Sustainability - What is it We Wish to Sustain?

Sustainability
What is it We Wish to Sustain?
Pretense vs. Authentic Living
by
Darlene Cavallaro
'Dar of Dandarius'

In the interest of evolving things to a place where the sustainability movement can be accurately called a “movement,” it is my deepest conviction that the most important starting place is asking ourselves, “What is it that we wish to sustain?” In other words, what exactly is worth sustaining, and what is better left to burn itself out?

The Sustainability Movement as we know it today is basically a scattered and disorganized conglomerate of ‘green’ and eco-friendly principles, philosophies, practices, building techniques, alternative energy technologies, water conservation, organic food, permaculture, EcoVillage/sustainable community development, animal/habitat conservation, and last but not least – environmental protection/restoration. Thousands of businesses, organizations, and political groups have built their mission statements and platforms around ‘sustainable’ living and the ‘green’ market is exploding despite economic turbulence.

Within this movement are millions of people globally who have dedicated their life force to a vision of a healthy and sustainable world. It is a global culture that has been labeled in various ways:

Environmentalist
Deep Ecologists
Hippies
Cultural Creatives
Conservationists
Social Justice Activists
New Ager’s
Generation Green
Generation WE
Communitarians (Intentional Community)
Green Party
And the list goes on...

This huge collective of human beings share common goals and believe strongly in unification, yet it is important to point out the many invisible denials that prevent them from uniting in a way that would allow their efforts to manifest rapid and effective changes to the overall structural landscape of our current society.

Having lived, worked, and shared much of my life force with this collective for over 15 years I have been able to witness and observe the obstacles and challenges that this collective faces and the ‘denials’ which have prevented them from coming together in a powerful enough way to have serious impact.

Many, if not most, of them cringe at the thought that on a basic human psychology level they share the same dysfunctions of all human beings. They pride themselves on being more evolved and superior either spiritually, philosophically, or emotionally. This pride is not recognized because the norm amongst this collective is to deny the ‘ego’ and they work hard to eradicate instead of evolve this very necessary component of being ‘human’. They also pride themselves on being able to ‘transcend’ any and all ‘negativity’ and the way they accomplish this is to deny feelings and thoughts associated with what they would consider negative:

Anger
Blame
Rage
Jealousy
Sadness
Grief
Competition
Abandonment
Rejection
Loss
Lack
Hatred

Avoiding these emotions means avoiding opposition, conflict, and anything else that will bring forth the shadow of the sustainability movement into plain view. At the end of the day individuals who pride themselves on being more evolved exhibit equal amount of pretentious behavior as anyone else. Before we can move forward to develop a healthy and sustainable world we must begin by asking ourselves ‘What is it we wish to sustain?” – do we wish to sustain unhealthy human behavior?

Pretense is DENIAL and no matter how ‘polite’ or ‘good’ we believe ourselves to be whenever we deny our true feelings we are fragmenting and scattering our emotional body in ways that weaken our ‘will’ and therefore our ‘intent’. Our shadows grow taller than our souls when we deny the healthy expression and evolution of what we deem to be ‘negative’ inside ourselves.

Within the movement it is an unspoken given that if you express a thought or an idea and you are ‘angry’ then you are automatically wrong. If any kind of boundary is expressed strongly then it is considered ‘aggressive’ and therefore wrong as well. How can a collective ever hope to find unity when there is no room to express true feelings or have healthy boundaries respected?

Strong emotions being expressed in a ‘circle’ is discouraged, and yet simultaneously an over amount of importance is placed on “everyone’s voices being heard.” This is a great ideal conceptually, but when it overshadows productiveness, the stated intent of the circle itself, and basic cohesion of the group this ideal can lead to meetings/gatherings that are considered a success not based on any real accomplishment of the groups mission, but based on being a long group therapy session where each individual can process out their individual psychology.

A pretense of ‘cooperation’ is upheld in an environment of individuals who are just as competitive as any other human being who has not been allowed to evolve emotional realities associated with jealousy and envy. These ‘negative’ feelings are denied because there is no support for honest and authentic expression. Everyone believes that the ‘heart’ could not possibly feel these things and that if you are ‘coming from your heart’ that somehow you are immune to such weakness. The ego gets the blame and everyone goes into further denial that they have an ego, which then gets projected on the ever present ‘them’ outside of the circle. There is absolutely no room at all for the unhealthy – not wrong – ego to develop and therefore it becomes the unseen saboteur behind all the over commitments, lack of motivation, lack of focus, lack of organization, and lack of cooperation that happens within the group.

Without a healthy ego structure based on authentic reality any kind of structure or hierarchy is either avoided or denied completely. Sometimes a group will attempt to face their structural resistance head on with the stated intent of “deconstructing.” Groups of this mindset and basic orientation often judge against and condemn the very structures that theirs was built upon, and this can lead to groups literally cutting their own legs out from under them in an attempt to be “heart centered” without a grounded firm foundation, knowledge, and understanding of practical matters.

Different entities get completely demonized, a tendency that does not allow any of the positive aspects of structures to be adopted and utilized. For example, “Corporate America” is just one of the big devils that controls everything, and therefore the many things that the business world has to teach us gets ignored because the focus is on these structures only as they become corrupt. The baby is constantly thrown out with the bathwater. They fail to see that 'Corporate America' has been as successful and industrious as it has because of a few basic structural tenets, and these are the key for any movement to be successful.

Good intention is not enough, idealistic visions are insufficient, and implementation is a very specific process that must be gone through in a very specific way. Corporations have utilized the many tools that have been available to them since the early 80s, the self help modalities, the success systems, the coaching, the efficiency reports, the Steven Covey’s, Jack Canfield’s, and Tony Robbins, they know when to outsource and get expert advice when they are in over their heads. They begin with the end in mind, and if something goes awry they have a structured way to find out exactly why it happened, how it can be prevented in the future, and how to use whatever negative experience as fuel to motivate them towards greater excellence and proficiency. This is why corporations can grow exponentially, merge with each other, and create enough resources to allow their mission statement to be achieved. No matter how awesome and groovy someone is, no matter how great their intent is, if they do not contribute to the overall mission, they get cut loose. If the sustainability movement could separate the structure from those who use it irresponsibly, there would be no non-profit organization within the movement that had to beg for money and allow everyone, regardless of whether or not they really have anything to offer, to have a voice in the decision making while everyone ‘pretends’ that they are being effective.

Now that ‘green’ and ‘eco-living’ is becoming vogue the 'corporations' are harvesting the fruits that were planted by individuals who are still in poverty because they demonize money, structure, and ego. The “Movement’ needs an enema in order to get moving and it starts with healing all the pretentious crap. Otherwise all the resources that are becoming available for sustainable development will not be available to those who are truly resourceful and what we will end up with is a plastic green reality that still lacks any real change in our basic human behavior.

Imagine the Mr. Eco-guy who lives off the grid, composts everything, grows his own food, drives an electric or biofuel car, and yet is still a complete jerk who does not give a damn about anyone but himself and his great need to see himself as being ‘right’ and beyond ‘ego’ or ‘competition’. Will the world be a healthy place to live?

If authentic living is not the foundation for sustainability then what is it that we wish to sustain? Life is more than just existence, and sustainability is more than just sustaining the status quo. It is a starting point and if we do not raise the standard of our own behavior as a species and evolve our ‘negative’ aspects then it will only be our shadows who survive.