{"id":3281,"date":"2012-10-11T10:10:50","date_gmt":"2012-10-11T14:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=3281"},"modified":"2012-10-11T10:12:43","modified_gmt":"2012-10-11T14:12:43","slug":"reconstituting-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=3281","title":{"rendered":"Reconstituting the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Woke up this morning in a state of fear.\u00a0 That hasn\u2019t happened in a long time.\u00a0 After breakfast I really went downhill.\u00a0 Then I realized that I had been ruminating all morning on speeches about justifying myself in the face of someone who had judged me unfairly.\u00a0 Not a good idea.\u00a0 STOP THAT!\u00a0\u00a0 So I went to my \u201cResource\u201d notebook and found Paul Hawken\u2019s commencement address<\/a> to the class of 2009.\u00a0 Ah!\u00a0 that\u2019s what I needed.\u00a0 Paul Hawken can always bring me out of a slump.\u00a0 Here are some paragraphs:<\/p>\n

This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food —but all that is changing.<\/p>\n

Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you\u00a0are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.<\/p>\n

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice,and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote,
\n“So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those
\nwho, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power,
\nreconstitute the world.”<\/p>\n

There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries,\u00a0and slums.<\/p>\n

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more.<\/p>\n

This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who\u00a0loves us all in such a huge way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woke up this morning in a state of fear.\u00a0 That hasn\u2019t happened in a long time.\u00a0 After breakfast I really went downhill.\u00a0 Then I realized that I had been ruminating all morning on speeches about justifying myself in the face … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-depression"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}