In my first post I focused attention on three principles, indicating that they will be central to what I share here.  Now I want to say more about the first two:

• All life comes from life.
• All life depends on life.

Some might roll their eyes at the first one; it's so obvious!  Everybody knows about mothers, eggs, seeds and such.  Who needs a reminder of origins?  I reply that life needs us to maintain the perspective; of almost seven billion people, certainly some can use a reminder.  Not only that, it's one thing to know the fact and another to be mindful of it, consciously impressed, one could say, with life's variety and productivity.  I am calling for such mindfulness.  We should finally see it in each other, whenever we look around: Countless other beings brought me to life!  Countless other beings gave me life!  Living in such gratitude would certainly change our tune and dance.

The second principle, pertaining to sustainability, neatly resembles the first, but perhaps too much.  As such, it understates the fact that all lives constitute a life support system for all lives.  That system needs our understanding, care and cooperation as never before.  We interfere with and diminish it at our peril; it's the only proven sustainable life support system.

Beings capable of photosynthesis are esteemed for forming light into edible matter, and the eaters and decomposers of that matter, and its descendants, complete the life support system, aka the web of life.  The web is simultaneously structure and process, a complementarity and unity that is the supreme example of interdependence.  History suggests some strands of the web have been non-essential, but now, and increasingly, any reckless removal of beings and connections adds a potential challenge for the survivors -- or might even knock out an essential.  Never in history were so many people hoping and striving for personal possession of so much lifeless matter.  Never were so many people consuming food grown in lifeless soils or taken from declining stocks. Never were there so many people.

I began this with what was the given for us in the first place.  Because humans have lately surfaced and used so much ancient sunlight (fossil fuels), some of our lives, who can know how many, may depend on it.  That's possibly the ultimate in risky behavior.

“Interdependence is the paradigm of we – we can do it; we can cooperate; we can combine our talents and abilities and create something greater together.

Interdependence is a choice only independent people can make.  Dependent people cannot choose to become interdependent. They don't have the character to do it; they don't own enough of themselves.

The landscape... is covered with the fragments of broken relationships of people who have tried... to jump into effective relationships without the maturity, the strength of character, to maintain them.”

Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (1989)

“The key is, don't artificially force interdependency – it has to come naturally through people's getting to know and understand and trust each other.  Then they can become creative.  Until this happens, people see interdependency as dependency.“

Covey, The 8th Habit (2004)

Early in the newer book, Dr. Covey joins Peter Drucker in declaring the Industrial Age guilty of reducing human beings to things, denying their four-dimensionality (body, mind, heart, spirit).  He describes the consequences, which many of us have experienced as and in difficulties.  The bulk of the book details the Knowledge Worker Age journey to wholeness for both individuals and associations at all scales.  Attaining wholeness naturally provides voice (unique personal significance), the option to lead and/or become a transition person(!), and to join/form complementary teams.  Covey says the world needs us whole now, while acknowledging the obsolete thing mindset “will die hard.”

I appreciate this additional angle on we're all in this together.  Divisions among and distances between us make us forget.  I also like that the fact of voice confirms, in a positive and constructive sense, it takes all kinds to make a world.  In my experience, that saying has accompanied exasperation, not anticipation.

The eighth habit is find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.  I recommend the book.  Despite the title, it's an upgrade. It is first and foremost about being, not getting, and includes some analysis of the ways things are.  Thus, it describes a path with a heart.  I'm sure I'll mention it now and then.

"Because we cannot ever be totally adequate, self-sufficient, independent beings, the ideal of rugged individualism encourages us to fake it.  It teaches us to be utterly ashamed of our limitations.  It drives us to attempt to be superwomen and supermen not only in the eyes of others but also in our own.  It pushes us day in and day out to look as if we had it all together, as if we were without needs and in total control of our lives.  It relentlessly demands that we keep up appearances.  It also relentlessly isolates us from each other.  And it makes genuine community impossible."

M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum (1987)

 
Entire industries thrive on helping us fake it and on separating us into free-to-choose consumption units.  To many, freedom has come to be synonymous with consumption-according-to-means.  However, a great deal of pollution, habitat destruction, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions are correlated with the artificialities!  Becoming whole people with our own local economies, our own distinctive give and take, we can get real as producers of what we need in order to be in communities.

When we've made genuine community possible, our wants will have a very different, and much less destructive, character.  Having transformed the pretense and isolation, we'll no longer fill their emptiness with stuff.

Here three principles always will be central.  Everything else will be spun off or in orbit.

• All life comes from life.
• All life depends on life.
• Each whole human being is a unique association of body, mind, heart and spirit.

Here live beliefs that

• these principles are of exceptional and universal importance, and
• they must as soon as possible become priorities in the decision-making and scripts of all human beings and their associations, from pairs to the largest of all.

Far too much that's going on ignores, denies and/or substitutes artificialities for the principles.  Much of it got started when the total impact was imperceptible and, possibly, not endangering.  Now the total impact is excessive and devastating, a serious threat to many beings.  Most people cannot detect this and too many who are informed either hope it isn't true or that the worst turbulence will arrive after their time.

For those who will face the challenges, interdependence design consists of the visioning, pathfinding and arranging that facilitate, in each case, processes of both key-principles-adoption and restorative balancing and integration.  Those who go this way will inspire others.

Now every day is a situation of unprecedented vulnerability.  Many customs and habits have diminished -- and diminishing -- value, while some timeless principles remain worthy.  It's time to renew, whole and interdependent, with compassion and justice for all.