When I was in college my professors enjoyed crushing what was left of our youthful optimism with miserable statistics about how bad everything was and how rapidly it was getting worse. (Even their cynicism was too small to envision our current issues.) I remember a semester-long course that had to do with reversing urban blight. After being taught about this dire and growing problem we were introduced to the standard remedies. Our professor scornfully dismissed every effort to reverse urban blight. The worst thing that could be done? Coming in from outside the community to impose a do-gooder solution. The only right thing to do was a vast overhaul of our economic structures. (Those structures are even shakier today.) I wrote sufficiently miserable papers to get an A but was left with quiet despair in my ever-hopeful heart.
Soon after that class I read about one woman’s experience of urban blight. She’d lived in the same house for decades, watching her neighborhood decline. There were few jobs and the ones available paid poorly, with no benefits or job security. She sadly listed the local businesses that had left, leaving her area with no grocery, beauty shop, or movie theater. The only places that remained were bars and corner stores selling little in the way of real food. People lost their homes and landlords took over, rarely keeping up the property. The city lost revenue, doing little to keep up with residents’ complaints. It seemed to her that young people were lost too. They swore in front of tiny children and their elders, hung out all hours on street corners, got into public fights, abused drugs. She was quoted as saying that people complained they got no respect from young people, when really the young people had no respect for themselves.
The reason she was being interviewed? She was credited with beginning a tiny urban renaissance that was evident on her street and slowly spreading through the neighborhood.
Here’s how it happened. She’d been in poor health and adjusting to widowhood. Her home had been well maintained over the years but like many wood-sided homes, it began to look shabby when too much time went by without new paint. After her husband died she didn’t do well keeping up with yard work and because the street had changed she rarely sat on the porch as she used to do in years past, chatting with neighbors and greeting young people by name as they went by. It wasn’t just friendliness. When everyone knows everyone, word of misdeeds travels home quicker than an unruly child can get in the door. And when a child really knows the elders on his or her street, they have many more potential role models to benefit them as they grow up. That’s the proverbial “village” it takes to raise a child.
This woman wanted to do something. All she could afford was a few packets of flower seeds. She got out on a spring day to plant the seeds in her long-unused window boxes. She started sitting on her porch every afternoon after watering them, greeting those who went by even though she didn’t know them. Renters in houses where her friends once lived began talking to her. By the time the flowers were in bloom she noticed a difference on the street. She said that people were sweeping their porches and planting flowers of their own. Because they were trying, she got out there to do her part, attempting to take better care of her lawn, telling people who passed by that it was a good way to get exercise she needed. Every time she couldn’t get her mower to start she’d ask a teenager walking down the street to help her. Then before starting to mow, she’d ask for his or her name, shake hands, and thank that youth for doing a good deed by helping her. She made sure to greet those young people by name every time she saw them afterwards.
That summer one family painted their front door. Someone else cleaned up an empty lot that had been a dumping place for trash. People started sitting on their porches, waving to each other, stopping for conversation. It began to feel like a neighborhood again. Building on what’s positive is powerful indeed.
There are plenty of ways people are revitalizing their communities these days. They’re reclaiming empty lots as gardens or play places for their kids, running micro-businesses out of their homes, starting up tool-shares and neighborhood work groups. They’re using social media to connect and collaborate with each other. They’re mentoring kids in the neighborhood and finding ways to get kids more involved in the larger community. Studies show that urban gardens and other revitalizing efforts make a difference, reducing the crime rate and fostering all sorts of positive relationships. An old theory, kind of the flip side of what I’m calling the Window Box Effect, was called Broken Windows Theory. It posited that minor examples of breakdown (like a few broken windows) leads to greater disorder, dragging down not only the appearance of an area but also leading to crime and property damage. This has largely been disproven because crime is actually deterred when people know they have the power to affect their communities and benefit from strong networks within those communities.
Sure, we have a lot to work to do rebuilding our sorry infrastructure and easing the ever-widening income gap. But it doesn’t hurt to remember that noticing a little beauty can amplify the greater beauty that’s everywhere, waiting to bloom.
There are plenty of ways to apply the Window Box Effect.
~How can you re-wire yourself to focus more on what’s valuable, lovely, and positive?
~How can you pay closer attention to delight in your work, your relationship with relatives, your parenting, your body, your home life, the moment you’re in right now?
Tell me how the Window Box Effect works in your life.
My husband and I seek refuge on the porch each afternoon in a ritual known simply as “time for coffee.” Somehow just out the door we’re a step away from the pull of obligations and worries. Here we feel centered by the light through the trees or the sounds of birds or the strange lumbering grace of a bumblebee in the flowers.
