It's normalized, but not normal to consume so much. Tactics like being neighborly and slowing down from the busy world hold keys to changing our climate-changing consumption patterns.
Prem Baba, the yoga master, sits at the head of the lecture hall in Dhyan Mandir Ashram on a chilly February morning in Rishikesh, India. Surrounded by bustling Indian construction, a diesel tractor plowing fields, this lecture - or satsang - has the teem of Indian chaotic noise in the background. With a few deep breaths, all noises begin to disappear and his words remain. He speaks of our social norms, like neediness and wanting not just love, but exclusive love. He speaks about social trends that have been normalized, but are not normal, like dramatic screaming matches on reality TV or in politics.
Normalized but not normal. It made me reflect on the world and my life in North America. Needing a car to get anywhere is normalized, but not normal. An average car is 4100 lbs, or 2 tons. This is a piece of complex, heavy machinery that is a significant financial commitment. Anything you need a license to operate is definitionally complex and dangerous. Until 1915, with the release of Ford's Model T, it was not normal to need a car. Between my food, entertainment, and work is a piece of complex, heavy machinery. In less than 150 years, we normalized car dependency. And it's not normal. It's popular, its normalized, but its not normal.
Our contemporary American lifestyle is a mousetrap for consumerism, for isolation, and for disease. And so many people around the world fetishize the US lifestyle as the peak of fun, the peak of freedom, the peak of class. We work more hours than ever before. We have opulent ways of meeting our simple needs, from over-the-top homes to over-the-top entertainment. And the disturbing thing is that we know our lifestyle is killing us. We know sedentary work, like sitting behind a counter or a computer screen, is a prime contributor to chronic disease. We know that processed foods lead to chronic disease. We know that a 2-ton machine sitting between me an my livelihood - car dependency - is a dangerous way to spend an average of 1 hour per day in our lives (of 4.3 years over the average lifespan). We don't change because we feel locked in.
So, I'm proposing something simple to break these norms: be a neighbor. I started living in eco-villages in 2021. I would wake up in the Blue Ridge mountains at Earthaven Ecovillage and didn't have a toilet in my apartment, I had to walk up a small hill every morning to the composting toilet and interact with nature first thing. I would pick black berries, snack on some sassafras leaves, and breathe fresh air first thing in the morning. I would also see my neighbors. I had signed up for some community projects, like pulling weeds in the garden terraces. When I saw the neighbors, our interaction wasn't some obligatory 'Hello' exchanged in the morning, I had business with them. The same day I would be in need of a special bowl for a special recipe. I don't keep much cookware around. Because I was in a chain of mutual exchange with my neighbors, I felt very comfortable asking for help from them, because that's the norm. When neighbors have even the slightest culture of collaboration together, it generates a golden substance that meets one of our deepest needs: that need is to belong to something bigger, to have a role, to feel like you fit in. Belonging unlocks what we need the most in our world: the ability to share, to connect, to get our needs met simply and close to home.
There at Earthaven Ecovillage, I belonged. In the past I had belonged. I belonged in Boy Scouts and my high school theater troupe. But, there's a fundamental difference between belonging as a neighbor and beloning in a special interest group - its survival. Where we sleep, is where we find our greatest security, it's our cave, our refuge from the world, it's supposed to be the most rooted aspect of our life. But instead of being a village of trusted kin, our neighborhoods are often a collection of isolasted kings in their castles with no exchange happening between kingdoms. And if exchange creates beloning, we don't feel, on the deepest level, like we belong to our neighborhoods. Do you feel like you really belong to your block? And if we don't belong at home - we seek it outside, like in Boy Scouts, and theater troupes, and now CrossFit.
But if we want to end our crises, like climate change or structural racism or economic inequality, there's a simple first step we can take: be a neighbor. This is a matter of sovereignty and empowerment. This is a matter of getting our needs met simply, without the involvement of a car or money or technology. The more we belong, the easier it is to detach from the isolating factors of modern life. And everyone has the. - s a m e - e x a c t - needs! Food, water, shelter, activity/rest, entertainment, and belonging. Those are the universal needs that, in today's culture, we satisfy in all kinds of wacky ways. What if you could walk instead of drive? Would you choose that option? What if you could eat food from your backyard, instead of from the grocery store, would you? What if you could have a deep belly laugh by walking around the block, instead of with a crooked neck staring at your phone, would you?
Many people like their golden cages. Normalized insanity feels comfortable for many people, but its not fulfilling. Comfort is different than fulfillment, and because we often choose comfort, we are consuming this planet to death. Being a neighbor is not normalized. Assessing our needs, and how we meet them, is not normalized. But if we want a planet that teems with vitality and harmony for our future generations, we have to change. We have to exchange the superficial sense of comfort for the deeper sense of fulfillment. It’s not difficult, but its not normalized either.
In Empowering Revolutionary Leaders, I teach a pathway to make that transition, from superficial comfort to deep fulfillment, and it starts with you. It starts with individuals looking in the mirror and questioning, deeply, the norms of our culture. The fire of fulfillment quickly spreads as you become an ambassador to your neigbhors, spreading a little sense of deep fulfillment here and there, proving to people that we can cultivate a brighter future, and it is more safe and more satisfying that what we've normalized today.
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