ABANDONING HOPE TO EMBRACE THE “WHAT IS” OF NATURE

ENVISION THIS: Global Warming and other impending systems collapses are not problem humans need to “fix” but realities to which we must adapt and continue to adapt as they manifests in our locale. Robert Wolff is author of Original Wisdom: Stories of an Ancient Way of Knowing, a blogger, and contributor at OpEd online magazine. Robert, now 91, was raised by his Dutch parents among the indigenous peoples of Indonesia. A psychologist and educator who has lived in Suriname and in Southeast Asia, he has taught at the University of Hawaii and currently lives on the Big Island. He writes: “Wake up, people, we are not who and what you think. We are an integral part of All That Is, we are part of the great complex that is our planet...We may think we are not a part of Nature, but of course we cannot not be. We can put chemicals and batteries and metal bones in, or attached to, our organic bodies, but the essence of what we are is that we are part of Nature. We, and our works,are interwoven in the All of the planet. The one great ecology of the earth must include our plastic and other invented materials; even our invented ideas must be part of the All. Our man-made world cannot be other than a part of the planetary ecology...In the end, survival of our species trumps even the overwhelming power of corporations. We can find our ancient root-assumption again; it is still inside us. Accept that we are not exceptional, we dont own this planet but were born of this planet as one of the millions of other species. We are part of all Life. With all other Life we adapt as best we can to our environment as it is...The only scenario I can think of is a total breakdown: the manmade world crashes...For the first time since birth, we are free.”

Robert Wolff