Last week I returned from Southeast Asia and the chance of a lifetime. I spent 14 days traveling by boat along the Irrawaddy River, 600 miles in a remote center of Myanmar (Burma). This is a country frozen in time. There is no Internet, no cell phones or landlines. Cars are only in big cities, where they are used as taxis found. You can not use your credit card, because Myanmar is not connected to the global banking system. The vast majority of the populationlives in what we understand the view, the poverty of subsistence, have food, mostly from the garden and animals, and other essentials. Children are educated and seem happy. Family and Buddhism are at the heart of village life. An archaeologist traveling with us told us that the small villages that we visited live in the Iron Age.
But the most obvious difference is that I saw is that there is no culture of consumerism and technology as our own fuel endless economicExpansion. village life is simple and sustainable. It 'was a wonderful opportunity to live in reasonable harmony with nature, as can be seen as a species lived for hundreds of thousands of years.
But as the days rolled on the river with a darker story unfolds. I witnessed the systematic looting of the country's large reserves of natural and cultural resources through the "general" as the military dictatorship is called. We passed miles of bare slopes like a raft after raft of old growthTeak floated down the river to Mandalay and Yangon. The generals were cutting of old growth teak forests for decades. It takes at least 30 years, so they continued up the river to collect only the strong demand continues to grow, especially from Japan to a mature teak tree. They are also aggressively gemstone mining and gold pumps and export part of their shop floor and send it with oil pipeline to China.
Although it would be easy to denigrate the ruthless dictatorshipruled the country with an iron fist, I'm not going. I want you to remain focused on the broader issue of sustainability. Finally, the generals did not loot the country if there is such a demand suppressed by "developed" countries and emerging countries to support our lifestyle of consumption and sustained economic expansion.
Spending a few days in Bangkok on the way home made the situation even clearer. The last time I was in Bangkok 1986It 'been a vibrant city of two three storey buildings, food vendors and tuk tuk on the streets. Last month we flew into a modern city with streets, luxury cars and a swelling middle class. When I looked over the city from the 30th floor of the Millennium Hilton, I was stunned. Skyscrapers on the horizon in all directions as I could see through the smog, dominates. The pace of economic development, the display of extreme wealth and mass consumption of the middle class mushroomsit was fantastic. I also knew that greed played by the same consumption in India, China and most Southeast Asian countries. Together, these countries represent a significant percentage of world population. That is, if this change in values and lifestyles of subsistence for the hole insatiable consumption, is in the last two decades, a significant upward trend in the amount of environmental damage. What the generals do in a small country of great economic growth mirrorsShot in Asia, looking for the consumption of the West.
How did we get here?
Many of you have heard: If you get a frog in a pot of hot water on the fire directly. But if the cold water and slowly turn the heat will simply sit there until it is reduced to death. If the rate of temperature change is gradual enough, did not notice that there is always hot. We are the frog and the pace of change in water temperature with the rate ofglobal environmental degradation.
"As we so out of balance with our natural world?" I wondered how I felt a pain plundered world acknowledged the pain many of us take as depression, anxiety occurs and a sense of meaninglessness.
What we need to redress the balance?
Most of us try, the more "green." But our efforts are barely maintaining such action. We are recycling, driving hybrid cars, changing our light bulbs and put on a sweaterrather than relying on the fire. And yes, we are faced with alternative energy sources and create green jobs. But what was clear to me in Thailand is that our ongoing efforts a drop in the ocean, when what we really need is a fundamental social transformation.
The only thing we turn to a fundamental change in worldview and values. Too many of us lack of familiarity with the natural world. Instead of understanding our place in the natural world, we see ourselves as separate andthis strange relationship that create incalculable environmental damage.
It's not too late to change, but we have the temptation, our index of resisting outside media, politics and the point of modern culture. The transition from I need to go through a transformation of contemporary culture, I'm talking about, that culture is based on the illusion of separation from nature.
We must start with ourselves through the healing of our relationship with the natural world that sustains us. HowTo heal, we focus our identity and our deepest values with human nature. We also meet a universal desire for a sense of oneness with the universe and all creation. We must find our niche – our soul – and discover the special place in our world and our sole purpose. We may think our soul as our true place in nature that biologists that our ecological function, the only way that each of us is meant to serve and retain the name of the web of life.
How can weYou can find our niche? The easiest way to start is to spend time in nature, appreciate its beauty. They soon learn that nature reflects our soul and reveals our common goal: our gift to the world and our potential waiting to be discovered. And since we are fully mature in each of our whole, this unique gift to the world has meaning and healing in our lives. The world can not be filled until they are full. Like us, we awaken to the universe.
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