a collection of over 60 essays and images crafting a topography for thriving
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Chris Byrne, MBA, ByrneGreen - San Francisco Bay Area, CA, USA
Progress comes from the Latin progressus ‘an advance,’ from the verb progredi, from pro- ‘forward’ + gradi ‘to walk.’
In modern western culture, this “walk forward” may be described as moving from a disparate or unrefined state to one of greater order. Here the cultural memory develops and is conserved; values and morals are established; institutions are forged; infrastructures are built; fortunes are made; and an inertia of history "progresses” into the future.
For example: fire is an integral aspect of “unmanaged” ecosystems. On regular occasion, a fire will burn through a landscape, disrupting niches and upsetting the established order. Indeed, some plants require fire to reproduce. When this relationship is intact, after a fire, the greater ecosystem is typically preserved, while providing an opportunity for the niches within it to reestablish, either by the same species or a new entrant exploiting the disruptive opportunity. In this way, the Earth has evolved by dancing with Kali — the goddess of creation and destruction.
In the modern human construct, there seems to be a mortal fear of destruction, or a desire to overcome it, or both. We avoid Kali. Because of this bias, we struggle to avoid the inevitable, to suppress the fire in both our inhabited landscapes and our social institutions. In the absence of the “cool” seasonal fire of rebirth, ecosystems become crowded and in danger of a catastrophic generational fire. Likewise, corporations become “too big to fail” for fear of the consequences of what their absence may do to the larger business ecosystem. But “business as usual” is itself a cultural construct: the idea that you can predict the curves and trends ahead by driving through the view of the rearview mirror.
This destructive force is not necessarily something to be wished for, but inevitably it will come. However, once it arrives — in either the greater society or the personal realm (such as a lost job or ended relationship) — embracing its role in future advancement may be a more fruitful path than denying its potential or resenting its appearance. In this way, we can embrace the creative "re-struction" as a component of developing a more thrivable relationship with each other and with the Earth we call home.
