That’s exactly what sustainability means. It is a continuous process of destruction and reconstruction; by definition, it embodies leaving the old for renewal. So, what supports destruction?
Let’s take our body as an example. First of all, “time” supports destruction. Over time, the flexibility of our cells, their ability to repair and improve themselves slows down. And the things that negatively affect this process are also anything but toxic. Toxic food and drinks, toxic relationships, a toxic perspective (on ourselves and those around us, relationships and environments that do not support us) would also antagonize us. They may hit the road with the sabotaging kindness we have and a fun promise. Sometimes they sound out of our space of fear and they can mislead us on the sly. And we can find ourselves in these toxic accumulations. Think about your thoughts that have been leading you throughout COVID-19. Which one leads you to extreme cleanliness and punctiliousness, news checking or frequent fridge visits? It is natural to experience such moments, and you need to communicate with your home, yourself, to come to the center of yourself with awareness and compassion. It is necessary to take a break to keep calm and watch your breathing calmly from top to bottom along the spine. When the aforementioned good cycles are activated, the nervous system switches the body into a state of calmness instead of triggering the panicked sympathetic system. The vagus signals to relax; creativity increases in this period; the space of joy, health and inner peace expands. Thus, all the cycles in the body switch from negative to positive. If only we can pause and stare for a moment and look at how we detain ourselves in the moment. If only we surrender to the depth of our breath and make room for the oxygen, food and good thoughts that our breath carries into our body… And that’s when sabotaging thoughts will not be able to dominate over.
The COVID period may be a good time to observe this. I’ve learned from experts that ways to protect against COVID are avoidance strategies. Keeping clean, using our masks properly, maintaining social distance support us to avoid contact with COVID. Being able to pull through COVID in the lightest way is related to the endurance of the body. It’s about what we feed it with and how we keep it. Endurance is not only limited to the body. The mental and spiritual state and the state of the body interact with each other. Our body is like the earth. The stronger its systems are, the more it can fend off the pressure and difficulties it faces through these systems. This provides a positive externality… Well-being… Thanks to well-being, we can move forward and embrace life with our full potential. To what extent do we carry our potential into our sphere of influence? How much of our potential and ourselves are we putting forward for the well-being of ourselves and the world around us? Do we only take, in the balance of giving and taking of life? Do we give plenty without taking enough? Do we know how to take, feed enough and then share the excess and say “no” to more of it?
Let’s get out of our body and take our home as an example. The tension of the earth, which is our home, is very high. Our world is growling and running a fever… Waters are descending from the top and warming waters are melting half of a natural wonder with magnificent glaciers called Antarctica. Half of all forests have been destroyed… Instead of healthy and vibrant colors; grizzly, gray and rusty colors are spread all over in all seas. Then began the Bronze Age, the age of enlightenment. Bronze, iron, copper… They’re all shining and beautiful things… How did our eyes and minds get drunk with these shining things? Instead of the greens, purples, yellows and oranges, reds, turquoise and blues and thousands of shades of these that nourish our hearts, stomachs and family, we chose these three colors that never satisfy our eyes.
What sabotaging thought did we concede to and how did we severe our ties with our big home? And how did we just focus on taking without replacing things and giving more in return?
It is time to wake up – stop – reset settings.
Alice in the Land of Regrets… The rabbit is holding the watch frenetically. “Let everyone know” it says. “We will do it together again, just as we did together before”. This system does not carry us anymore. We shouldn’t carry it either. Let’s get off and allow it to recover! Let us design a new system and each of us impose new intentions on the magic wand we have in our hands.
Currently, a truckload of plastic continues to meet the ocean per minute (yes, that happens in a minute). 6 garbage trucks full of food go to waste every passing second. 15 million trees are being cut down every year. The world is not in a state to treat wastes, and what is worse, its forests and oceans that will reduce its fever by cooling it down are also in need of help. Who knows? Perhaps, as our business world has come to a standstill due to COVID19, the actions of dropping waste into our beautiful world may have been reduced. Air pollution is said to be very low. But given this stacking situation, I guess there may be plenty of waste and water use in households. What do you say? To what extent do we pay attention to our resources and waste during our stay at home? The thing with waste is that fragmented plastic particles are mixing into clean water supplies. If it continues like this, there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050. Until the 1970s, a calendar year was enough for the world to renew itself. Now, when we come to July, we are starting to steal from the next year, having exhausted all the resources of our world in 7 months. So we are constantly stealing from the future of our children. We steal not only from our children, but also from the children of all species of the bio system, which the world must continue to host to provide a healthy system for all [1].
Moreover, the human species has some aspects superior to other living things. When a person incorporates his/her virtue, intuition, and heart into what he/she does, he/she affectionately accepts the wealth within himself/herself. On the other hand, when he/she sees the minds of the plurality, their diversity, and the abundance in their diversity, he/she does not fall into the waste of destruction, burning and rebuilding. So we need to design systems that offer these paths for “human beings”. Systems that both encourage and say “oh stop” when he/she wends his/her way to the other side… We have seen the limits of our resources and our world. Now, if we continue to force like this, the researchers are saying that it’s a preview of the future that we observe during the COVID process. One of these people is Thomas Friedman… He said this in his last live broadcast for DEIK. Therefore, just as common approach and attitude have become the norm in COVID, we need to meet here in a new “common attitude” for the integrity of the world. So during and after this STOP, we can take a step back, observe, and think; and we can think about what we should do differently as a world family and START. We need to look once again at the elements we mainstream, our efforts to mainstream everyone, and the cultural and economic incentive mechanisms in the system. I will discuss this and my suggestions in another article. Now, I am moving on to the article titled “Durdurun Dünyayı, İnecek Biri Var (Stop the World, Someone Wants to Get Off” by Dear Yılmaz Argüden, who has a STOP recommendation for a sooner time.
Stay safe and take care.
[1] https://www.footprintnetwork.org/our-work/ecological-footprint/