In real life it is often more difficult than in an online rollplay. Government officials for instance need to have freedom to commit in the community. They often lack this due to politically driven councils that need to free their authority and means. Or business people who just want to sell and turn over the responsability after invoicing. In real life it is a genuin change in relational commitment. But the online practice is a great help to understand the context differences and how behavior adjusts itself for the benefit of all.

Health first

For over 10 years now we (STIR Foundation) invited local and people to participate in core human values (eg. Health) driven cocreation programs (Sustainocracy, level 4) together. We got a number of programs off the ground but it was not mainstream. It felt often as one step forward and three back. Our efforts were however sufficient to prove our point, get formal recognition, publish worldwide certain results (f.i. AiREAS, air quality and health) and formally establish the level 4, awareness driven cocreation approach.

The corona virus shock up the comfort zones of many. This illustration shows the sentiments of money driven structures, such as business and government (modern dinosaurs) when the lockdowns started.

The word “economy” been distortionated over time, which is the cause of the current institutionalized fear. It does NOT mean “how do I keep or grow my money?”. It’s real meaning is “how to fullfil our needs and deal with shortages?”. A real economy is therefore not speculative, hierarchical, volume or shortage sales oriented, nor debt or tax driven. It is genuine and measurable core natural values driven and participative in cocreation. The next illustration shows us where priorities should be placed…..

Once I asked myself “if money rules, what am I willing to sacrifice to obtain it?”. This question resonated in my head when I decided to leave my executive position as a global expat in a multinational back in 1996. There were many things that I was not willing to sacrifice, on the contrary, not for myself nor for a well paid job. Money should be a means, not a goal. I drew a line for myself. This simple choice in perception of the reality of financial means changed my life as explained in this Braincandy short presentation about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals….

By accepting money as a means than what is the goal? As a single father for me the goal became to provide a safe and healthy environment for my upgrowing children. But what is safe and healthy in an environment in deterioration due to mindless financial “destroy and repair” focus of business and politics? In a world of “what are you willing to sacrifice for financial benefit?” the answer was “everyone is doing it, so why should I change?”. Unhealthy air, unhealthy food, water pollution, no social contacts, negative stress….. Repair attempts became as financially lucrative for business and politics as the destructive growth focus. Until it all became unsustainable….

Why should any business take responsability and risk its continuity or support from stakeholders if no else does? Why would politics take responsability if the public opinion would demand financial stability and growth for their perception of wellness (the cost of living life) instead of humanistic and ecological responsability (the essence of living life)?

Society 21st century

My personal challenge was to define society 21st century in which everyone does take responsability. Beginning with myself. Through my personal life’s challenges I gradually arrived at the five core human values and the vision that this we need to address together (people and institutions), each from their own authentic contribution. In fact, the participation in safeguarding and developing these core values became the “reason to be” of all participants.

Transformation

For certain entities this meant a huge, purpose driven transformation. Despite their original human based mission (eg. Health care) they were often very much money dependent and hence within the dominance of political economic fluctuations, guidelines or instructions. In time of extra needs they would be financially restricted. In times of financial abundance some hierarchical parasitism would try to take benefit. Upon participating in sustainocratic ventures the question was not how to finance these organizations? It became “how to best use their expertise and sustain their needs” through project driven engagements (Care for Health).

Corona came

Sofar participating at a sustainocratic table was a volutary exercise. Corona came and placed the world in a lockdown. Whatever the possible reasoning behind the lockdown it has a powerfull effect on public awareness in general:

• Personal health first
• Solidarity among people
• Realization of what “health” really is
• Seeing our contribution to air pollution
• Seeing what hoarding does to us all
• What are basic needs?
• Questioning authority (due to lack of involvement in decision making) and motives.
• Relativity of jobs (those that really matter)
• Back to essentials
• etc

Back to basics due to Corona shows how many of our “economic” players do not at all contribute to our wellness on the contrary. They closed down to avoid further deterioration and do we really miss them? Other activities suddenly got to stand up to fill spaces and activities that were not covered, or severely reduced, by the financially oriented world. Think of “care for each other”. The sum of all this is awareness of our old “sacrifice” of our planetary benefits for economic processes that nobody needs. Are we willing to go back?

Level 4 regional development

We need not go back, we need to evolve. What does this mean? That we need to recognize for ourselves the need to assure our core natural values for our resilience as a species. Our wellness is not measured through a bank account, it is assured through our awareness driven adaptiveness as a community. It means that we cannot delegate our values to institutions but should take responsability ourselves with the help of the expertise in those institutions. The world upside down people tend to say, when institutions become servant to human natural core values.

