16 Feb 2007
What Gives You Hope?
I did an interview yesterday with Trenna Cormack, who is writing a book called ‘Be The Change’, and one of the questions she asked me was “what gives you hope?” Tricky one to put your finger on…. I blathered something about seeing people engaged in designing their future, or somesuch, but then last night as I checked out what Transition Town Lewes are up to, I found something I could put my finger on. There, on their website, you can see a write up of their End of Suburbia screening, done in the time-honoured way with Post-It notes. Reading through the suggestions and comments that emerged from the group, I could feel a very tangible sense of hope bubbling up within me, helped also by the lovely pictures of people engaging in this process, asking the right questions and taking the first steps towards the emergence of a Transition Town. Indeed it is that sense of hope that is so much more powerful than a hundred campaigns *against* something, in their comments you can see the seeds of what they are *for*, and that gives me tremendous hope.
Gerald Spezio
20 Feb 8:03pm
Rob, with you and creativity geniuses like Brian Weller telling us how it is done and “feeding the seeds,” we are bubbling with hype and hope in Willits, California. Dragon dreaming says it all to me – it’s a Tony Buzan thing filled with marketing and boundless career potential.
Let’s all go forward together into the new age armed with Richard Heinberg’s lifeboats and James Kunstler’s Arab baiting presciptions for becoming medieval serfs – living ever so spiritually and simply on love and lettuce from our gardens.
We don’t need no stinking “oily materialism.” Julian Darley told us, for Chrissake.
Julian’s literary guide, “Letter from Earth.” explains how cheap oil screwed up society causing massive “social, mental and relationship breakdown.” Yabut, we ain’t gonna take it anymore, and Julian is showing us the way. We are changing the story and going back to sharing and the safety of the kibbutzim model. Yeah, like it was before the dominator model or oily materialism turned us into “lost , confused, and empty consumers unable to find meaning in anything.” Ayyup, cheap oil is what dunnit.