L.O.V.E. — Living Our Vital Evolution

It’s the driving force behind a new economic model — it’s the north star and the guiding principle

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

I’ve been gratified to learn that there is an increasing number of people thinking and talking about alternative economic models. As I haven’t exactly been connected with a community of people engaged in the topic, I’ve been plugging away on my own with this growing feeling that it’s time for something entirely new. And there is a point at which we have to consider that we may not be crazy for holding such thoughts that buck the system, that we might just be on to something vital for our time.

In the comments to our post, The One Question We Need to Be Asking: Who Is It For?, emails received, conversations with a few friends, one of which is a global changemaker, I’m beginning to think that this is another example of changing culture. Like the Great Resignation that we’ve been podcasting about, like the #MeToo movement, BLM, tiny house, homesteading, minimalism, critical race theory, and so many other newish social movements that are bucking the system, maybe it’s time to bring this conversation into the fold.

When things (like an economic system) become so large and complex to which no single person can fully understand it, it becomes its own animal — moving, shifting, and evolving into something we would have never envisioned if we just sat down to devise a way of organizing our work and output to benefit the greater good.

I’m learning also that AI is changing the nature of software — that it’s developing algorithms so complex that no human can understand them. Which translates to, we have no idea what they’re really doing. It’s like Skynet, the fictional artificial intelligence from the Terminator movies that takes over the world and decides humans are the problem.

It’s easy to dismiss these correlations because it’s just SciFi, it’s not real. But where does SciFi come from? It comes from our imagination. And where does our imagination come from? It’s tapping into a cord of thought and emotion that runs through swaths of humanity. It’s a way of reflecting back to us (through art) what we’re thinking and feeling. It’s why so many poets are imprisoned for their words. Because the truth is threatening to those who resist change.

And when something becomes so large and complex as our current economic model, it truly does seem crazy to question it. But it’s become an animal to itself. It serves itself, not humanity, not nature, not those things that grow in the soil and crawl and fly and swim. It doesn’t serve the poor or those who are different. It doesn’t serve the wisdom keepers, the elderly, the artists, and poets. It doesn’t serve the whole of humanity. I would even go so far as to say that it doesn’t even serve the ones who think they’re in control, because it keeps them rooted in the illusion of control and stifles their spiritual development.

Most importantly, it doesn’t serve the future. It serves itself. It’s SciFi in the present. It’s Skynet that’s taken over, and the only reason it perpetuates itself is because we haven’t yet reached a critical mass of people willing to question it. But we’re headed there.

And in the meantime, it’s up to us, the growing cadre of radical thinkers to work it out. To think it through and prepare for the great change that’s coming. There are new models on the drawing board. I’ve mentioned Ubuntu Contributionism previously. There are others in the works. Crypto currencies and person-to-person trade offers an immediate way of replacing the monetary system. DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) is a way of coalescing people and resources to tackle large problems and potentially replace publicly held corporations and Wall Street altogether.

But how does it work? I’ve been asked. How do we transition? How do we tame the beast, or otherwise upend it entirely?

Well, I have an idea. It’s super simple and easy for anyone to understand. It’s called L.O.V.E., and it stands for Living Our Vital Evolution. It’s the underlying basis for a new economic model. The details of which can be worked out over time, with the overarching context being LOVE.

Living: It supports all biological life.

Our: It serves us — meaning all of us.

Vital: It’s our most important objective.

Evolution: It celebrates constant change and improvement.

The exchange of goods, the flow of resources, the care for the environment, the support of the elderly, the disabled, the autistic, the mentally ill, those with learning disabilities. We support future generations. We celebrate the movement toward harmony with nature. We love the dissenters and naysayers as much as the thought leaders and visionaries. We love all of it and all of us. It’s the driving force behind the new economic model. It’s the north star and the guiding principle.

It's so simple many will dismiss it as overly pat and idealistic. But it will work. It won’t be perfect. It will fail at times and regroup and readdress. But it will evolve continuously toward a greater good. And it will support the evolution of human consciousness.

So, what say you? Are you game? Are you willing to be a radical, a poet, a thinker, a changemaker, a disrupter? It’s not as hard as you think. You only need to embrace the notion that you’re not crazy for thinking this way and go forth and use your voice and employ your actions.

It’s not about the ROI or the GDP. It’s about the GIVE and the CARE and the LOVE. It’s not idealism, it’s realism. True realism — that we’re all connected and interdependent.

We can start the new model right here, right now — Living Our Vital Evolution.

Are you with us?

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