06 February 2017
I have had two experiences now in the past three months where I
am participating in a working session with some really bright people and we are
tasked with the following hypothetical situation: The president has entrusted
us with the power to suggest solutions towards creating a sustainable,
resilient, successful country, he will do whatever we say, and there are no
resource limits. And both times colleagues go straight into focusing on the
current problems and then moving away from these problems. And both times I
have suggested the opposite. More time-consuming, sure, but what if we actually
did some visioning first. What would the country look like if it were
successful? What does 'successful' mean? First we have to agree on that. We are
so stuck on the problems that we don't bother to look at what the situation
would be like if we did not have those problems at all.
The late Donella Meadows, gave a very powerful
speech
in the early 1990s on exactly this. She said that vision is the most vital
step. If we don't know where we want to go, it makes little difference that we
make progress. If you think about it, we, at the moment, think limitless growth
is success, but in fact it is only the process. We have, however, never really
questioned if limitless growth, as the process, really does bring success to a
country (and are in fact actually finding that it is often quite the opposite).
Donella shares a story in her speech that I thought illustrates vision as a
vital step before implementation very beautifully: In the 1980s she ran a
series of workshops intended to figure out how to end hunger. The participants
were some of the world's best nutritionists, agronomists, economists,
demographers, ecologists, and field workers in development. So, in other words,
the people who were devoting their lives in one way or another to ending world
hunger. Her colleague, Peter Senge of MIT, who helped her design these
workshops, suggested that she opens each one by first asking: 'What wold the
world be like if there were no hunger?'
She made the request quite visionary, i.e. asked them to describe not the world
they thought they could achieve, or the world they were willing to settle for,
but the world they truly wanted.
What she got was anger, frustration and refusal to do the task. Some of the
comments were 'visions are fantasies, talking about them is a waste of time',
'the fact that so many people go hungry is enough to propel use forward', 'I
never really thought about it', and 'visions are dangerous, and often
unrealistic'. After much discussion, she got a little deeper. And deeper. And
finally, she got to the bottom of it, when one person said 'I have a vision,
but it would make me feel childish and vulnerable to say it out loud. I don't
know you all well enough to do this'.
That remark was an eye-opener to her. Why is it that we can share our cynicism,
complaints and frustrations without hesitation with perfect strangers, but we
can't share our dreams? Whose idea of reality forces us to be realistic? When
were we taught and by whom, to suppress our visions? She maintains that the
consequences of a culture of cynicism is tragic. 'If we can't speak for
our real desires, we can only marshal information, models, and implementation
towards what we think we can get, not toward what we really want. We only
half-try.'
I share with you
her
vision of a world without hunger:
'In my vision of the end of hunger, every child is born into the
world wanted, treasured, and lovingly cared for. Because of that, many fewer
children are born and not one of them is wasted. Every person can become all
that she or he is capable of becoming, in a world that is beautiful, where cultures
are diverse and tolerant, where information flows freely, untainted by
cynicism. In my vision food is raised and prepared as consciously and lovingly
as are children, with profound respect for nature’s contribution as well as
that of people. In a world without hunger I can take care of my own nearby
community and be taken care of by it, knowing that other people in other
communities are also doing their caring close at hand. There would be plenty of
problems to solve — I want problems to solve – but I could travel anywhere in
the world without encountering deprivation, terror, or ugliness. What I would
find, everywhere, would be natural integrity, human productivity, working
communities, and the full range of human emotions, but dominated not by fear and
therefore greed, but by security, serenity, and joy.
I
could go on. I can see this vision clearly and in detail. I can see the farms;
I can see the kitchens. But you get the point.'
We are all very ready, always, to criticize what is wrong with our community,
city, country. We very rarely vision what our ideal community, city, country
would look like.
Through this article, and inspired by Donella, I ask you to build your vision
of a sustainable world. What kind of a world do you want to live in? Imagine
not the absence of problems, but the presence of blessings. Of course, a
sustainable world is one in which renewable resources are used no faster than
they regenerate, in which population is at least stable, in which prices
internalise real costs, in which there is no hunger or poverty, in which there
is true, enduring democracy. What else? Donella uses this guide:
'The best way to find your answer to that question is to go to a
quiet place, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and put yourself in the
middle of that sustainable world. Don’t push, don’t worry, and don’t try to
figure it out. Just close your eyes and see what you see. Or, as often happens
for me, hear what you hear, smell what you smell, feel what you feel. Many of
my visions are bright, detailed, and visual, but some of the most profound ones
have come not through “seeing,” but through sensing in other ways.
In
short, relax, trust yourself and see what happens. If nothing happens, don’t
worry, try again sometime, or let your visionary talent surface in your
sleeping dreams.
But
keep asking yourself: What would my home be like in a sustainable world? What
would it feel like to wake up there in the morning? Who else would live there;
how would it feel to be with them? (Remember this is what you WANT, not what
you’re willing to settle for.) Where would energy come from, and water, and
food? What kinds of wastes would be generated and where would they go? When you
look out the window or step out the door, what would it look like, if it looked
the way you really want? Who else lives near you (human and non-human)? How do
you all interrelate? Go around your neighborhood and community and see it as
clearly as you can. How is it arranged, so that the children and the old people
and everyone in between will be surrounded by security and happiness and
beauty?
What
kind of work do you do in this sustainable world? What is your particular and
special role? With whom do you do it? How do you work together and how are you
compensated? How do you get to work? (Do you have to “get” to work? Is “work” a
distinguishable activity in your ideal world? Is it separate from the rest of
life?)
Travel
farther in your vision, to surrounding communities. Look not only at the
physical systems that sustain them — water, energy, food, materials — but look
at how they relate, what they exchange with each other, how they know of each
other. How do they make joint decisions? How do they resolve conflicts? (How do
you WANT them to resolve conflicts?) How do they treat different kinds of
people, young and old, male and female, intelligent and talented to different
degrees and in different ways? ?) How do they fit within nature? How do they
treat, how do they think about plants and animals, soils and waters, stones and
stars?
Look
at your nation (if your visionary world has nations — if it doesn’t, what does
it have?). How does it meet its physical needs sustainably? How does it make
decisions, resolve conflicts within and without its borders? What do your
people know of other people, and how do they think about them? How much and
what kinds of people and goods and information travel between your place and
other places? Is your nation and your world diverse or homogeneous (the way you
WANT it, not the way you expect)?
How
does it feel to live in this world? What kind of consciousness or worldview, or
tolerance of diverse worldviews do people use to keep things sustainable? What
changes in this world, and what stays the same? What is the pace of everyday
life? How fast, if at all, do people travel and by what means? What fascinates
them? What kinds of problems do they work on? What do they regard as progress?
What makes them laugh?
Whatever
you can see, or can’t see, keep looking. NOT being able to see something
in a vision may be as meaningful as seeing it.'
Of course, as she says, having a vision is not enough. But it certainly is the
first step.
Image: Donella Meadows, author of the book 'Limits to Growth', one of the
founders of the Balaton Group, and early advocate of systems thinking. Photo
Credit: Donella Meadows Institute.
Dr. Dana Meadows: Envisioning A Sustainable World from
UVM Continuing Education on
Vimeo.