Corporate Governance in 2002; Small Business Administration “Entrepreneur of the Year” in 1990; Utne “One Hundred Visionaries who could Change our Lives” in 1995; Western Publications Association “Maggie” award for “Natural Capitalism” as the best Signed Editorial/Essay” in 1997; Creative Visionary Award by the International Society of Industrial Design; Design in Business Award for environmental responsibility by the American Center for Design; Council on Economic Priorities’ 1990 Corporate Conscience Award; Metropolitan Magazine Editorial Award for the 100 best people, products and ideas that shape our lives; the Cine Golden Eagle award in video for the PBS program “Marketing” from Growing a Business; California Institute of Integral Studies Award “For Ongoing Humanitarian Contributions to the Bay Area Communities”; Esquire Magazine award for the best 100 People of a Generation (1984). In 2014 he was named one of the three Pioneers of Sustainability along with Professors Peter Senge and Michael Porter. Paul has received six honorary doctorates. In 2019, the National Council for Science and the Environment granted him a Lifetime Achievement Award on Science, Service, and Leadership.

We don't get where we are going by waking up one morning and "voila", there we are. We get there by one step at a time increments and we know the first step is the hardest because we can talk ourselves out of almost anything; too hard, I don't have the brains for it, don't have the strength for it, don't have time for it, a thousand other rationals... but one step here and one step there can get us places we didn't know we could go... Life's a journey take a step ... everything is impossible until we take a step!

John Prine got it right

  "I found it easier to make up songs than to learn other people's songs."
John Prine

"And daddy, won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry, my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away "

John Prine - Paradise

"Sam Stone came home
To his wife and family
After serving in the conflict overseas
And the time that he served
Had shattered all his nerves
And left a little shrapnel in his knees
But the morphine eased the pain
And the grass grew round his brain
And gave him all the confidence he lacked
With a purple heart and a monkey on his back "

John Prine - Sam Stone

"We lost Davy in the Korean war
And I still don't know what for, don't matter anymore 

You know that old trees just grow stronger
And old rivers grow wilder every day
Old people just grow lonesome
Waiting for someone to say, "Hello in there, hello"  

So if you're walking down the street sometime
And spot some hollow ancient eyes
Please don't just pass 'em by and stare
As if you didn't care, say, "Hello in there, hello" 

John Prine - Hello in There

Yup, John Prine got lot's of things right... and I honour this man for sharing his way of looking at the world with us. 

We can learn a lot listening to these songs:

look around, look behind the scenes, look with compassion, 

look with eyes that see beyond the oversize domes we've built around our own little lives 

and see that the hollow eyes and burnt out shells of the people whose dreams have faded are the reflections of our own eyes

Morphine is not a cure

Building a fortress to hide in is not a cure

The cure is to write your own songs, the ones in your heart

No one can take away our freedom, we give away the freedom that is meaningful 

When we fight for the freedom to profit from each chunk of coal carried away on Mister Peabody's train

As if we can buy paradise by building monuments to our egos

And our dream, like paradise is squandered bit by bit for a little hits of pleasure that leave us wanting more

And the filters on our eyes block the suffering of others

And we end up on our islands of all encompassing self importance

Waiting for someone to say hello in there, hello

So let's take a break from struggling to make the world fit in to what we want it to be and

Listen to John Prine or any music that makes you feel and

live a little, love a little, dance a little, cry a little, sing a little, be a little ... just let go a little

Cheers

Jeanne

http://performingsongwriter.com/john-prine-songs/  

"Noise-maker, noise-maker
You have no complaint
You are what your are and you ain't what you ain't
So listen up buster, and listen up good
Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood"

John Prine - Dear Abby 

Absurdly right vs Rigidly easy

“Secretly we’re all a little more absurd than we make ourselves out to be.” 

JK Rowling

"We have to choose between what is right, and what is easy.”   

JK Rowling

(These were not quoted together, and I'm going to share my context on them which may not be what JK Rowling meant... sorry JK hope this isn't maligning your words.)

