Our work should be a gateway to another world
But it rarely (if ever) is.
Instead, it’s a slugfest of sameness, leaving our senses numbed out by the routine and endless dialogue that achieves precisely…nothing.
Imagine, instead, a place where not only we could evidence true self — all body, mind and (especially) soul — but that what we did, rather than robbing the world of its most precious spirit and chocolate-box of natural resources, lovingly supported nature and all living things.
I know, I’m living in Cloud Cuckoo Land but is it really too much to ask for the Bosses and supposed Leaders to be enabled by a deep-seated consciousness and understand that whilst on their watch, and indeed their predecessors, they’ve not only robbed our kids of their future but they’ve also taken apart the world one bit at a time to the point, in the not too distant future, where it will collapse, wiping out many millions of people; and as for nature, well, screw that because it’s just a treasure trove to be robbed blind — and hey, it can’t fight back, can it?
I know this is a hard message to read let alone accept but it’s true — at least to the extent that the company vehicle, that venerated slightly but slightly iffy thing, is responsible by accident as much as design for nearly all the pollution and unnatural extremes we’re now having to grapple with and will be in the decades to come. One book that immediately comes to mind is “Ecocide” by David Whyte that forever opened my eyes to the historical pattern of corporate behaviour that, quite frankly, beggars belief. Whilst we’re on the subject of Ecocide, I’m sure you saw in last week’s Guardian the headline bearing on the subject: “Legal experts worldwide draw up ‘historic’ definition of ecocide”. I hope, from a legal perspective, that it does bring about a change of mindset amongst the many boards and governments whose rap sheet is very long and continuing but I’ve my doubts. Just think of how long cases for genocide et al. take to happen and we’re talking about thousands of these cases being brought before the courts and lots of weasel arguments over the definition of Ecocide. From my perspective, the only way we’re going to see change, seismic or otherwise, is a change of consciousness from one that is purely anthropocentric to one that is animistic; namely, one that doesn’t see humans as the centre of the shit show but instead intricately connected, at the deepest and most profound level, with all of nature.
I’d like to think that what I’m talking about is already happening but it seems a rare beast indeed where a company can’t appear to wean itself of the usual diet of marketing, sales, being the best in its market and innately hierarchical. What if it took its cue from nature, that beautiful, almost ethereal dynamic, and asked itself how trees or plants or groups of animals worked so effortlessly together. It’s not stupid to suggest such a scheme. For a start it would drive a very serious conversation about the legal structure of a company, treating people like humans and being humane and getting rid of the notion that those at the top should be rewarded beyond any notion of fairness or reality to those at the bottom.
Will it happen?
What?
A total review of the corporate structure to militate against or even negate their wanton and destructive ways?
I doubt it.
But I can live in hope.
That’s not true. I don’t have any hope — nada, zip — that the behemoths who, for now, shall remain nameless, are going to change or mend their ways. Instead, even allowing for the bullshit that fills the airwaves around Net Carbon 2050 and the like, it’ll be business as usual until, well, we’re so fcked that it will be too late to make the or any course correction to save the human race and all those other sentient and animate creatures and beings that will be killed off in our pursuit of comfort and must-havery.
Sorry, that’s a bit of a bum note to end on but it’s how I feel about the whole sordid, Anthropocentric mess.
Blessings,
— JS
