Here’s an inspiring snippet from a recent post on WorldChanging (whose tagline is “change your thinking”) about the mainstreaming realization that America is broken, that something is seriously wrong:
“Common folks… are starting to understand that our ever-diminishing free time, the loss of sense of community, rising gas prices, the sub-prime mortgage implosion, and a whole range of other current societal problems are all pieces of a bigger puzzle. We’re starting to understand that all of this points toward a fundamental problem with the way America has designed and developed our communities over the past 60+ years. This shift in thinking among the American mainstream is beginning to bring about the popular and political will to rectify our past errors.”
While this may sound like a gloomy quote, I think it’s a hopeful one in that once enough people feel the negative impact on their lifestyle, they will realize that we have to make some bold changes in the interest of our collective well-being, leading to a flourishing of public/private partnerships designed to restore much-needed community (real community, not Starbucks-baked community) as the foundation for improving our quality of life.
Still trying to figure out how to incorporate images into this blog to enhance the overall experience.
So this is a test post from Flickr… and you, lucky readers, are my guinea pigs.
This magazine spread (displayed in the window of a little wine bar in the West Village) caught my eye this morning as I biked past.
The caption (lower left) reads:
The eclectic group of artists and writers form Artistes Sans Hollywood-X, a salon that meets on the second Tuesday of each month in the West Village. “It is our responsibility as the cultural conscience of our nation to work toward consciousness-raising,” says Cintra WIlson (front right), the group’s leader.
And so history repeats itself… Hey, the Flickr thing worked!
I’m lucky to have a few close friends who live/breathe the art & culture scene.
They’re constantly inviting me out to see new work, which I appreciate very much, because good art/culture always inspires me.
Like yoga, cooking, or a brisk walk in the woods, art/culture offers a doorway into self-awakening or consciousness, making it easier to stay centered and leave behind what Peter Russell calls the “hum-drum of daily existence”.
In this vein, I offer you a 30-second journey: a short clip by one of my favorite emerging artists, Robert Olsen.
How did I find out about Mr. Olsen? A tip from one of my friends. And no, I don’t own any of his work, yet…
Two excerpts from two different articles in one of today’s newspapers (guess which?):
“Folklore has a moral center to it. Folklore is always, always, always on the side of the underdog,” she says, “and children have a natural instinct towards justice. They feel indignation at needless cruelty and wistfulness about acts of mercy and kindness.”
- Laura Schlitz in ‘A Late-Blooming Talent in Full Flower’ by Meghan Cox Gurdon
“Art leads man, in stages, from primitive sensuality to ultimate perfection — to a state of freedom and joy rooted in morality. The process involves a series of oppositions and syntheses — an antagonism of forces that results first in disintegration, and then in the creation of a new, joyful wholeness.”
- ‘Beethoven’s Summation’, Stuart Isacoff
I take it this insight is not lost on you marketers out there (WSJ)
Hello loyal readers. Just back from an extended long weekend vacation by the ocean. I didn’t catch any stripers, but I read a lot.
(Oddly, the traffic on the blog went up while I was on holiday… I think it has something to do with the post called Off-Kilter Skivvies, which gets lots of random traffic from the search engines).
Anyway, back to the reading bit. I’ll spare you dull book reviews, but here’s an inspiring excerpt from Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche, Intimations of a New World View, via Paul Hawken’s Blessed Unrest:
“It is perhaps not too much to say that, in the first decade of the new millennium, humanity has entered into a condition that is in some sense more globally united and interconnected, more sensitized to the experiences and suffering of others, in certain respects more spiritually awakened, more conscious of alternative future possibilities and ideals, more capable of collective healing and compassion, and, aided by technological advances in communication media, more able to think, feel, and respond together in a spiritually evolved manner to the world’s swiftly changing realities than has ever before been possible.”
Why is culture so important? I often ask myself that question.
Recently, I came across a quote (by Proust) that offers some insight on the subject: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes but in having new eyes.”
That’s it! Culture - an important book, a classic film, a fantastic piece of art - offers the viewer new perspective on the human condition.
This enriched perspective can lead to a greater understanding of our collective consciousness and - if it inspires - towards self-actualization.
As promised in a recent post summarizing key takeaways from Lohas 11, I’m going to try to paraphrase a talk by author, philosopher and futurist Peter Russell called “Consciousness: The Next Frontier”. The talk was a good primer for consciousness Neanderthals like me.
Mr. Russell defines consciousness as “the essence of the mind” and calls it “our greatest untapped resource”, as important as “space, robotics, nano and biotech” for “everything we do springs from the mind.”
His central point is that humans ultimately care most about how we actually feel, and he uses a quote from the Dalai Lama to illustrate: “In the final analysis, the hope of every person is peace of mind”.
This is a second post in a series on Lohas, because it’s fresh in my mind after Lohas 11, which took place last week in California.
As noted in yesterday’s post, Lohas agenda and values have moved from fringe to mainstream over the past decade. Much of this progress has been driven by a rise in the number and relative influence of America’s Cultural Creatives (now about 30% of working US adults, or 55 million).
However, there’s been a dramatic surge of public interest in recent years around “green”, “sustainable” and “corporate social responsibility”, giving birth to a legitimate conscious economy. As Ted Ning states in the Lohas Journal, “we have seen 2006 and 2007 become banner years for Lohas awareness and practice”.
Why this sudden embrace of Lohas agenda and values by the mainstream?
More content, more content, more content. How the hell do we process all of this stuff coming over the transom?
Big media companies, little media companies, new media companies, retailers, bloggers, marketers, friends-of-friends - they’re all throwing more content our way.
And much of it is worth reading, viewing, listening or responding to. Of course, 99% is not, but that 1% adds up fast…
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Business and lifestyle trends, Entrepreneurship, Exploring positive change | Tagged: community, consciousness, design, government, leadership, opportunity, social resp., starbucks | 
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Posted by Oliver
(WSJ)