Our lives, and yours too, are twisted into knots so complicated we can’t see where they start or end. Those complications are made of bills to be paid, old arguments that didn’t heal, long hours and too little sleep, by endless political bluster and the fallout it causes. It’s good to let go of those tangles, even for a while.
Today on the porch we watched an insect we’d never seen before. It skittered without visible wings, its body open like the spokes on a wheel or the arms of a star. It looked improbable as an undersea creature swimming in the air. We gaped in quiet wonder until it was out of sight.
A few moments of awe are all it takes to remind us that our lives aren’t about those knots. We are pulsing, breathing wonders ourselves in a world bursting with miracles. It takes looking closely at only one thing to see those miracles, whether watching a spider spin her web or looking at fungi that seemed to spring up overnight. We exist for so short a time on this beautiful planet. We clamor over concerns when our lives may be better measured by how much awe we allow ourselves.
I have things to do, but it’s time for coffee. I’m heading for the porch. Hope you do the same.
We are, perhaps, uniquely among the earth’s creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing the future, discontent with the present, unable to take in the idea of dying, unable to sit still. Lewis Thomas
“Self-trust is the first secret of success.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
No one wants to be cajoled, forced, or coerced. Some of us resist mightily. Such resisters are called all sorts of names: underachieving, non-compliant, difficult, withdrawn, eccentric, or worse.
Human beings naturally resist when our autonomy is threatened. And autonomy is most threatened in childhood because many adults (particularly in the western world) believe children require moment-to-moment instruction, advice, and entertainment. Unlike most of previous human history, children’s lives today are heavily monitored and controlled. Adults keep kids in pre-planned activities, insist that education proceed in a linear fashion, intervene to minimize difficulties, and provide distractions to prevent even momentary boredom. They do so assuming these efforts will advance learning and boost success.
Yet this puts character development at risk, because children are attracted to dilemmas that help them learn. Learning from mistakes, taking on challenges, and developing a growth mindset are pivotal for success. So is preservation of a trait found in people at the top of their fields in science, the arts, and entrepreneurship—curiosity. And curiosity arises in unique and unpredictable ways, often appearing after a child has traveled from boredom to inspiration on his or her own.
Coercion also puts the child in an uncomfortable position, because all this control comes from adults with the best intentions. Usually adults who love them. So children, who don’t like overt control any more than you do, typically react somewhere on the spectrum between compliance and resistance. Extreme compliance and they’re less likely to think for themselves, developing an external rather than internal locus of control. Extreme resistance and they’re likely to face ever more punitive efforts to get them to comply. Neither reaction is what adults want or expect.
Which leads me to a story about Transcendentalist writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson. He and his son Edward were trying to get a calf through a barn door. Emerson pushed from behind while his son pulled on the calf’s ear. The heifer wouldn’t move an inch despite a great deal of effort exerted by the two men. Emerson thought back over his scientific and literary readings in hopes of figuring out some way of getting the reluctant animal to move but didn’t come up with any solutions. They continued trying, to the amusement of a servant woman who was passing by. She offered a finger to the calf. Easily led by its desire to suckle, the calf followed her at once.
The wisdom of capitalizing on natural tendencies is the key to good animal husbandry. It’s probably a key to decent human relationships as well. I’m not for a moment suggesting that children are calves. (In fact, I’d rather see calves left with their mothers to suckle than led into a barn by capitalizing on that unmet need.) Children need rules, responsibilities, and the expectation that they’ll treat others with compassion. They need to be nurtured by adults who understand that pushing and pulling aren’t useful ways to help children mature. And they need the freedom to learn in ways that are best for them. At any age, those of us who aren’t oppressed by coercive relationships or controlling institutions gladly seek out advice as we need it, find role models who inspire us, and advance in the direction of our greatest gifts.
“No human right, except the right to life itself, is more fundamental than this. A person’s freedom of learning is part of his freedom of thought, even more basic than his freedom of speech. If we take from someone his right to decide what he will be curious about, we destroy his freedom of thought. We say, in effect, you must think not about what interests and concerns you, but about what interests and concerns us.” John Holt
Something happened the night Worry appeared to me.
Some of us are chronic worriers. There’s probably an adaptive reason for this, since humans who envisioned potential dangers would be more likely to survive and pass on their genes. But saber-toothed tigers aren’t lurking by our front doors these days. I know for a fact that worry generates misery while producing absolutely no benefit. Giving it up, however, isn’t an easy matter. Worry runs in our heads like movies of disaster to come, unbidden yet powerful, making some of us wary of the smallest choices.
