Healing or Stealing by Paul Hawken

[Wendy Wurtele]

I've attached this amazing commencement speech by Paul Hawken, renowned entrepreneur, visionary and environmental activist.

It's well worth the read. As uplifting as it is challenging.

His challenge to the graduating class of 2009: "You are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on the earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating."

[Richard Lukens]

Thanks for posting this Wendy.... I think we have the video of this address on the Architects site as well... but this word document can be printed out and shared with people we love...

-Rick

[Wendy Wurtele]

Thanks Rick, definitely worth sharing this!

Richard Lukens said:

Thanks for posting this Wendy.... I think we have the video of this address on the Architects site as well... but this word document can be printed out and shared with people we love...

-Rick

[mary rose]

Wendy, thanks for posting this commencement speech by Paul Hawken to the Forum. My feeling is that many people are just not emotionally prepared to handle the magnitude of what is taking place today as the human family faces challenges unprecedented in past recorded history. It is easier to remain in denial while both ecological and economical systems collapse around us rather than face the truth.

But i also sense in another respect, many are simply unaware of what is going on, either blinded by the propaganda put out by the news media today, or simply too busy trying to keep food in mouth and roof overhead to consider the world around them. .

Another of Paul Hawken's great works speaks to this: his book "Blessed Unrest". In the book he reveals a movement that is unprecedented in size, but as well, one that is largely unrecognized by the mainstream media.

My thoughts are that if anything is to be accomplished with regard to bringing this Blessed Unrest Movement to the forefront, "we," the people involved in this movement are going to have to do it ourselves. So, i am very grateful to Carlos Santans, Ric Lukens, and Friends, for bringing this website into being and encouraging everyone to participate.
However, what may be needed is some instruction as to how to go about this since "social networking" is a relatively new field.

Co-incidentally, this morning i was just reviewing the many different web venues available for those with the desire and talent to do multi-media broadcasting and create their own center capable of reaching millions, if not billions of people in a relatively short period of time. The array of tools available to the general public today is awesome. With little knowledge of "how to," i recently published a 15 linked Ning-based website, designed as virtual learning center and think tank, to which i am aspiring to lure the most creative minds of the world in joining and putting their heads together in solving the unprecedented challenges mentioned above. Since statistics show that it only takes somewhere around 8800 people to accomplish transformation among the 6+ billion on the planet, i am aiming for 1 million in hopes that the 8800 we need are among them.

I also joined both Facebook and Plaxo several months ago and between the two of them quickly acquired almost two thousand connections with Friends who are involved in some way with "challenge-solving" efforts. Then, just about 10 days ago i got on Twitter and began selectively following people and posting messages designed to attract a certain type of follower of my own -- those whose vibration level indicates a "green" thought pattern and others whose pattern indicates a "blue," or more coherent pattern related to a state of higher consciousness. Looking at the number of people whom I am following today and considering the number of people who are following me, when combined with the people following them, this may mean that i am already reaching tens of thousands of people with a positive message. The uncertainty here is to how many people are actually reading the Twitters and how many are just counting the numbers.

But how to actually activate the followers in a united movement to reverse the present trend is another question.

This is the question though that we must address if we are to, as Paul Hwken expresses it, "figure out what it means to be a human being on the earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating."

Our creative abilities are being challenged to the hilt. Whether or not we can meet this challenge will tell us whether or not the "human experiment" is a success or a failure.

With love and appreciation for all that you do, Wendy.

.

[narciso favores escala]

Mr. Paul Hawken's speech to the graduating class of 2009 is realistic in nature and for me that message is for everybody around the world, calling for a change... addressing all humanity to love our mother earth. Basically, it is a self-explanatory statement that touches every heart who cares the God-given treasure to man -EARTH. And i believe that AOAND with the vision for global peace and love has a big part for his calls.

[Amya]

i actually found this speech to be very hopeful and inspiring - he allows for the truth of where we are, and at the same time, for the expansion of who we can/might/need to be in order to be in balance and find our way as a species on a living planet. he uses language that allows for the new ways of seeing that we have not opened to yet, and credits the young people he was talking to with having power and ability to see larger than we have been able to so far...
love it!
thank you
aa

[Ian Bentley]

Is it not one of the abiding tragedies of this epoch that mankind became so selfish, so greedy, so hooked on accumulating possessions - that we never gave a second thought to the survival and wellbeing of Planet Earth?

