Knowledge-Being-Action-Gap

Our way of thinking that the world works like a machine that can be taken into pieces - which is called Cartesian Thinking - worked quiet well for some time. No offense to Descartes who laid the groundwork for this approach. 

Today though, few people deny that sum is greater than it‘s parts, that our challenges are connected and that we don‘t find solutions by looking at the parts. Social fragmentation and ecological degradation. Political apathy and personal crises. They can‘t be treated in isolation.  

Great. We know and most people agree on that part. 

Yet, the question is: now what?

What‘s challenged is a new way of knowing, being and doing. 

We can check the knowing. We know. 

What’s missing is the being and doing. 

Most of us don‘t yet have the mental, emotional and spiritual capacity to act upon this understanding.

It‘s the famous knowledge-action gap, that might more adequately be called knowledge-being-action gap. 

To address sustainability means to become a practitioner of new ways of knowing, being and doing. As there is no blue-print for what that looks like, we need to become our own researchers, constantly contemplating and reflecting on our actions. We need to leave our autopilot and steward our being.  

At one point in history we learned that the world is a machine and we build a world around this understanding. Not in a day, but over time. 

At this point in history we learned that the world is not a machine and we can build a world around this understanding. Not in a day, but over time.