I worried from the earliest time I can remember. It may have an adaptive start in my life too. As a tiny child I spent many nights struggling to breathe through asthma attacks. When I was five years old I got a bit of food lodged in my esophagus. When my worried mother called the doctor he said it couldn’t possibly still be stuck hours later, I was just overreacting. I stayed awake all night spitting my saliva into a bowl, since even a moment’s inattention caused it to run down my windpipe and sent me into fits of choking. The next morning my parents took me to the ER where a surgeon removed a very stuck bit of food. The year I turned nine my grandparents all died, catapulting me into years of obsessive worry that everyone else I loved would die too. I was assaulted by an adult when I was 13, telling no one until years later. The focus of my worry widened as I spent years searching for the causes of evil and suffering. Worry continued to be my companion when I hit my 20’s. Each of my babies were born with medical problems. The unknown dangers threatening even the most innocent lives suddenly resided in my house. Chances are my chronic insomnia has roots in all this worry.
One night as I lay awake worrying, I had an experience that profoundly changed me. That night I had plenty of things to worry about: serious concerns about my children’s health, our finances, and other problems. Normally I fought off worry with gratitude—focusing on the comfort of my family sleeping safely nearby and the many blessings in my life. But worry was there haunting my mind and hollowing my body.
Sudden as a car crash, something happened.
I know it sounds bizarre but it was as real as the lamp on my desk is now. I became aware of a huge black column next to my bed. It was comprised of the most immense energy I’d ever experienced. It was dark and powerful with a presence that seemed alive and completely aware of my thoughts.
I had the sense that it was of such infinite size and strength that it went through the floor and out the roof, stretching far in both directions. I should have been more frightened, but the moment this column appeared I realized, as if the message hit all my cells at once, that I had summoned this darkness.
It was born of my own intense worry. It was a profound lesson that went through me the way wisdom does, filling not just our brains but also our bodies and souls. Lying there, I resolved to bring forth every ounce of light I could muster.
The instant I thought to do this, whatever that column was disappeared.
I woke my husband to tell him. He kindly assured me that I was nuts. Until this post I’ve only told one other friend. But in today’s atmosphere of worry, I wanted to share this image—of fear so huge that it manifests next to you. It taught me that worry is a kind of unintentional evil. It presupposes things will go wrong. It’s the opposite of faith.
I’m not entirely cured of worrying nor would I ever change those earlier years of worry. They’ve made me stronger, more open to the beauty found just beyond despair, and left me with a positive quest. But ever since that moment, years ago, I have made a conscious effort to reorient myself.
Ironically, my family has been through times more difficult than I could have imagined back when this happened—crime, financial hardship, loss, and grief. But I know the antidote—to shine forth with all the light I can. Some days I’m practically optimism’s parasite.
But really, if all my moments of hope coalesce into some kind of vision, I can’t wait to see it.
Ask any child. When adults meet them for the first time, standard questions include, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” right after classics like, “What grade are you in?” and “What’s your favorite subject?”
Such questions, unintentionally, gauge a child’s progress toward adulthood. That’s because adults tend to be future oriented. We’re distracted from the present moment by the need to plan and work toward any number of goals—what to do about dinner, how to juggle next week’s schedule, when bills can be paid. These distractions take our attention away from what is in the here and now. When we think ahead so often we have less time to notice, let alone appreciate, what makes up our lives minute by minute.
What is impatience except denying the value of the present moment? The watercolor effect of rain on the window, the meandering quality of a child’s conversation, the long wait for a pot to boil—these can be occasions to experience impatience or opportunities to breathe deeply and be present, gratefully.
Leaning so often toward the future unconsciously demonstrates to our children that later is more important than now. Yet as we know, later never comes. As long as we’re alive there’s always “later” to strive toward. Worse, we are surrounded by advertiser-driven messages telling us that we aren’t there yet, that we need to do more or become something more in order to have friends, be successful, find love.
The nature of early childhood is the perfect antidote to this hurry-up attitude. That is, if adults truly pay attention to the lessons the youngest model for us. Young children who are not yet pulled by the adult world’s messages are oriented to the present moment. When forced to disregard what is vital to their bodies and spirits—pretending, daydreaming, playing, snuggling—they rebel. They are who they are, where they are. They’re not caught up in the future tense which dimishes the here and now. They demonstrate the oldest way of knowing.
Pay close attention to the youngest children in your life. Let them help you learn solutions to our cultural overdrive.
As we slow down we have time to truly know each other and to truly know ourselves. We’re more aware of the messages our bodies send us and can act on those signals before they become symptoms. We have time to reflect. Time to remember our dreams when we awaken. After all, time is the only true wealth we have to spend.
While waiting with other members of our food co-op, someone who should think of other ways to start a conversation asked me a cuttingly critical question. I couldn’t even come up with an answer. That’s not like me. The best response I could muster was a fake laugh, as if to acknowledge that she must have been joking. (She wasn’t.) Her question seemed to be more curious than mean spirited but it forced me to think about how other people see me.
