Travels in the Riel World

On the Great Disruption of 2008 …

Let’s today step out of the normal boundaries of analysis of our economic crisis and ask a radical question: What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.”

We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese …

We can’t do this anymore…

“Just as a few lonely economists warned us we were living beyond our financial means and overdrawing our financial assets, scientists are warning us that we’re living beyond our ecological means and overdrawing our natural assets,” argues Glenn Prickett, senior vice president at Conservation International. But, he cautioned, as environmentalists have pointed out: “Mother Nature doesn’t do bailouts.”

One of those who has been warning me of this for a long time is Paul Gilding, the Australian environmental business expert. He has a name for this moment — when both Mother Nature and Father Greed have hit the wall at once — “The Great Disruption.” …

Often in the middle of something momentous, we can’t see its significance. But for me there is no doubt: 2008 will be the marker — the year when ‘The Great Disruption’ began.

                                                                                    - From a Thomas Friedman op-ed column

On life and growth…

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

                                                 - Neale Donald Walsch

I just came across this quote, although it’s apparently been around for a while, and I was struck by it. So simple, but there is a lot of truth in it.

So Barack Obama is officially the 44th president of the United States. Has anyone ever seen such a depth of emotion for a presidential inauguration? Have so many people ever stopped what they were doing in the middle of a work day in order to watch the ceremony? It just speaks to the fact that our nation is ready to turn the page. Ready to hope again.

I can’t add anything original to the hundreds of thousands of words that have already been written about yesterday’s events. But for the sake of this blog, I thought it would be interesting to copy some of the words from Obama’s inaugural address that relate to the world. Not the economy, not the wars, but rather the cultural diversity of our nation and the world beyond our borders.

Here is Obama addressing the people of the world…

And so, to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.

Here he specifically addresses the Muslim world and the people or leaders of particular nations…

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.

To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society’s ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.

And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

And here Obama speaks about the strengths that the United States draws from its cultural diversity…

We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth.

And because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

Just thought you’d enjoy pondering these words as we enter a new era.

And I’ll leave you with this photo of Sasha Obama giving her father the thumbs up at yesterday’s inauguration. It’s a nice sentiment. Lets hope the good feelings last for a while.

On having an incurable urge to travel…

When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship’s whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder.

                                                                              –John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley

On Americans’ interest in the world…

The majority of the American people in the run-up to this election said they believe that the next president, one of his most important priorities should be restoring America’s position in the world. That to me says it all: That means that there is an openness, that there is a desire, a hunger to know about the world, and to know about where America is and fits into the world.

                                                          - Christiane Amanpour, quoted in a recent news story

What do you think? Are Americans more interested and engaged in the world?

On living in a multipolar world. I think Eugene Robinson nailed it in a recent op-ed column:

The lesson that’s being brought home this summer is that we live in a multipolar world. We knew that, but in our political rhetoric we prefer to ignore it. Now, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are going to be able to make it through their convention without acknowledging the world’s complications and interconnections.

Obama will probably talk more about engagement and the “international community,” while McCain is likely to sound more confrontational. I’m pretty sure, though, that neither will come clean about a central truth: Our future is being decided not just in Washington but in Beijing and Moscow — and in Riyadh, Islamabad, New Delhi, Dubai, Caracas, Abuja, Brasilia. . . .

We still have the wherewithal to lead. But we’re deluding ourselves if we believe we won’t have to adapt to the new reality.

On the wonders of travel…

“I recall my younger self as a dazed longhair gazing slack-jawed day after day at monuments, ruins, beguiling countrysides, and strange new cultures. From the bazaars of Marrakesh to the mosques of Istanbul and into the Hindu Kush, I could feel history and geography transforming me, and I fell stupidly in love with travel.

“I met other globe-roamers, and with them shared meals, beaches, and bus seats, and climbed peaks to celebrate sunsets. At night we huddled in cafes or around campfires, swapping tales and swearing that travel was the best thing that had ever happened to us, the best thing that could happen to anyone.”

                                                                                   - Brad Newsham, Take Me With You

Thoughts on time…

“Eskimos working for a fish cannery in Alaska thought factory whistles were ridiculous. The idea that men would work or not work because of a whistle seemed to them sheer lunacy. For the Eskimo, tides determined what men did, how long they did it, and when they did it…

The Europeans who invaded the North American continent imposed their time system on everything. We have concrete notions concerning books, houses, dams, office buildings, etc., all of which have scheduled times for completion, just as children are supposed to walk and talk and go to school at certain ages. For the Hopi, every living thing has its own inherent time…

Time started as a natural series of rhythms associated with daily, monthly and annual cycles. It is now imposed as an outside constraint that sends its tentacles into every nook and crevice.”

                                                                                                - Edward Hall, Beyond Culture

On travel… 

“A curious human linkage is forged amongst travelers, making it possible to understand one another almost immediately because we recognize something of ourselves in each other. We’re the sort that doesn’t need a home. The desire to see the world is what matters. Traveling is like being in love; it has that kind of strength. The love some people give to another person, to a home, to a career, we give to the road, to the mountains and villages, to children running in the streets, to the women at the well, to the trees, the moon.

We throw ourselves into the world and become creatures of chance, of the stars. Traveling alone can be hell, in its utter solitude and in its panic, panic not from rain or cold or sickness but from the sense of displacement, and the question ‘Why am I here?’ But something compels us and it’s this: when we travel we absorb fresh life around every corner. For years the urge to travel might refuse to identify itself, as if it’s a dormant seed inside us. But one day we find it somewhere else, furrowed in the body of another person we may meet on a train or at a bus stop, and suddenly this yearning is happily, instantly recognizable. We understand each other’s need to travel. We understand this without question.”

                                                           - Lauri Gough, Kite Strings of the Southern Cross

Here is another type of post that you will begin to see regularly on this site - Thoughts to ponder. A series of ideas and quotations to think about and discuss:

“Work begins when you  don’t like what you’re doing. There’s a wise saying: make your hobby your source of income. Then there’s no such thing as work, and no such thing as getting tired. That’s been my own experience. I did just what I wanted to do. It takes a little courage at first…But you can make it happen. I think it’s very important for a young person to do what seems to him significant in his life.”

                                                                                     - Joseph Campbell, An Open Life