As much as I try to empathize and see things through someone else's perspective the only person I can ever get deep inside of is me (even that requires a lot of work). And the inside me is not limited by convention and is often absurd, and I like that, but it sometimes I belittle and shut it down with the outside me; my outside voice. The outside me that tries to fit in to the constructs of our society and its expectations. The outside me that is serious, impossibly rigid and hard to live up to.  That outside voice is critical and far less compassionate and empathetic to the inside me than it is to other people which is also absurd. Paradoxically that critical outside voice is the voice of "easy". It is "easy" because it does not challenge society, the so called "values" that we are conditioned to conform to. "Right" we feel inside, but if we choose based on that we have to face being different, being ostracized, sometimes bullied and ridiculed. If we choose "Right" we have to be prepared to stand strong because society is going to throw everything it can at us to protect its homogeneous values and conformity which it thinks makes it secure. 

This is why the Harry Potter books and JK Rowling's experience are such a welcome joy to read.  She exposes the inside and outside worlds of her characters and the stories hinge on choices made between what is right and what is easy. There are hard fought battles between the two  and then when right wins the victory is sweet, liberating and the easy is exposed as a hole that, like quicksand, sucks its victims deeper into the darkness of the isolation of the individual losing their imagination and absurd-ability each time it is chosen.

The choice between what is right and what is easy translates into the choice between what our inside says and what the outside expects. 

And it is really hard to trust that voice inside because sometimes it seems ridiculously incongruous with the outside world and I would like to say that I think the world needs us to be a little more absurd and not take ourselves quite so seriously!!

Cheers

Jeanne

life tool

I am the most powerful tool in my life and I will use me wisely 

from Instagram tagged as Life Meme.  

Into the second month of staying at home except for essentials and there is little to reassure us that the COVID19 virus pandemic will be under control enough in another month to lift any of the restrictions we currently living under.  There is a link below for self isolation advice from Chris Hadfield. 

I've being taking Steve Martin's Masterclass on comedy, and one of my big takeaways is that we (people) are "thought machines" and material is everywhere! I can't imagine Chris Hadfield or Steve Martin being bored in isolation. I think that using me wisely means choosing what it is that I want in the moment, in the day, the month, my life and focusing on those. What an opportunity right now to use this powerful tool that is me! 

https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/self-isolation-advice-from-chris-hadfield-1.4864592  

Cheers

Jeanne

Science as the answer to go forward

“And what happens when you stop innovating? Everyone else catches up, your jobs go overseas, and then you cry foul: Ooohh, they’re paying them less over there, and the playing field is not level. Well, stop whining and start innovating.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson , Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier  

And what happens when you focus on what is gone... you stop wondering what is possible and how to learn from events and experiment with something new. I think scientists have a lot to offer... not only are they going to save people physically by discovering vaccines and cures, they are modelling a mindset that looks for solutions and new ways instead of clinging in desperation to the status quo and what we had. 

I see empathy as the number one way to move on, this is not about me or you or my country or your country, this is about the collective us which includes all things on this planet.

Cheers Jeanne

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/04/01/coronavirus-neil-degrasse-tyson-ann-druyan-science-way-out-opinion/5100848002/ 

On coronavirus crisis, science is the way out: Q&A with Neil deGrasse Tyson and Ann Druyan

 Can science save us from the new coronavirus? With the internet awash in both sound science and pseudoscience, how can people know what to believe? Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and Ann Druyan, creator of the “Cosmos” series now airing on the National Geographic channel, discussed these and other issues with the USA TODAY Editorial Board. Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity:

Q. How can science and history help people navigate this difficult and scary time?

Druyan: We are 50 years into a period when scientists have been sounding the alarm … telling us that if we don't stop living the way we're living and doing what we're doing, we are dooming our civilization. And nothing, during all that time, has been able to awaken us from our sleepwalking until now. These are the days the Earth stood still. This is the first time when our whole civilization has suddenly realized that nature will not be deceived, that we can have leaders who manipulate us and deceive us, but nature will not be lied to. And so, at this moment, everyone is turning to the scientists, looking for a vaccine, looking for a remedy. Knowing science and history is the only way out of this, because if there is going to be a remedy, it will come from science.

