Love this! It's something I want to reread regularly as a reminder. I lived on Dancing Rabbit Eco village and spent no significant money on entertainment during that time. My needs for entertainment and community were covered by local musicians, learning skills (e.g. sewing to repair my clothes, which was FUN), community meals... It was amazing how we could provide these things for ourselves that I usually pay for in cities. I also wanted to share this quote: "The world would be better off
if people tried to become better,
and people would be better
if they stopped trying to become better off.
For when everyone tries to become better off,
nobody is better off.
But when everyone tries to become better
everyone is better off.
Everyone would be rich
if nobody tried to become richer,
and nobody would be poor
if everyone tried to be the poorest.
And everybody would be what [she] ought to be
if everybody tried to be
what [she] wants the other fellow to be." Peter maurin
P.S. The dancing rabbit e-mail newsletter is quite active and a good way to learn more about them in a low-key way if you don't have the wherewithal to visit rural missouri at the moment :)
Thank you for this Isabelle! As you know, “enough” money is on my mind frequently as well :) I like how two things come together, dovetail, in your piece: our personal experience of money and societal stories around money/systemic patterns. I’ve not done a lot of reading about degrowth and postgrowth yet but I’ve been collecting some resources--I’m intrigued how the bigger philosophy of degrowth and postgrowth might influence our individual perceptions of enough. We’ll see :)
I am definitely intrigued to see how our thoughts and feelings about money will develop as our economy develops in new ways to support the climate crisis. It'll be interesting. Thanks Astrid!
It's a monopoly game created by the devil (Mammon), being overlorded by militarists & madmen, benefitting mainly the ones who own the gameboard & print the money/issue credit.
Another haunting question: why are we allowing gigantic "corporations" to siphon off most of the "wealth"/credit for unsustainable & deadly industries & technologies, which we are in essence beeing enslaved to? Nuclear subs, obsolete pipelines, weapons of war, gas-guzzling trucks... it's a racket, all a ponzi scheme mobster racket w/o accountability, almost no accounting at all for the consequences.
Why did money & industrial economics allow all of this to happen?
'If we surrendered to earth's intelligence we could rise up rooted like trees.' ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Love this! It's something I want to reread regularly as a reminder. I lived on Dancing Rabbit Eco village and spent no significant money on entertainment during that time. My needs for entertainment and community were covered by local musicians, learning skills (e.g. sewing to repair my clothes, which was FUN), community meals... It was amazing how we could provide these things for ourselves that I usually pay for in cities. I also wanted to share this quote: "The world would be better off
if people tried to become better,
and people would be better
if they stopped trying to become better off.
For when everyone tries to become better off,
nobody is better off.
But when everyone tries to become better
everyone is better off.
Everyone would be rich
if nobody tried to become richer,
and nobody would be poor
if everyone tried to be the poorest.
And everybody would be what [she] ought to be
if everybody tried to be
what [she] wants the other fellow to be." Peter maurin
Thanks Dan!!! I am jealous of your community living situation, are you still there? I might be stealing that quote :)
Back in mainstream society now. I did the Dancing Rabbit Visitor program: https://www.dancingrabbit.org/visit/. I wrote about my experience here: https://environmentalhealth.substack.com/p/my-environ-mental-epiphany-going. I'm also working on another post inspired by my experience. Glad you liked the quote. I find it to be quite juicy too, something I've been returning to again and again over the past few days.
P.S. The dancing rabbit e-mail newsletter is quite active and a good way to learn more about them in a low-key way if you don't have the wherewithal to visit rural missouri at the moment :)
Haha, I am based in the midlands in the UK so might be a bit of a trip, but will deffo take a nose.
Thank you for this Isabelle! As you know, “enough” money is on my mind frequently as well :) I like how two things come together, dovetail, in your piece: our personal experience of money and societal stories around money/systemic patterns. I’ve not done a lot of reading about degrowth and postgrowth yet but I’ve been collecting some resources--I’m intrigued how the bigger philosophy of degrowth and postgrowth might influence our individual perceptions of enough. We’ll see :)
I am definitely intrigued to see how our thoughts and feelings about money will develop as our economy develops in new ways to support the climate crisis. It'll be interesting. Thanks Astrid!
It's a monopoly game created by the devil (Mammon), being overlorded by militarists & madmen, benefitting mainly the ones who own the gameboard & print the money/issue credit.
Another haunting question: why are we allowing gigantic "corporations" to siphon off most of the "wealth"/credit for unsustainable & deadly industries & technologies, which we are in essence beeing enslaved to? Nuclear subs, obsolete pipelines, weapons of war, gas-guzzling trucks... it's a racket, all a ponzi scheme mobster racket w/o accountability, almost no accounting at all for the consequences.
Why did money & industrial economics allow all of this to happen?
'If we surrendered to earth's intelligence we could rise up rooted like trees.' ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Dream wilder ♥ ☀ ★ 🐷 🐯 🐱 🐭 ᐅᕙᖓ ᐱᐅ 💙 🌳 💜 💚 🌞 https://vimeo.com/channels/639670 ♡❥