Truly the time has come for those who see and understand what we have done to begin to inform, raise consciousness and mobilise the ordinary people.

If this earth of ours is to survive we need to explode the mind-numbing bubble of lies and deception that the political, ‘religious’, corporate and media fat-cats have so effectively used to enslave the minds of humanity.

[Deborah J. Boyd]

While this is very uplifting and somewhat inspirational, I suppose the books he has written give more format. As I see it, his challenge to these students is fairly unreachable without significant modification to the typical methods by which graduates normally seek work.
We turn out student after student each year here in the USA and each one of their parents who have "invested" in them wants them to go get a "job" in the "real world" which implies going to work for a salary at some company. When I graduated high school in 1967, many companies in the USA were supposed to be wonderful places to work with wonderful benefits, room for promotion, in general a place where you could spend 25 - 35 years working, retire, and live well all along the way.
This was more true for white men with college degrees and family connections than for all of the rest of the people in the world.
For the past 20 years I have watched families sacrifice to send their children to college and watch them graduate to get initial jobs at $20,000 - $40,000 a year in a country where you can't really live on less than $50,000 a year. Fewer companies offer health care and it is predicted that many people will work for at least 6 different companies before they are too old to work. We just watched many people get 50% of their planned retirement wiped out because of mismanagement and outright greed in these same companies that were supposed to be such wonderful places to work???
We need to totally revise our concept of education and stop making parents feel that unless they pay $15,000 - $50,000 per student per year to some University they are bad parents. I do not know where the money in post secondary education is going to but my first guess would be to a bloated and barely functioning bureaucracy. The heads of some Universities make as much as many CEOs. The football teams have multi-million $ contracts with TV etc. The Professors write books, give speeches = make money. Many Professors no longer have job security referred to as tenure in academia. The government and many companies have projects at these Universities in which parents of students are paying to send their children to work free to help subsidize the government and/or business (many in defense) to create and sell products that can be harmful to people and the planet......but make a few people at the top very wealthy.
The only education that children need to get is the education that teaches them to think for themselves, understand and manage wealth, and how to live healthy interconnected lives to avoid getting many of the health care issues that will bankrupt them by the time they reach 70 years of age if it doesn't kill them earlier.
There are statistics that show most heart attacks happen on Monday.
And still we keep telling graduates to go to college where they may or may not learn anything they can use.
By the time a student becomes a medical doctor they usually are $150,000 in debt for their education.
This pushes them to go into specialties like surgery where they can make more money.
In the mean time there is a shortage of primary care physicians and mal-practice insurance is making it pretty difficult for OB-GYN to function.
There is a lot of work to be done to make the world the place Paul Hawken extols the virtues of in this speech.

[Deborah J. Boyd]

mary rose said:

Wendy, thanks for posting this commencement speech by Paul Hawken to the Forum. My feeling is that many people are just not emotionally prepared to handle the magnitude of what is taking place today as the human family faces challenges unprecedented in past recorded history. It is easier to remain in denial while both ecological and economical systems collapse around us rather than face the truth.

But i also sense in another respect, many are simply unaware of what is going on, either blinded by the propaganda put out by the news media today, or simply too busy trying to keep food in mouth and roof overhead to consider the world around them. .

Another of Paul Hawken's great works speaks to this: his book "Blessed Unrest". In the book he reveals a movement that is unprecedented in size, but as well, one that is largely unrecognized by the mainstream media.

My thoughts are that if anything is to be accomplished with regard to bringing this Blessed Unrest Movement to the forefront, "we," the people involved in this movement are going to have to do it ourselves. So, i am very grateful to Carlos Santans, Ric Lukens, and Friends, for bringing this website into being and encouraging everyone to participate.
However, what may be needed is some instruction as to how to go about this since "social networking" is a relatively new field.

