Regenerative Living

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Regenerative Living

Ok. This week, I will try to be brief. I am practicing brevity. We live in a nanosecond culture and people just don't have a lot of time for anything. So, I will work over the next year on making my points more succinct without (hopefully) losing quality. But, as well all know, simple is anything but simple. Or, as the saying goes (Pascal, Twain et al): "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one."

Much of the shift we are experiencing in the world, and the underlying tensions that cause so much dislocation and disruption within our institutions, come from the necessity to transcend the mechanistic, linear, and industrial logic that got us here. Most strategists know that what got you here won't get you there. Meaning, growth, and evolution are not just an extrapolation of the past. History does not repeat itself, although it sometimes rhymes. But therein lies the real challenge. The people in power got there by using tools and skills that were effective. And they will keep using those same tools and skills, even though the landscape is completely different and is calling for renewal.

Our relationship with our ecosystem is perhaps the most obvious example of the limits of linear thinking. Our planet simply doesn't care about our industrial logic. It has very clear boundaries set by the physical world that are indifferent to our "needs". Topsoil erosion, desertification, and obviously greenhouse gas emissions are nasty consequences for ignoring those ecological boundaries for far too long­—and should be heeded as a warning.

But there are other examples, too. Healthcare I am particularly passionate about. Most of our healthcare costs today come from chronic diseases that lifestyle changes could address. But our healthcare system is very poorly designed to educate, incentivize, and focus on how to avoid disease and is almost entirely focused on downstream corrections. We know an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but we invest in cures and often ignore prevention. And, collectively, our bodies and our wallets are much worse for it.

We have grown up with (and likely been trained with) a very linear idea of life. We are born, we try to educate ourselves, we get a job, we retire, and we die. We extrapolate from where we are now, and we live with a type of illusion of continuity. However, we are less attuned and accustomed to a more regenerative way of thinking about life. A life that is more circular, where our waste is our food and change is a natural ingredient of a more circular life. Again, think of nature, with its seasons and its changing landscapes. Most of our ecosystem lives in harmony with what nature gives.

But humans have, mainly using stored energy and incredible intelligence, managed to "ignore" those natural boundaries and created a global economy free from limitations. Much of this did bring incredible progress and fantastic innovations, so in a way, we should perhaps also be grateful and happy for our ignorance. As with all things in life, and very much the reverberating theme of these musings, life is not black or white. There are problems with opportunities and opportunities with problems.

I will return many times to the notion of regenerative mindsets. I find it hopeful. I find it optimistic. Most of the cells in our bodies regenerate constantly. We are not the same person we were even yesterday. Renewal is a very human idea. But many of us don't behave that way. We get stuck easily. We often become prisoners of our habits. It's hard to change. You can't teach old dogs new tricks as we say. But it's not true. Change is not only possible. It is really the only human constant.

Adopting a more regenerative mindset is what our current conversation would benefit from. We are currently so stuck and completely whipsawed by two dominant ideological forces that both are extremely retrospective and completely lacking in regenerative qualities. They are like old ideas without sunshine, oxygen, or nourishment. The only good thing about our situation is that any living system that fails to renew will die and something new and often better will come after. I can't wait for the rebirth of our public discourse, in general, and our democracy, in particular.

The pandemic helped, I believe at least in part, to challenge our preconceived notions of what life could be like. We discovered new qualities of life we had forgotten, suppressed, or distracted ourselves from. We also became more painfully aware of who we missed more than others, and perhaps what kind of lifestyle we could shape in the future by keeping what we liked and returning to what we missed.

I found this piece by Charles Blow last year around his second phase of adulthood to be a great example of the shift to a more regenerative mindset and am sharing here for inspiration. I will for sure return to this theme in future posts.

Lastly, in the spirit of regeneration, I will now pause this newsletter for 2 weeks and invest more in charging my own batteries, reflecting deeper, and just practicing the art of simply being. I hope some of you can do the same.

You will hear from me next Sunday, August 7th.

Have a great few weeks!