Lost in Sustainability

There are three levels on which to address our destructive, unsustainable behavior. I say_ levels_ and not _approaches_ because they correlate with psychological depth. Every subsequent level requires a more profound psycho-spiritual transformation. Whereas the first level hardly requires any mental changes on our side, the third level likely involves a lot of healing and effort. It’s helpful to make this distinction because each level needs to be addressed differently. 

Level I: Understanding the world better

The first level entry to sustainability is to understand systems and one’s role in them. The Earth is a cognitive complex system. We can neither predict the outcome of interventions in the system earth nor control it nor take ourselves out of the system. Within this cognitive complex system Earth, we play a vital role. Every being and everything plays a vital role within its context. And as outcomes are unpredictable, we never know what your actions might lead to. Level I is essentially a cognitive learning process. 

Level II: Overcoming Bad Habits and Addiction. 

The fact is that the majority of our thoughts and actions are on autopilot. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Our habits, routines, impulses, and reactions carry us through our lives. We don’t have to think about everything. The problem is when we forget that we are on autopilot. The even bigger problem is when our societal habits cause harm for itself and the planet. That’s where we are at. As a society, we fell into many unhealthy habits and patterns that now run on autopilot. We stopped questioning them. These habits control us. Not the other way around. Many of them are borderline addictive. As I define it here, addiction is when we suffer immensely due to our behavior and find no way out of it. We need to practice meta-cognition and exercise a degree of self-awareness to help us recognize the habits and addictions that form our destructive behavior. Level II goes deeper than merely understanding the system. 

Level III: Dealing with Trauma

Trauma can happen on an individual and a collective level. We often associate trauma with dramatic events. Events that cause trauma don’t have specific characteristics, though. Trauma is the inability of our cognitive processes to make sense of what is happening to us. It’s caused by an indigestible event and goes hand in hand with a loss of control and a feeling of helplessness. Finding solutions and working on trauma is a crucial issue for psycho-spiritual transformation to oppose unsustainable behavior. Level III is about as deep as it gets.