I thought I’d let Beauty go, along with her twin sister, Shame, long ago. Apparently not.
Some people look amazing all the time and at any age. They know what clothes are in, what accessories to use, how to walk in fussy shoes gracefully. I’m impressed by them even if they seem like a species only faintly related to my comfortably slouchy self.
My presence makes people who are fashion backward and technologically inept feel much better about themselves. Clearly there are perks for hanging out with me. But apparently I give so little thought to my appearance that others might come away with the wrong impression. As my questioner put it, “You really leave the house looking like that? It must be easy when you don’t care.”
I churn through my days trying, and sometimes succeeding, in doing what good I can do even if on the smallest scale. I talk to people and animals kindly, try to listen more than react, and when I’m upset ask myself what darkness in myself lets me see shadows elsewhere. I write about natural learning and sustainability and peace. I support good causes and when times are hard, as they tend to be, I attach myself to hope like a barnacle. This leaves very little energy for personal beautification. Heck, I rarely muster up the ooompf to keep weeds from towering over my vegetable plants so there’s no way I’ll get around to using a blow dryer or nail polish. I’ve never had the money let alone the inclination to have a manicure or pedicure, go to a spa, or have my hair styled. Well, I’ve never actually had a hair style….
When I came home I emailed a few close friends. I explained I’d been at the co-op, where we unload a truck and do other labors befitting less-than-great clothes, so I wore jeans and an old embroidered cotton shirt, my hair tied up and scuffed clogs on my feet. Because I’m no saint, I described the unflattering horizontal stripes of the shirt my questioner wore and how it was a so tight that her form-fitting pants pushed bulges of flesh through at least three of those stripes. (I try to be non-judgmental. That day I failed.) Then I asked the most important question. I’ve never steered that question to appearances before. My friends were all ridiculously nice when really, I was hoping to know if it’s time to start dying my hair or stop wearing my daughter’s hand-me-ups.
I know we broadcast something about our self-esteem via our appearance. Still, I’m not any more motivated than I was before that day at the co-op. I tweezed an eyebrow once, back when I was a teen. It hurt at the tears-in-my-eyes level. Won’t do that again. There’s no way I’ll bother wearing earrings or remembering hand lotion.
But I’ve realized an appearance-based truth from all of this. My body, like everyone else’s body, gets used up by life. And that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be. Years of changing diapers, gardening, canning, washing dishes, kneading dough, and taking walks no matter the weather have left me with creaking knees and hands that belong on someone much older. These are all ways of using my body for a purpose. When I stroll off the planet I want to know that I’ve enjoyed all the health, vigor, pleasure, and meaningful work my body can generate.
During yesterday’s walk the wind was intense and it started to rain. My face and hands were pelted with icy drops from a beautiful still-bright sky. I should have left the house with a scarf and gloves but I didn’t turn around. I walked right into the wind, letting it toss my hair as freely as it blew the last leaves off the trees. I felt completely alive.
Interesting problems and exciting risks are life’s calisthenics. They stretch us in directions we need to grow. Children are particularly oriented this way. They think up huge questions and search for the answers. They face fears. They puzzle over inconsistencies in what is said and done around them. They relentlessly challenge themselves to achieve social, physical, or intellectual feats that (from a child’s perspective) seem daunting. They struggle for mastery even when dozens of attempts don’t provide them any success. It’s a testament to courage that they continue to try.
Illustration from ”Lustige Gesellschaft” by Franz, Count von Pocci
Sometimes children are accused of “looking for trouble” when they simply yearn to vanquish dragons of their own making. A child’s desire to challenge him- or herself is at times as unrelenting as physical growth.
As adults we do this in our own way. If we don’t have enticing challenges, we may develop a state of mental friction to compensate. It seems to be a very human trait to clutter up our days with trouble if we have no more engaging prospects. We worry, rehash old issues, overreact, or find complications where there may be none. As the roots of a plant become more tightly entangled once they are pot bound, an individual without the freedom to take on greater challenges often gets caught up in the same confining struggles.
Image by Keith Williamson
One thing we can learn from children is the way they are attracted to dilemmas that help them learn and grow. Children who are nurtured in a healthy, free range learning environment are invigorated by the challenges they seek out. They expand their own frontiers on a comfortable, self-regulating timetable. Perhaps people of all ages define themselves, in part, through the challenges they take on and the way they resolve those challenges.
