Janet McNeill

<drafted June 14/10>

I’m about to write a blog post called ‘Plan B.’ (just have to read the book first!)

Simply reading the book’s acknowledgments has prompted this particular post. Hooey, did it take a lot of people to get Lester Brown’s book Plan B 4.0 – Mobilizing to Save Civilization into my hands!?

Modern civilization (using the term loosely, as I like to joke, since there is much about modern life that is very un-civil indeed) has been all about the ‘Everything is all about me’ ethic, hasn’t it? (I wrote about this in an essay called ‘Everything is all about ME, right?’)

I personally have never been much of a sports fan, truth to tell. Competition has just never really turned my crank. Not that I’m not interested in fitness – I love to walk, bike, swim & snowshoe. I’m just not very competitive.

The blog posting ‘G is for Gatekeeper’ talks a little about my contention that changing the world is not a competition, but very much a team sport.

I’ve been trying to “save the world,” one way & another, ever since I was about 14 years old (43 years & counting!) & am I ever in great company!! Awesome company.

I love the work I do. It’s challenging, rewarding, & fun.

But it took me until last Fall to actually articulate for myself the following thought:

Not only is everything not about me, I am not even here for me! My “own” life is not really “mine” at all!

That probably sounds a little weird & fruity to at least some readers, so I apologize. It is an almost embarrassing thought to articulate in this (western?) culture of ours that is so dominated by what we all want as individuals.

But it seems to me it’s time I came out of the closet about this.

It isn’t just hockey & football & baseball & soccer that are team sports.

It isn’t just changing the world that is a team sport.

It isn’t just family life that is a team sport – although clearly family life is all about team effort & love & unselfishness & the ability to embrace diversity.

& it isn’t just politics that ought to be a team sport, instead of an adversarial game in which the people it is supposed to serve are treated as unwitting money providers & sacrificial lambs &/or cannon fodder to immoral “leaders” who have anything but our best interests in mind.

Life is a team sport.

None of us is here just for our own little self. (Actually, I don’t think our “selves” are “little” at all. I think we are – or certainly have the potential to be – very, very big indeed. Vast, actually. But you know what I mean…)

And if a whole lot more of us had “gotten” this a whole lot of years ago, my-oh-my what a different world this would be, hmmm?

But we didn’t get it.

Are we starting to get it now??

Janet

P.S. Tikkun (pronounced tea-kün, more or less…) Magazine’s May/June 2010 issue highlights “Environmentalism without Spirituality.” I really enjoyed David Loy & Mark Hathaway’s articles in the magazine. Great to get a better grasp of the weaknesses & strong points of both eastern & western ideas/philosophy. I hadn’t read Tikkun before the NSP conference in Washington. It’s one to pick up, for sure! (Tikkun, btw, means to mend, repair and transform the world.)