Simply Nirvana

My friend and colleague, Lynne Twist, in her book, The Soul of Money [p 237], shares about a time Buckminster Fuller came to dinner:

During this pivotal time Bucky was central to my life and work, and one night we were honored to have him come to dinner at our house. Our children were six, eight, and ten years old, and Bill and I, Bucky and our kids sat at our kitchen table. Bucky was often referred to as the ‘Grandfather of the Future’ and it was so exciting–such a gift–seeing him there with our children sharing a simple, home-cooked meal. At one point, my eight-year-old daughter, Summer, said something that was profound in the way children do, speaking a deep truth with their innocent insight. Her remark was a kind of showstopper for the three adults at the table–Bill, Bucky, and me–and we looked at each other, touched by the wisdom of this child.

Then Bucky said something that changed my life and my relationship with my children forever. He said to Bill and me, ‘Remember, your children are your elders in universe time. They have come into a more complex, more evolved universe than you or I can know. We can only see that universe through their eyes.”

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The following Youtube video captures Severn Suzuki in a “showstopping speech” to the UN at the Earth Summit in 1992. From the intro to this video on Karmatube.org, “Born and raised in Vancouver, Severn Suzuki has been working on environmental and social justice issues since kindergarten. At age 9, she and some friends started the Environmental Children’s Organization (ECO), a small group of children committed to learning and teaching other kids about environmental issues. They traveled to 1992’s UN Earth Summit, where 12 year-old Severn gave this powerful speech that deeply affected (and silenced) some of the most prominent world leaders. The speech had such an impact that she has become a frequent invitee to many UN conferences.”

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My daughter sent me the link to Servern’s speech.

…[Oscar Wilde]

If ending poverty is tied to a consistent level of GDP growth, it follows that ending poverty is a time-bound pursuit. To figure out timeframes for ending poverty, development experts often use a mathematical equation, a country’s expected percentage annual GDP growth times number years at anticipated percentage annual GDP growth equaling GCP level considered to allow for an acceptable number of poor people. For low income countries, this GDP growth approach will take decades.

The following quote from a Brookings Institution Center on Children and Families report illustrates that even after decades of US GDP growth, there are still unacceptable levels of child poverty.

During the 1960s, [US] child poverty fell by more than half, to 14 percent. In the subsequent three decades, however, child poverty drifted upward in an uneven pattern, never again reaching the low level achieved in 1969. This is a surprising and discouraging record.

Through thirty years of my own independent research into the mindset of poverty, The stressful belief that one does not have the means to create what is personally meaningful, I have satisfied my working thesis that the work of ending poverty is being addressed from the very mindset that holds poverty in place. Individuals are leading poverty interventions believing they cannot create what their mission holds to be meaningful.

How do you feel when you think the thought, ending poverty is impossible? Is your imagination available to you when you think this thought?

How do you feel when you think the thought, ending poverty is possible? Is your imagination available to you when you think this thought?

What thoughts make a world without poverty imaginable?

What thoughts must be left aside in order to imagine a world free of poverty?