Oftentimes we deprive children of normal day-to-day challenges because of our own time constraints. As adults we are often distracted and focused on moving forward. It takes considerable tolerance to keep from stepping in and doing for children what will take them much longer to do for themselves, such as solving problems, making choices, completing tasks, and accepting the consequences. But when we recognize that even these small challenges are catalysts for growth, it is easier for us to step back and let children face them as they occur. These are normal stressors. Dealing with them gives children the critical experiences that lead to self-reliance.
pdphoto.org
So much about today’s “managed childhood” has developed in order to prevent young people from making mistakes. We think we know the prescription for success, but as we’ve seen, a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t allow individuals to thrive. It also denies them the very human right to learn in the way best for them and to listen to the callings that prompt them. The “right way” to proceed in our culture usually means health, popularity, good grades, attractiveness, college degree, career, marriage, mortgage, and so on. We’ve created these societal expectations largely to cushion our youth from mistakes. But error is inevitable even if we avoid all risks. That narrow, preordained path is anathema to genuine experience. Setting rigid standards for children sends a message. It says to them that failure is the worst outcome and that our acceptance is conditional.
What we might do instead is recognize that courage is required to go one’s own way, that mistakes are inevitable, and that the outcome is authenticity. The real challenge lies in accepting each person’s possibilities. That’s how each of us proceeds when we do what we can with what we have in order to live our lives fully. The path not taken may be the journey regretted forever. That’s why we need to honor mistakes as important passages in our lives too. They help us face the next challenge with a wry smile and new determination, knowing another lesson has been learned.
“We become what we think about all day long.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Anastasiya Markovich
Long before I became an adult I launched a quest. This was inspired by a something that weighed on my childish mind, an urgent calling to alleviate the suffering of others. Even when I was a misbehaving little girl who ignored her chores and fought with her sister (often), I still felt the weight of this obligation. My parents cancelled their subscriptions to news magazines to avoid my questions as well as my despair over every sorrowful photograph. And my entire family dreaded driving past a chained puppy or crying baby, knowing that I would agonize the rest of the day over this momentary glimpse out the car window.
For some reason my quest took the form of trying to understand why people acted cruelly. So in my spare time I read everything I could find on the history of suffering, evil, and misery. I learned about the Inquisition, U.S.betrayals of Native Americans, the Holocaust, the genocide ordered by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia—if it was awful I studied it. I worked my way through every book and resource possible.
Fritz Fuhrken
This project of mine stretched well into my teen and early adult years. It was grim. It haunted my dreams and colored what should have been youthful optimism. I began to realize that every single human has the capacity for cruelty. We just pretend we don’t. A bad mood may be contagious but the shadow we hide can wreak havoc on a personal and even a global level.
One day as I sat in the sunshine while my firstborn played nearby in the grass, my dear friend Leslie came over for a visit. She found me reading yet another horrific book, a stack of similarly dire non-fiction at my side. And she’d had it. She told me I was ignoring the beauty all around me to immerse myself in misery. She told me to look at the light shining on my child’s face, the bright green grass, and all the love in my life.
She was right, of course.
Still I defended my quest. I told her it was an obligation to know what was wrong with the world in order to right it. I waved around books that described the evils of pesticides, the horrors of factory farms, and the title I was currently reading, something about political prisoners.
She disagreed. She said it was time to focus on what was good.
I told her I was I finding good. What I read exposed me to heart-expanding accounts of people who demonstrated the best of humanity no matter their circumstances. Those who were dying of hunger, yet gave their last bit of food to others. Those who had no reason for hope but who kept art and music alive. Those who faced the worst despair, but did not give in to it. The best lesson I learned from years of study? Every single person has a choice, even if it seems there are no choices. That choice is the attitude they take.
Fluxx
It was time to work on my own attitude.
Gradually I stopped trying to understand and fight against all the reasons for suffering. I also became a little less frantic about doing everything possible to counterbalance the wrong I saw everywhere. I noticed that people in activist groups I belonged to faced the world with the same despair I felt, battling evil so fiercely that they had no way to expand on all the good that also flourishes.
So I began volunteering less time to lost causes, marched in fewer protest rallies, and gave up stomping around with petitions. I did more that seemed to boost the positive—gardening, singing to my babies, and guerilla acts of encouragement.
I became certified to teach non-violence workshops which I taught to school systems, incarcerated teens, and senior citizens. As I taught, the lessons sunk in ever more deeply. The long and life-affirming history of non-violence can’t help but heal a heart heavy with the world’s troubles. The process of non-violence—reacting with love rather than hate—is more empowering than any other force we humans have ever used. It transforms greed, intolerance, and cruelty. It’s humanity’s way forward.
It may seem difficult to sustain a positive outlook these days. My own family has been through grief, injustice, unemployment, and other sorrows. And our world struggles while formerly stable structures crumble. Just look at what’s happening to prescribe-and-placate medical models, inflexible financial institutions, condemning religious frameworks, and rigid corporations. But I believe these current conditions of breakup, economic chaos, and environmental decline are exactly those which are (slowly) leading to beneficial change. Collectively we’re waking up to the weakness of limited thinking and short-term fixes. Hopefully we’re also waking up to the reality that we’re in this together—rich and poor, developed and developing nations, young and old, left and right.
