My new favorite book: Blessed Unrest

Paul Hawken is a new intellectual hero of mine. Full disclosure: My intellectual heros are often not the people who have ideas that are ground breaking, but are those that interpret for me the collective ideas of others--fully cited, of course--in a way that strikes me awe filled.

How does Paul Hawken qualify? Look to page 175.

He first cites a molecular biologist's top 16 list for qualities of living objects and makes the intellectual leap that this socially-conscious and -relevant "environmental movement" he biographies in this book relies on concepts that can enlighten us to our Gaia sensibilities deep within. Hawken likens non-profits and community organizations to cells, building into organ-like "aggregates" (p. 175), and into the movement, the final, yet ever evolving, organism. Information is the central currency and communication the economy. "Yeah, yeah ... social theory as a philosophical spin on biological theory--nothing new, just reframing, but an interesting thought," I mused.

Then, on page 178, a golden nugget. Wendell Berry's theory of "solving for pattern" makes him another hero of mine, but still just behind Hawken (since without Hawken, I might have not heard of the nugget). Hawken paraphrases this "pattern" as "a solution that addresses multiple problems instead of one." It doesn't mean that solutions are only worthy if they are magic bullets, but emphasizes the global nature of action within an integrated system. As an urban environmental leader, I need to keep integrated contexts in mind ... and to have the "story" that illustrates and illuminates these connections to other people (i.e. funders, members, foundations, really any audience).

Another one on page 179! Hawken, you are on a roll! with "Nature recycles everything; nothing is wasted, nothing is thrown away because there is no 'away'." This is the principle behind the Ravenwood Collective, a cooperative living and sustainability education "experiment" where our new advisor, Lily Fessenden, lives and teaches in Maine. Not only does this point further emphasize the need for critical evaluation of our own (personal) ecologies, but it emphasizes my (and Lappé's) former point that communities are the key to it all.

The silver bullet, if there was one, has a semi-permeable membrane of community-building filled with a cytoplasm of scientific information and organelles filled with good deeds, constructive criticism, and education. This is what sustainability looks, smells, and tastes like.

Leadership then is active participation in bullet creation and support. Thank you, Hawken: well done and better said.