Radical acceptance
In my quest to explore how we can help ourselves, and each other, in these times of change, one of the major topics that pop up for me so far is one of radical acceptance. Of being totally honest about where we stand as a person, a community, and a (global) society.
Studying yoga philosophy completely changed my perspective on what acceptance means. I always thought it was a little bit of a wishy-washy way of saying: “Well… this is too complex to tackle so I will just let it be, which is actually giving up but I will give it a spiritually sounding term so then we should be good to go”. Or: ”Well actually I never gave a damn in the first place so let’s just move on”. Or: “An annoying way of telling people to ‘just get over it’ because you do not know how to deal with someone in pain”.
But no. Acceptance means: staring down the truth. Seeing what is. Being honest and clear about the situation you are in. Not because you like it, nor believe it is ok, or fair, or because you plan to do nothing about it, but because it is the starting point for change.
If you do not see and dare to acknowledge where you stand - you may be in denial, numbed, or in some rose-colored version of what is really going on. And those are impossible places to create change from.
Change has to happen here, on earth, in the material world, in your daily life, in 'reality'.
So one main question that we are pondering at Uncivilize is:
What if... we truly accept where we stand and acknowledge that we created a global society in which we not only exhaust the earth but also ourselves?
Our civilization is the first to use non-renewable energy. This allowed us to build complex tech structures (power grid, internet), and an advanced society that relies on them.
We built our society on the availability of abundant, affordable energy. But, we ravaged our reserves. And it is unlikely that we will 'innovate' our way out of it. That we can sustain the global, industrial economy on sustainable, renewable energy. That everything can stay the same.
And, even if technology could ‘save’ us - are we happy with our lives? We are exhausted, anxious and depressed. We did not only burn up the earth's resources but also ourselves.
How can we recognize that we face both a material ánd a spiritual crisis?