Jules Henri Lengrand
I’ve come to believe a better world is made by building on what works rather than focusing on what’s broken, as long as the truth is told about that brokenness and healing is sought.
The world has seen a 70 percent decline in the number of high-intensity conflicts since the end of the Cold War era. Genocide is down 80 percent. Weapons sales between countries have diminished by 33 percent and the number of refugees has fallen by 45 percent. Even measuring from as little as 15 years ago, the number of armed conflicts has dropped from 44 to 28.
Why? Project Ploughshares credits peace building efforts.
Chances are, the reasons for peace are complex. Yet a stronger international resolve to focus on peace building and basic human rights is taking place. Imagine the far larger potential for enduring peace if we intentionally educate our children and ourselves in the proven methods of non-violence—-negotiation, mediation, reconciliation, even basic listening skills.
2. Freedom is stretching across the planet.
By evaluating variables including civil liberties, democratic institutions, and independent media it’s possible to assess how free each nation in the world really is. Back in 1973, 29 percent of nations were deemed free, 25 percent partially free, and 46 percent not free.
In a little over 35 years, the number of nations ruled by authoritarian regimes dropped from 90 to 30. Countries around the world considered to be free increased by 50 percent while those not free had dropped by more than half.
Independence has a long way to go. But positive signs—protests, dissent, political upheaval show us that ordinary people are speaking up for freedom.
3. Longevity is improving yet total population faces a downturn
Fulfilling the cherished hopes of their parents, more children around the world are born healthy. Mortality rates for those under five years of age have fallen by 60 percent since 1960.
Meanwhile, life expectancy has risen 21 years since the mid 1950’s. Try to suppress your optimism while looking at this analysis of longer lived well-being around the world.
This doesn’t mean the planet will be too crowded. Overall population will continue to rise for several more decades but we’re facing a major downturn. Already birth rates are near or below replacement rate in countries all over the world. Increased education and affluence tend to inspire women, no matter what country they live in, to invest their time and resources in fewer children. As Fred Pearce clearly explains in The Coming Population Crash: and Our Planet’s Surprising Future, our little Earth will likely reach a (painful) peak of 8 billion people around the year 2040, then the total number of human will begin to decline so rapidly that nations will struggle to keep their populations levels from slipping too low. They may create perks for becoming parents and incentives to attract immigrants.
4. Literacy rates continue to improve.
Global adult literacy rates have shot up from 56 percent in 1950 to nearly 84 percent today, the highest ever.
Women’s rates haven’t risen as quickly due to inequality and poverty, but in some areas, particularlyEast Asia, 90 percent more girls are able to read than 10 years ago. As female literacy goes up, other overall positive indicators tend to follow including decreased domestic violence, improved public health and greater financial stability.
5. Intelligence is on an upswing.
From generation to generation, we’re getting smarter. In fact, to accommodate continuously increasing intelligence the IQ test must be renormalized (standardized to keep the average test results at the 100). This is called the Flynn Effect.
Between 1932 and 1978, mean IQ scores in theU.S.rose 13.8 points. If your grandparent received IQ score results of 98 back in 1932 they’d have been deemed of average intelligence. That same grandparent, if administered today’s tests, would be considered to have a borderline mental disability by current scoring standards. IQ scores have risen even higher in some other countries. Of late, developing countries seem to be experiencing the biggest surge.
Plenty of explanations have been proposed, but the increase can’t be definitively pinned on genetic improvements, improved nutrition, greater familiarity with testing or better schooling.
According to Cornell professor Stephen J. Ceci, the most direct gains are not in subjects that aretaught (math, vocabulary) but are shown in parts of the test that seem unrelated to schooling (matrices, detecting similarities). In fact, test gains have been enormous in areas requiring the child to apply his or her own reasoning, such as arranging pictures to tell a story or putting shapes in a series. Although teaching children does return positive results, what a child learns through the natural stimulation of everyday life has a more profound effect. For example, a study to determine the effect of schooling on rural children inIndia found that the increase in overall intelligence from a year of age is twice the increase from that of attending a year of school.
IQ test scores don’t relate to what truly provides satisfaction in life. But the Flynn Effect is intriguing. Factors we can’t completely explain are giving us the intellectual capacities to deal with an ever more challenging world.
6. Compassion is huge.
Never before in history have so many people worked tirelessly and selflessly to benefit others. Paul Hawken writes in Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming that the abolitionist movement was the first major movement by human beings to advocate on behalf of others without seeking advantage for themselves or their particular social or political group. Since that time, such efforts have grown with astonishing vigor.
