Living Life Unusual

This quote is from Steam Drills, Treadmills, and Shooting Stars, a novel about coal and climate change. Photo by Forrest Cook.
This quote is from Steam Drills, Treadmills, and Shooting Stars, a novel about coal and climate change. Photo by Forrest Cook.

The crises of our current human predicament offer us the thin silver lining of opportunity . . . we can – and must – live life differently, defying old beliefs, redefining what it means to live a fulfilling and meaningful life. We are being called to question everything. The entire structure of society, civilization, economy, politics, arts, culture are all on the table, open to discussion, and reconfiguration.

I find this invigorating. “Success”, in the old definitions, is increasingly becoming unattainable and thus irrelevant. For me, friendships, creativity, self-education and learning, connection to the Earth, listening, expressing, healing, waging peace, working for social change and justice are all rising in importance in my worldview.

I want to know my local bakers, see where the lettuce and kale are growing, heal my body with herbal remedies, use radio, writing, social media, and home-made videos for expressing deep thoughts and bold ideas. These are the ways in which I’m moving toward a new culture of respect, dignity, human creativity, love of our communities, the land, each other. I, like so many others, am integrating an understanding of living systems theory into my everyday life, and allowing this way of being to influence how I work in groups, communicate, show up in movements, participate in projects and endeavors.

It’s a powerful world. I invite you to join me in building this in your own way, in your own life, in your own community. Here’s to living life unusual!

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ARivera New Hatuthor/Activist Rivera Sun, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection, Billionaire Buddha and Steam Drills, Treadmills, and Shooting Stars, the cohost of Love (and Revolution) Radio, and the cofounder of the Love-In-Action Network. She is a trainer and social media coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence and Pace e Bene. Sun attended the James Lawson Institute on Strategic Nonviolent Resistance in 2014 and her essays on social justice movements appear in Truthout and Popular Resistance. www.riverasun.com

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