This we call level 4 awareness driven regional cocreation:

• Level 1 regional development: basic infrastructure
• Level 2 regional development: integrate infrastructure
• Level 3 regional development: smart data generation and sharing
• Level 4 regional development: core values driven multidisciplinary co-creation

Level 4 cocreation requires a special type of leadership from everyone involved:

• Sustainocrat: remain independent, inviting, connecting and focused on the core values defined within the particular community. Assure interaction based on equality between people and institutions. No one is the boss, the core values are leading and everyone contribute through respected authenticity.
• Government: let go of dominant position and become facilitating. No political interaction based on interests, but participation based on prioritization and readiness to adjust levels 1, 2 and 3.
• Innovative entrepreneurship: product delivery is the start of the participation process not the end. It is what the product or service does in context of the project and expected results that makes the difference.
• Citizens: look at one’s own behavior and cultural influences on the challenges at hand and make the necessary innovative changes in favor of wellness of one’s own self and the community.

Participation is hence hard work, based on self reflective value driven contribution and results driven interaction. In our initiatives we developed various instruments that keep this sustainocratic ecosystem functioning dynamically and everyone successful:

• 4 x Value contribution of all participants (value for human being, society, environment and economic continuity)
• UNITED together based on key motivators to join the group
• SMART interaction and focus
• 10 – 10 – 80 (or 5 – 5 – 90) transparent easy to use project rule

During this corona era it may be fun to practice level 4 awareness driven co-creatioon through online rollplays or even invite people in function to give it a try. The next post will explain how.

Birds, plants, animals, also bacteria and virusses, they all get their food directly and freely from their natural environment. They don’t disturb it, on the contrary. Normally their urge for food contributes to the ecosystem, for instance though cross fertilization, spreading of seeds or elimination of the weak and sick. Their feeding in a way is connected indisputably to healthy life.

The human world is overwhelmingly unnatural. Not only for our feeding we made ourselves dependent of economized industral processes, for everything.

Now we are being alarmed again by a virus. Again because the Corona version is not the first and will not be the last. Virusses are a natural phenomenum that feeds itself mainly on vulnerable people. We can ask ourselves when dealing with a widespread pandemic if it is the virus that is the problem or our vulnerability?

Since virusses are of all times we need to go to judge our vulnerability. We can differentiate between natural and unnatural weaknesses. We can then also work in a positive way on our natural resilience instead of introducing unnatural remedies. Locking up 7 billion individuals in isolation with 1.5 meter distance is far from natural.

Natural vulnerability is caused mainly by epigenitic transfer, (remains of) illnesses or accidents, unhealthy lifestyle and natural aging. Unnatural vulnerability comes from what we ourselves add to the natural patterns. We can think of chemicals used in our foodchain, air pollution, negative stress, radiation of all kinds of equipment and wireless networks. Due to economic globalisation motives we also globalized our unnatural vulnerability. This makes us more receptive at global scale for illnesses that lead to pandemics (Spanish flu, measles, HIV, SARS, etc).

A complex paradox is our historical creation of a parallel economic ecosystem to nature. We attached economic growth to the growth of humankind, the growth of financial dependence, the growth of fighting symptoms via care, the increase of our life expectations and the enormous increase of the costs and complexity of our care systems.

This parallel money based ecosystem is however unnatural and unsustainable from macro natural perspective. Each natural pandemonium through a pandemic comes with a huge system crisis, such as a gigantic economic recession. This brings us closer to our natural reality but also shows the painful distance we created through the fear we collectively feel and the control mechanisms that start to try to restore the old fake reality again.

The solution is to be found in our awareness that the unnatural, no matter how luxurious or safe it feels, is unsustainable. The pandemics and recessions will only grow and so will the human drama’s worldwide. They will eventually reach all, including ourselves and those who try to supposedly benefit or control the situation.

A positive acknowlegdement is that this unnatural human world gave us a lot of knowledge. Now we can try to combine the best of the two worlds, the natural and unnatural, in order to enhance our resilience without having to reduce much of our wellness.

A few things will need to change. We need to step away from our fears and look our challenge into the eyes together. We step away from the control mechanisms from above to give way at regional level to innovative adaptations of our communities. We let resilience and health guide our cocreative actions and adapt our dependence by working together on our healthy basic needs (food, water, clean air, warmth), if needed with the use of knowledge and techniques, and in symbiose with our natural environment. Gradually we take some resilience disturbing elements away from our existence.

We are than applying Sustainocracy, as precedented in Eindhoven in areas of health attention, such as air quality and social resilience, since 2009. Instead of fear we build on trust together. Instead of unnatural vulnerability we build on natural resilience. Instead of 1.5 meter distance we go hand in hand. Instead of avoiding death we work on living life ..
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