There are now over a million organizations on the planet working for environmental stewardship, social justice, the preservation of indigenous cultures, and much more. These groups don’t seek wider acclaim, they seek to make a difference for the greater good.
Humanity, which is clever and kind enough to bring about so much improvement, is also awakening to the vital importance of living more sustainably on Earth.
I know we can live more peacefully and wisely.
Thank you Leslie.
Salvatore Di Giovanna
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it … always.” Mahatma Gandhi
I’m waiting in a movie theater line behind two women who are clearly friends. And rivals.
“Max won front line seats to this weekend’s game. It’s the first month the school is offering prizes for the highest overall score and Max is their first winner. Already we can see the advantages of this new school.”
“That’s so nice for him. Jeffrey really prefers playing football to just sitting there watching it. The coach keeps telling us that Jeffrey is a natural and sure to get a Big Ten scholarship.”
“Don’t you worry about him tackling when he’s so young? I heard that high school football players can get brain damage and Jeffrey is only 14, probably smaller than the other players. It’s such a risk.”
“That’s so sweet of you to be concerned. But Jeffrey isn’t taking a risk. He’s learning to look out for himself. That makes a difference in the real world. I’m more concerned for Max, insulated by that private school from experiences that could toughen him up. He’s such a nice guy, I’m worried for him.”
Barbed remarks just kept coming from their smiling mouths.
Yes, I’m a biased observer. I prefer what’s gentle, inclusive, and nature-based. This generally works for me. I say “generally” because I’m hampered when communicating with certain people—those who one-up each over with how perfect their lives are or, conversely, spar about who has it worse. I’m well aware that it’s best to listen with empathy but sometimes I can’t help myself. I just want to get out of the way. That’s because these conversations remind me of angry primates flinging poo.
Turns out there’s something to that image. Biological anthropologist Gwen Dewar noted that the “verbal sniping, snobbery, one-ups-manship, and cruelty” of mean moms has a striking parallel in the animal kingdom. Yup, she’s talking about monkeys and apes.
Females in certain monkey societies live in dominance hierarchies. There are perks for those at the top of the social ladder such as better food and first choice of sleeping places. In bad times, higher ranking females and their offspring are more likely to survive. Social rankings don’t budge. Top monkey moms make sure their daughters share their status. Low-ranking monkey moms can’t do anything to help their daughters move from up from the bottom. And middle-ranking moms can only ensure that their daughters stay in that relatively comfortable spot.
This stratification happens because monkey mothers are pushy. Top monkey moms enlist their powerful relatives in an ongoing campaign to make low-ranking monkeys defer to their daughters. As Dewar puts it, “These girls learn to be snobs. To form social cliques. To harass their social inferiors and toady to their social betters.” At a young age, monkeys know who pushes and who gets pushed. They work hard to assert their own status in order to pass that status (and the survival benefits) along to their daughters.
The analogy isn’t perfect. Humans are pushy for reasons more complex than access to food and better choices of sleeping spots. Plus, we have even more reasonsnot to be pushy.
But even primates are hard to categorize. Only certain species, like baboons, live in groups with the female dominance hierarchies that Dewar likened to “mean moms.” Other species are wonderfully egalitarian, with strong female alliances, like the bonobos.
Bonobos live in matriarchal peace-loving groups. One of the many ways they get along is by frequently offering each other casual sexual stimulation, which rules out suggesting bonobo style friendship to moms waiting in line at the movie theater.
Putting that particular bonobo feel-good formula aside, what primate-like politics do you observe in your fellow humans? How about you? Baboon or bonobo?
“All sorrows can be borne if you put them in a story or tell a story about them.” Isak Dinesen
The woman wrapped blankets around her children, a small boy and a smaller girl. The little ones clamored for their nightly story. It didn’t seem to matter to them that they huddled in what was left of their home. They didn’t seem disheartened after spending another day searching for food. Their mother began the story as she always did, “Not far from here and not long ago.”
The children stepped into the story.
Some of her stories ended the same night they began. Most went on night after night. Each story started with some kind of yearning that turned into a quest. Many times the characters in the story had to step aside to wait or go another way before continuing on. They were confronted by danger, hunger, and riddles. The characters learned to be patient and clever.
Sometimes decisions they made earlier came back to help them or hinder them. In one story they were grateful to find humble roots growing along their path. Weak from starvation the characters dug them up, rinsed them in a nearby stream, and boiled them over a tiny fire. Just as they were finally about to eat some fellow travelers came by asking if they had food to share.
“Careful,” the boy and girl’s mother interrupted the story. “Notice the travelers’ eyes and their hands. Are they thieves? You must show them your strength as well as your kindness. What would you do?”
