We live in a unique city that thrives on dreams. Tinseltown, the Entertainment Capitol of the World — it’s part of Los Angeles’ heart. What we do here — how we change our culture can resonate across the planet. That’s why it’s so exciting to be a part of a SFV Transition.
But it’s not enough to build gardens and resurrect rivers and clean toxins out from our soil, though that’s all important work. It’s what we believe that counts as well. This internal change — the Heart of Transition — is what gets passed down to the next generation and makes our current works resilient far into the future.
To be clear, in Transition, we pair up the two — you have to work on and internal and external change. Making connections with people is as vital as connections with your work.
So how is this vital and important change accomplished? We’d like to suggest three steps to start the journey
- Break up old myths
- Explore new visions
- Play
Break up Old Myths
We’re starting with three primary myths that drive this culture forward:
- History starts with farming (10,000 years ago in Sumeria).
- Humans are meant to live this way and only this way (this culture is the penultimate model).
- Humanity must rule the world (this culture has an end goal).
The human species — recognizably human — are between a hundred thousand and a half million years old. Long before cities, we were creating robust technologies and exploring all the corners of the globe.
Modern farming culture is designed around two specific branches of technology: annual plants and fossil fuels. But Human culture — taken in the broader context — traditionally used a whole host of technologies to sustain itself, depending on the ecosystem and the needs of the people at that time.
Then there’s that pesky bit about this culture having an end goal (ruling nature). Science (and, not coincidentally, the traditional indigenous viewpoint as well) shows that evolution has no end point. Evolution rewards diversity and resilience, nothing more, nothing less.
When you break yourself out of the old and stale mindset of this culture, and when you really look at the ENTIRETY of human history and the breadth of available technologies, you enter into a creative canvas of astonishing possibilities.
Here’s some links to folks who started to break down and process these old myths that don’t serve us anymore. You may not agree with everything (or anything!) they have to say, but the reading will challenge you (in a good way!).
Explore New Visions
Now the fun begins.
Jumping right in, the following people are dedicated to suggesting new paths for humanity.
The Great Turning The amazing work of Joanne Macy
Play
Doesn’t that sound odd? Shouldn’t it be more like “live the dream”? What scientists, sociologists and people in general have begun to find out is that play is our preparation for life. It allows us to create artificial barriers to success to test out various scenarios in a safe and pleasurable manner.
And it’s fun.
Shouldn’t we be having fun?
Transition Ingredients & Tools
The Great Afterculture Experiment