Co-incidentally, this morning i was just reviewing the many different web venues available for those with the desire and talent to do multi-media broadcasting and create their own center capable of reaching millions, if not billions of people in a relatively short period of time. The array of tools available to the general public today is awesome. With little knowledge of "how to," i recently published a 15 linked Ning-based website, designed as virtual learning center and think tank, to which i am aspiring to lure the most creative minds of the world in joining and putting their heads together in solving the unprecedented challenges mentioned above. Since statistics show that it only takes somewhere around 8800 people to accomplish transformation among the 6+ billion on the planet, i am aiming for 1 million in hopes that the 8800 we need are among them.

I also joined both Facebook and Plaxo several months ago and between the two of them quickly acquired almost two thousand connections with Friends who are involved in some way with "challenge-solving" efforts. Then, just about 10 days ago i got on Twitter and began selectively following people and posting messages designed to attract a certain type of follower of my own -- those whose vibration level indicates a "green" thought pattern and others whose pattern indicates a "blue," or more coherent pattern related to a state of higher consciousness. Looking at the number of people whom I am following today and considering the number of people who are following me, when combined with the people following them, this may mean that i am already reaching tens of thousands of people with a positive message. The uncertainty here is to how many people are actually reading the Twitters and how many are just counting the numbers.

But how to actually activate the followers in a united movement to reverse the present trend is another question.

This is the question though that we must address if we are to, as Paul Hwken expresses it, "figure out what it means to be a human being on the earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating."

Our creative abilities are being challenged to the hilt. Whether or not we can meet this challenge will tell us whether or not the "human experiment" is a success or a failure.

With love and appreciation for all that you do, Wendy.

.

[Deborah J. Boyd]

In order to utilize your communications network to have individuals commit to new ways of thinking, you must encourage them to seek purpose with in themselves and then seek others who want to pursue the same dream. Too many people spend their entire life doing work they hate because it "pays well" and they are trying to raise families.
I graduated High School in 1967. I watched the same folks who where hippies in the 60s and 70s turn very conservative and lock right in to the status quo thinking they were doing the right thing for their families.
It is not a scientific estimate but I believe at least 40% of the children of the people from my generation are now struggling, many have married and divorced, many are now unemployed or semi-employed. Some have had to tell their children to quit college because they no longer can afford to pay tuition. Some people are now facing having to work because they no longer have the money they were counting on with which to retire.
It is not going to be easy to restore hope to so many people who have now been disillusioned by all of the institutions that their parents told them were "who they should listen to" and believe in!

Deborah J. Boyd said:

mary rose said:

Wendy, thanks for posting this commencement speech by Paul Hawken to the Forum. My feeling is that many people are just not emotionally prepared to handle the magnitude of what is taking place today as the human family faces challenges unprecedented in past recorded history. It is easier to remain in denial while both ecological and economical systems collapse around us rather than face the truth.

But i also sense in another respect, many are simply unaware of what is going on, either blinded by the propaganda put out by the news media today, or simply too busy trying to keep food in mouth and roof overhead to consider the world around them. .

Another of Paul Hawken's great works speaks to this: his book "Blessed Unrest". In the book he reveals a movement that is unprecedented in size, but as well, one that is largely unrecognized by the mainstream media.

My thoughts are that if anything is to be accomplished with regard to bringing this Blessed Unrest Movement to the forefront, "we," the people involved in this movement are going to have to do it ourselves. So, i am very grateful to Carlos Santans, Ric Lukens, and Friends, for bringing this website into being and encouraging everyone to participate.
However, what may be needed is some instruction as to how to go about this since "social networking" is a relatively new field.

Co-incidentally, this morning i was just reviewing the many different web venues available for those with the desire and talent to do multi-media broadcasting and create their own center capable of reaching millions, if not billions of people in a relatively short period of time. The array of tools available to the general public today is awesome. With little knowledge of "how to," i recently published a 15 linked Ning-based website, designed as virtual learning center and think tank, to which i am aspiring to lure the most creative minds of the world in joining and putting their heads together in solving the unprecedented challenges mentioned above. Since statistics show that it only takes somewhere around 8800 people to accomplish transformation among the 6+ billion on the planet, i am aiming for 1 million in hopes that the 8800 we need are among them.

