As a 75-year-old
woman brought up in the 50s and 60s, I look back and notice that I was never
encouraged to solve a problem by looking at a bigger picture than the problem. That
was not encouraged even in a master’s social welfare program. Forty years later,
in anthropology graduate school, I wrote many papers based on ideas in research
and then applied my own ideas which were never big enough to solve the problem
of, for instance, the global refugee crisis. All this leads to my fascination
with huge ideas. I enjoy mulling over these proposals and wondering how they
could be implemented.
One example
I have enjoyed is trying to picture how to stop the exploitation of creatures
and their habitats. Thomas Berry and others in The Christian Future and the
Fate of the Earth propose a global jurisprudence system for creatures and
their habitats. Now how in the world would that look? And could it ever be done
in time to make a difference? And yet, maybe we can take some things from the
big picture to help the United Nations get started. What kind of protections
would there be for wild animals or domesticated? How would humans have to
change behaviors to stop extinctions? This big picture certainly fosters higher
thinking to reach big solutions. Of course other thinkers could join in the
process once it is started.
Another big
picture idea has come up lately in the news as the Biden administration tackles
climate change issues. I do not know that this is a brand-new idea, but it
caught my attention. The proposal is to present climate change as an economic
problem across all the current political issues of the day such as transportation,
emergency services, global relationships, food insecurity, poverty, housing,
fuel issues, education, and equity of services. This view takes climate change
out of just the scientific community into consideration of the cost to our
country if we do not attend to it. I think this will help people pay more
attention to the problem because behaviors are more likely to change if money
is part of the issue.
On the
nightly news, I saw a piece about a water science lab in Flint, Michigan where
lead levels in the water had been harming children for years. The clever idea
was that many of the lab people had been those kids who were affected the most.
They were working on ways to prevent a disaster like that from happening again.
Those children who were disregarded by state and city officials now have an
opportunity to correct that system for other kids. Someone had a brilliant idea
for how to fix the problem and mitigate some of the harm the lab kids had
suffered.
Another big-picture idea that has been around for years but not known to me is that human
beings are in a time now of self-directed evolution beyond materialism. Many
humans are interested in the unfolding of consciousness that leads to better
use of creativity and recognizes beauty and peace of mind that grounds them. It
is a higher version of the self. This self then can connect with a unified
consciousness of other evolving humans that collectively bring peace to the
world. World peace coming from the energy of spiritual thinking is definitely a
big-picture idea.
I hope this
blog encourages more big-picture/critical thinking. Perhaps a spinoff from a
large plan can become your Outside the Box contribution to the universe. These
kinds of solutions spark incredible inspiration in me.
-- Elder Turtle GG
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