Moreness

[rubyslippers]

Originally Posted by River

It does no good to go to war with our emotional habits or well-worn habits of thought....
Indeed, inner wars only lead to wounds and scars, pain and confusion.

We should be patient and kind with ourselves as we unfold into fresh new ways of life. Don't push the river. Love the process. Put down the weapons.

I give you this Venn diagram. Two circles overlapping. Simple. In one circle is the old familiar habit of thought and feeling. In the other circle is the emerging "paradigm". Your work here is to cherish both and to notice, nay familiarize yourself with the overlapping space. That space is a bridge. The world is a bridge. Life is a bridge. Do not expect to arrive in unchanging territory.

Or practice this way: Hold your arms out with hands facing one another at a distance. Palm facing palm at a distance. Each hand is one of those circles in the Venn. Very, very slowly, mindful of what each hand represents, ... very slowly bring your palms together in touch. Slowly! Notice what happens. Watch carefully.

be your own advocate and friend as you advocate and care for friends outside yourself

[River]

Originally Posted by rubyslippers

"Commoditization...is this also the root of capitalism?

Yup.

Money is a symptom of scarcity (Scare City?), but also a cause of it. Seems to be a chicken and egg thing, hard to know which came first. What we now know of as money must have emerged gradually in evolutionary steps.

Lovers of capitalism will insist that capitalism creates wealth by creating capital, but I eschew the popular conception of wealth and adhere to one hinted at in the etymology of the word, which roots the word to a word meaning well-being. I understand well-being in eco-social terms, that is, in a communally contextualized way. No individual living in a sick or impoverished community can be said to have wealth. No destructive drawing down of "natural capital" or "social capital" can be said to be productive of wealth. So most which goes by the term "economics" smells like BS to me!

I believe our species emerged in a condition of "original abundance," and that
our first stage of "economic development" was rooted in sharing and cooperating. It was economically and socially egalitarian. That was before we
settled into permanent agriculturally based cities, which is to say before we became "civilized". And, today, I think the best thing we can all do is try to go home to our original mode of community and economy, which was about self-provisioning, sharing, cooperating. We can create many of the conditions of original abundance again, but it will take a lot of imagination and some elbow grease.