I also joined both Facebook and Plaxo several months ago and between the two of them quickly acquired almost two thousand connections with Friends who are involved in some way with "challenge-solving" efforts. Then, just about 10 days ago i got on Twitter and began selectively following people and posting messages designed to attract a certain type of follower of my own -- those whose vibration level indicates a "green" thought pattern and others whose pattern indicates a "blue," or more coherent pattern related to a state of higher consciousness. Looking at the number of people whom I am following today and considering the number of people who are following me, when combined with the people following them, this may mean that i am already reaching tens of thousands of people with a positive message. The uncertainty here is to how many people are actually reading the Twitters and how many are just counting the numbers.

But how to actually activate the followers in a united movement to reverse the present trend is another question.

This is the question though that we must address if we are to, as Paul Hwken expresses it, "figure out what it means to be a human being on the earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating."

Our creative abilities are being challenged to the hilt. Whether or not we can meet this challenge will tell us whether or not the "human experiment" is a success or a failure.

With love and appreciation for all that you do, Wendy.

.

[Wendy Wurtele]

We are trying to use this "collective energy" in a positive way by setting up the "Solutions for the Common Good" here on AOAND. If you haven't already visited it, click on "Home" and then "Solutions". Hundreds of people have posted "Challenges" and many more have entered their "Solutions" to problems that plague mankind. We are trying to build an encyclopedia of knowledge that everyone has access to, so please, also encourage all your Facebook and Twitter followers to post their comments, solutions or challenges here. We are very excited about the possibilities this venue offers...

Deborah J. Boyd said:

mary rose said:

Wendy, thanks for posting this commencement speech by Paul Hawken to the Forum. My feeling is that many people are just not emotionally prepared to handle the magnitude of what is taking place today as the human family faces challenges unprecedented in past recorded history. It is easier to remain in denial while both ecological and economical systems collapse around us rather than face the truth.

But i also sense in another respect, many are simply unaware of what is going on, either blinded by the propaganda put out by the news media today, or simply too busy trying to keep food in mouth and roof overhead to consider the world around them. .

Another of Paul Hawken's great works speaks to this: his book "Blessed Unrest". In the book he reveals a movement that is unprecedented in size, but as well, one that is largely unrecognized by the mainstream media.

My thoughts are that if anything is to be accomplished with regard to bringing this Blessed Unrest Movement to the forefront, "we," the people involved in this movement are going to have to do it ourselves. So, i am very grateful to Carlos Santans, Ric Lukens, and Friends, for bringing this website into being and encouraging everyone to participate.
However, what may be needed is some instruction as to how to go about this since "social networking" is a relatively new field.

Co-incidentally, this morning i was just reviewing the many different web venues available for those with the desire and talent to do multi-media broadcasting and create their own center capable of reaching millions, if not billions of people in a relatively short period of time. The array of tools available to the general public today is awesome. With little knowledge of "how to," i recently published a 15 linked Ning-based website, designed as virtual learning center and think tank, to which i am aspiring to lure the most creative minds of the world in joining and putting their heads together in solving the unprecedented challenges mentioned above. Since statistics show that it only takes somewhere around 8800 people to accomplish transformation among the 6+ billion on the planet, i am aiming for 1 million in hopes that the 8800 we need are among them.

I also joined both Facebook and Plaxo several months ago and between the two of them quickly acquired almost two thousand connections with Friends who are involved in some way with "challenge-solving" efforts. Then, just about 10 days ago i got on Twitter and began selectively following people and posting messages designed to attract a certain type of follower of my own -- those whose vibration level indicates a "green" thought pattern and others whose pattern indicates a "blue," or more coherent pattern related to a state of higher consciousness. Looking at the number of people whom I am following today and considering the number of people who are following me, when combined with the people following them, this may mean that i am already reaching tens of thousands of people with a positive message. The uncertainty here is to how many people are actually reading the Twitters and how many are just counting the numbers.

But how to actually activate the followers in a united movement to reverse the present trend is another question.

This is the question though that we must address if we are to, as Paul Hwken expresses it, "figure out what it means to be a human being on the earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating."

Our creative abilities are being challenged to the hilt. Whether or not we can meet this challenge will tell us whether or not the "human experiment" is a success or a failure.

With love and appreciation for all that you do, Wendy.

.