Deepening Ethical Thinking Toward Our Planet
Traumatization by the events in our life ought solicit a response of care. Fear should summon a more compassionate vision for humanity —and concurrently natural disaster warrants a deepening ethical thinking toward our planet.
We are the same. Out of many, one.
If we can afford ourselves a short distance between these life events, we’ll discover a healing space. Room to acknowledge and validate the part or parts inside us waiting to safely re-experience our losses, pain, and suffering —and our joy and goodness too. We can transform our pain into wisdom, turn suffering into resilience and loss into gift. In that same healing space, our joy and goodness are multiplied too.
Respectively, as we gain capacity to acknowledge ourselves, we acknowledge what is similar in others. It builds empathy. Good steps in bringing forward the vision of a compassionate and sustainable world.
When we do the inner work it reflects on our outer world.
I believe empathy and compassion create a beautiful reciprocity. Compassion brings into activation our interconnected knowledge (let’s call it love) that flows through each of us.
Love brings peace and peace brings love. It’s the forward motion of evolution. Give and take, yin and yang, I feel you and you feel me. Good fortune? Surely good fortune is the karma of our empathy and compassion.
Isn’t compassion what we all long for?
From a global view, maybe we could say we’re looking at the beginning of a new understanding. The woke humanitarian sees our planet, lifeforms and habitants as inter-dependent.
What is our world trying to tell us?
While technology has been unequivocally healthy in some ways —it’s proven destructive in others. Nonetheless it too continues to be a vehicle for this world-message.
Dear human, actively listen —to land and sky, listen to planet, plant and star, listen to your body and to each other. Everything is connected.
Every thing is connected.
Research demonstrates more and more, that our bodies house an intelligence, holding answers about our health and wellbeing, our connections with each other, and usually tries telling us very wise things, well in advance of our thinking selves. We often view ourselves as separate, but in relation to groundbreaking scientific, medical, and technological discoveries —we part of a living interdependent planet.
I offer this suggestion.
When you suffer, I suffer. Therefor let me work to end suffering. Apply to all things.
Modern social construct has been fueled by negative thoughts rising from what was taken, or perceived taken from us. It could be health, it could be money, it could be the loss of our loved ones. It could be an old belief.
At the same time we’ve forged ferociously forward without proper reflection on the consequences of our actions —specifically in the use of technology and products of consumption. I.e. food, water, shelter. Today, in a society bolstered with a Red Bull to achieve Mach 6 mentality, the answers we seek continue to be external. But, no external achievement or attainment will fill the void left by loss and grief.
Why are we stuck here?
Why are we stuck on overdrive?
Why are we grinding and wearing out the very axels that keep us moving?
Historically, any real answer has only come from the opposite. Slowing ourselves down and gaining fresh perspective.
Meditation, compassion, and empathy all nurture a deeper understanding of life. And I believe that if we teach love (the transfer of our interconnected knowledge), that we can teach our children and grandchildren —even ourselves that there is another way of living.
We can learn together to develop more ethical, healthier-thinking groups of humans, and we can learn to sustain a future that is safe, equitable and just for all.
We have to teach each other.
Education, being the transfer of our human truths, should be free and equally available to everyone. Often times not the case, school systems, political leaders, media systems, healthcare systems have frequently failed us by putting profits over people, and many times allowing greed and corruption to go unaccounted for. But we can change that.
We can lead our communities forward by transcending status quo. I believe compassionate leadership embodies what is Divine (sacred, holy, innate). And I believe the following ten ideas are branches that connect each of us to the trunk of a divine and diverse inter-connected living planet;
What is honest and honorable is a key that unlocks true success
What is of benefit to the average person brings peace and hope
Every time we begin again we do a little bit better
Together we can harness opportunity and possibility
The importance of ethics is it facilitates the receipt of equity —anything less keeps a chosen few in power, wealthy and privileged
Groups of diverse people doing right minded and ethical things benefit a greater good
Bringing light to social justice issues heals anger.
Alignment to our hearts moral compass initiates healing
Strategizing on behalf of future generations helps maintain safety and environmental health today
We can create Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s vision of a beloved community.
Mental health, climate, violence, opioids, education, equity, healthcare, immigration, clean food and water —are all human issues. In agreement or in opposition, one thing is clear. Many see a world in crisis and the bulk of work needed today is people of all shapes, sizes, colours, faiths, beliefs, and backgrounds working together to resolve them.
It’s up to us to become who we need to be to address them.
In closing, it feels important to note that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently delivered a peace formula to the US Congress —and the rest of the world. The formula upon review is not extravagant, nor an unrealistic ask. It’s a declaration of our common human rights and the guideposts necessary to sustain it.
In part, the plan calls for:
Radiation and nuclear safety
Food security
Energy security
Release of all prisoners and deportees
Restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity
Withdrawal of Russian troops and the cessation of hostilities
Justice, including the establishment of a special tribunal to prosecute Russian war crimes
The prevention of ecocide, and the protection of the environment, with a focus on demining and restoring water treatment facilities
Prevention of an escalation of conflict and building security architecture in the Euro-Atlantic space, including guarantees for Ukraine
Confirmation of the war’s end
Seems the legacy we might all agree on is to strive to achieve good faith.
And in good faith —may we leave the one planet upon which we live, in good health.
I wish us all a deeper sense of peace, and a deepening of ethical thinking. For e plu·ri·bus u·num —out of many, one.
*image thanks to Ukraine artist Salata Sofiia-Inna Trykila
More from Richard Silvia https://linktr.ee/YesRising