The boy and girl said they would share. As the story went on these same thieves protected the characters from an enemy but later stole the only stone that warded off a trickster’s wicked prank. When the boy and girl exclaimed that it wasn’t fair their mother explained that the characters saved four lives by sharing the food, which was good, but they’d forgotten thieves could never be trusted. The children nodded as their mother went on with the story.
The characters in the story were always a mother with her boy child and girl child. They weren’t always people. Sometimes they were animals searching for their rightful place in the world. Or elf-like creatures seeking to restore lost magical powers. Or a queen traveling with the prince and princess, gathering clues to unlock a mystery. Often they were joined in their quest by other characters. Some of these characters had wisdom to offer. Others tricked and cheated them. Others ignored them entirely.
Image courtesy of eliq.deviantart.com
The children protested each night when their mother’s voice grew increasingly hoarse and she finally told them it was time for sleep. They felt as if they’d fallen from the story world. But she always promised there would be more to tell the next evening.
The family spent years waiting. For what, exactly, the children weren’t sure. A better home awaits us, their mother assured them, but it’s a long way away and not all will be easy once we arrive. During the daytime she taught them to speak a language no one else knew. It sounded like birds chirping and scratching on the roofline. Sometimes she taught them songs while they ground grain or chopped vegetables for stew. Mostly she taught them to be wary and watchful. The little ones barely noticed as they got taller except that it was a struggle to keep them in clothes that fit. They rarely had jackets or shoes. Sometimes they had no food either.
The nightly stories grew longer. Sometimes it took weeks to finish one tale. The story’s characters found many obstacles in their way and often, just when the troubles were unendurable and the characters ready to give up, the story would change in ways they couldn’t have imagined. The only thing that seemed to matter was that the characters didn’t lose heart.
Then everything changed. The mother showed the boy and girl a packet she had carefully hidden in the folds of her sweater. “Passports and documents,” she whispered. That very day the family left on their own journey away from the place they’d lived their whole lives. The children had never before encountered such hurry and so many crowded places. They stayed close to their mother as they waited in lines, were scrutinized by men behind tall counters, and had papers stamped. Before long they were strapped into seats on a huge craft. As it began to move the mother told a story. They didn’t know it would be her last.
There were three characters, a mother wolf traveling with a female pup and a male pup nearly as large as his mother. Although they lived in a land filled with sunsets that inspired beautiful wolf songs to rise from every hilltop, they were driven away by something worse than hunger. Their journey took them to a bridge so long they couldn’t see the other side. Behind them were wolves like themselves, thin and desperate. They weren’t sure what kind of creatures lived on the other side of the bridge but still, they were determined to get there. Suddenly in front of them loomed a fearsome beast with no eyes but many claws. He made the bridge shake so hard that they tumbled off, all except for the young male wolf who clung to the underside. He tried to pull himself up as he challenged the beast to fight. The beast loomed over him, roaring loudly with breath that crackled and smoked. Still the young wolf struggled to get back on the bridge. Then he felt something grab his feet from below. He kicked with all his strength but couldn’t loosen the hold. It wasn’t until he looked down that he saw his mother and sister wolves pulling his feet. They hadn’t fallen far. Just below the bridge was a forest of fruit and nut trees with branches reaching nearly to him. But he wouldn’t let go. He hauled himself up for battle. Just then the huge creature stomped down on his paw. His leg curled up at the monster’s touch as if scorched by fire and the wolf fell down, down, down to land on his mother wolf and sister wolf where they crouched in a tree. When he opened his eyes his mother was unable to speak and his sister unable to hear and his leg was twisted.
The story went on through the night. The boy and girl sat enraptured as their mother unfolded a tale rich as legend. The wolf characters trekked through strange forests finding nourishment that slowly began to heal them. Brightly colored birds taught them to fly. When the rocks under their feet started to crumble the wolf family lifted in the air, soaring toward mirrored mountains that appeared in the distance. The mother wolf could now speak in a whisper, the female pup could hear loud sounds, and the nearly grown male pup’s leg was nearly straight. Their fur prickled in fear but their journey had made them powerful in ways they were only now beginning to recognize. By the time they landed they knew that together they were invincible.
The story ended as the craft came to a halt. The girl held back, looking out the window at the unfamiliar surroundings. The mother stood, taking the boy and girl’s hands. “We have arrived,” she said. “No more of my stories. It is time for you to tell stories to me.”
Passengers streamed past them, people whose clothes and skin looked as foreign as mythical creatures. Most of them looked straight ahead but some of them smiled at the family. Their mother said to her children in a voice fierce with pride, “Always remember the word “immigrant.” It means you are one of the strong.”
Laura Grace Weldon 