---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: David Braden <[email protected]> Date: Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 10:15 PM Subject: A New Story I work with an advisory board for Living Systems Institute and we have been working on a "new story" about healing the earth and ending poverty by building new relationships with the living things around us. Here is the latest version: Each of us must do what we can to make our way in the system the way it is. Without that we have nothing to offer the future. But if we humans continue to focus on our individual goals the system will continue its trend toward fewer and fewer niches for people and other living things. Already over 3 billion people live on less than $2 a day. Businesses seek to reduce the cost of labor through mechanization and automation. Industrial economies of scale drive out competition. Monetary wealth concentrates in fewer and fewer hands. In that direction lies all of our worst fears. In that direction there is economic collapse, global warming, extinction of species, disease and violence. Changing direction requires individual human beings to reach out and encourage the participation of the living things around them and creating new niches for people and other living things. It cannot be done remotely. Every interaction is inherently personal. In this direction the system heals itself and produces an abundance for all the species participating, including humans. We have the power to create the kind of world in which we want to live. We will not be able to protest or vote in this change. The change can only occur from the bottom up. Change only occurs when we change the way we interact with the living things around us. Following is a link to 2 articles I wrote for the Mother Earth News. They are suggestions for how any of us can take that first step toward changing directions for all of us. I hope each of you will share these links as widely as possible. This can be the beginning of a new story for humans on this planet. Any comments you might have that could improve the effectiveness of the story are also appreciated. http://www.motherearthnews.com/search.aspx?tags=%22+David+R.+Braden+IV%22#ax... -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://en.wiki.floksociety.org/w/Research_Plan P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/