Unlearning: For Change Agents

Session Four: Unlearning Saving the World

In a story of interbeing, every act done in service and with love — no matter how small — has an effect on the world. In this session we explore a “theory of change” based not on force but on morphic resonance. We see how despair over the dim prospects for the world is based on the same story that has generated the current crisis. Then we can more fully inhabit a story in which hope is neither irrational nor naive, a story that turns us into a walking invitation for the world to become as beautiful as we imagine it.

Invitation: Unlearning Despair

Are you doing your part to create a more beautiful world? This session casts doubt onto the usefulness of that question. We do not and cannot know what the ultimate effect of our actions will be. Nor can we, as social beings, as interbeings, really call our actions our own. Therefore, we will fast from the stories of either self-importance or self-diminishment. We fast from questions of will we make it or won’t we. We fast from the voice that says we need to have a plan. We need not know how, in the end, the world will change. Letting go of that, we may become more attuned to the part we can play.

Session Transcripts

Many thanks to Laura Siegel and Stella Osorojos for transcribing these sessions!

All Session 4 – Unlearning Saving the World (transcript)

For Further Exploration

• Scaling Down
  Let me present a logic that has immersed me ever since I became aware of the state of the planet as a teenager: The world has some big problems right now. The crisis is urgent. There is no time to indulge in small, insignificant solutions that will be swept away by the tsunami of climate change, economic meltdown, nuclear holocaust, resource-scarcity fueled wars, and so forth. We need big solutions to big problems. Therefore, whatever you do on a local level, you’d better make sure it is scalable. You’d better make sure it can go viral, because otherwise its impact will be trivial….”(more)

• Truth
  From Chapter 33 of my book, The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible: “Ordinarily, it is through no mere act of will that we stand in the Story of Interbeing. It is a long process of healing the wounds of Separation, changing its habits, and discovering unexpected realms of reunion. Sometimes sudden and sometimes gradual, sometimes by hard work and sometimes by grace…”(more)

• A New Story of the People
  Our hearts know that a more beautiful world is possible; but our minds do not know how it’s possible. In this talk I explore how we can make the transition from the old story of separation, competition and self-interest to a new Story of the People.