Sometimes people will have a heart attack or some devastating personal loss, and after that, their political views change completely, and their behavior changes completely. It's not because somebody persuaded them to look at the graph on CO2 and temperature, and they finally saw the evidence and were persuaded. Something else changed that allowed them to see and to hear. What is that something else? How can we cultivate that in people without them having to go through a heart attack? The interpersonal things we do change the substructure of our systems. They are political.

We in the richest societies have too many calories even as we starve for beautiful, fresh food; we have overly large houses but lack spaces that truly embody our individuality and connectedness; media surround us everywhere while we starve for authentic communication. We are offered entertainment every second of the day but lack the chance to play. In the ubiquitous world of money, we hunger for all that is intimate, personal and unique.

Non-inflationary economic growth - an increase in the production of goods and services - is structurally necessary for the current money system to exist. That is what drives the relentless conversion of life into money.

We need way more intimacy than nearly anyone considers normal. Always hungry for it, we seek solace and sustenance in the closest available substitutes: television, shopping, pornography, conspicuous consumption - anything to ease the hurt, to feel connected, or to project an image by which we might be seen and known, or at least see and know ourselves.

Each person you interact with, is an entire universe unto themselves, a Divine Being, unspeakabley precious.

How beautiful can life be? We hardly dare imagine it.

What you're looking for, you won't find. But only by looking for it can it find you.