Q. Are we in some sort of giant scientific experiment?

Tyson: The power of science is unique in our culture because of its capacity to predict future events, not only based on rhythms of the past, as ancients have done, but also our modern understandings of how nature works and what our interaction with nature is. And you run these models, you get the best understanding available, and we make a prediction. Do people put their head in the sand? Do they say, I choose not to believe that, not realizing, as Ann just said, that nature is the ultimate judge, jury and executioner of your ideas? So, yeah, we're in an experiment (in whether the world will listen to scientists). And when we come out on the other side, we may be better off for it, but it's quite costly to have gotten there.

Q. How can the average person distinguish between the real science and the pseudo science that they see on the internet?

Tyson: It's hard. What does the internet do? It gives you access to information unfiltered. Before the internet, there were these gates: editorial boards at newspapers, editors at publishing houses. There were these gateways. And yes, occasionally, crap would get through, but basically you could pass judgment on the likelihood of something being correct based on the editorial traditions of the entity that you were referencing. That's gone. So much more of that burden, because it is a burden, is now on the shoulders of the individual, and so this is why science is more than just how much you know. Science is a toolkit for how to query information. Science literacy is a way of thinking, a way of engaging the act and the art of asking questions.

Druyan: I completely agree with what you said, Neil. Science is a way of seeing absolutely everything. It's that baloney detection kit that (my late husband) Carl (Sagan) wrote about.

Q. Scientists who make great efforts at public education and communication sometimes get dismissed by their peers as popularizers or generalists. So doesn’t the scientific community bear some of the responsibility here?

Druyan: Yes, that has been true in the past. Carl was a full-time scientist who authored or coauthored 600 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and yet he got blackballed from the National Academy of Sciences. Why? Because of this bias that we have against sharing this knowledge, the bias of the priesthood, that wants its arcane jargon to be the secret language of the lucky few.

Tyson: There’s blame enough to go around, but we're still talking about people who are in charge who are denying science. They're the ones with the actual power. Scientists don't wield the power that politicians do or that the electorate does. To imply that we might have a rise of flat-earthers because scientists historically were prevented from communicating with the public — there are other forces going on out there that require all of our collective effort, media as well, to try to fight.

Q. Are human beings bad at rational risk assessment?

Tyson: That's something that is just ignored in school. When my wife and I had our kids, I got a hold of a book that assessed all the causes of death at every age of your life, ranked by highest risk to lowest risk at every age. And you can watch things transform as you get older. Certain causes of death go away, others rise up. My wife and I coordinated to reduce the risks that were maximum according to the statistics, not that we ignored what our feelings were about a risk. That still matters, because that's why we're all living human beings.

Q. Is it hard to persuade "young invincibles" to stay home during the coronavirus pandemic?

Tyson: That message took a while, because the bars were all filled with the 20-somethings for so long, but they all have a grandparent (who could get infected). I think that's what ultimately did it. Otherwise, in a free country, if the risk you take only affects you, then the most you can do is communicate to that person what those risks are, and then they make their own decisions. But it's no longer a free country if that person taking risk with their own life puts your life at risk. That's an important message to communicate.

Q. Now that a lot of parents are home-schooling, how can they try to get their kids interested in science?

Tyson: Anyone who's had kids knows that they're born into this world curious. They're curious about everything. Their curiosity operates on a level where at a young enough age that curiosity can actually kill them. But what parents often do is constrain that curiosity to the point where the curiosity is viewed as something bad. Managed curiosity is something that you don't have to instill within children. Since they're born with it, you just have to, sort of, not get in their way.

Q. Is the pandemic likely to lead to more focus on the life sciences and more people studying these sciences in medical school?

Tyson: Often, the greatest investments that we make are the “I don't want to die" investments: I fear that I have an enemy, so let me have money flow like rivers. It turns out, a virus is an enemy. It's an enemy that's attacking everyone. … That virus doesn't carry a passport. It can move across borders at will. So in a sense, it is a war, and people behave differently when they fear death than any other way that I know. Will this prompt more people to go into biology? Most certainly.

Q. Will this crisis bridge the gap between scientists and people who are skeptical about scientific pronouncements?

Druyan: I think this is a moment, a singular moment in my lifetime. … Maybe we'll emerge from this with a greater respect for what the scientists are saying. But it's a two-way street. The scientists have to speak with a kind of openness and reality and humility that is compelling.