Don’t be overwhelmed by the enormity of rebuilding our global economy. Begin at home in your own community. -- Judy Wicks
As Ubuntu teaches, “I am because you are,” which now we must rephrase: I will not be because you will not be. I will not be if you will not be. -- Deena Metzger, Extinction Illness
"Structures in our consumerist society are set up to make you feel as though this productivity is wrapped up with your self worth!" -- Jess Rimmington
The War Economy–with its coercive system of racism, capitalism and neoliberalism–has each one of us entangled in a grip. Repression and complacency sink in as we grapple with the strength needed to confront the system we know is not supporting us, no matter how much we produce or consume for it. We each feel grievance for ourselves and our misplaced values as we work for necessities that have been commodified, and we feel grievance for one another as we witness fluctuations in homelessness, food scarcity, a stressed socio-political atmosphere and the extreme consequences of ecological degradation.
adrienne maree brown asserts that when we put our attention on suffering, which can be found in many aspects of life, then suffering will become all that we see. What we seek for joy, then, will seem like a nullifier, a distraction from the anxiety of what we cannot expect or what we hope to prevent. Through incremental changes in our attention and behaviors, we can traverse the limitations we experience from the isolation of the War Economy and see the planet and each other through interdependence. There is abundance in this world.
Nullifying can no longer be our strategy for mitigating this grief. We must return our values to those of pleasure, rest, and sharing resources. We must pursue connection with our communities through practices of stewardship, engagement, and empowerment. Cultivating your connection with your own values can and will align you with the abundance provided by a network of empowering social movements, mutual aid organizations, cooperatives and land trusts; all of which are the foundations of a local peace economy.
The transition begins with the recognition of the effects of the war economy within ourselves. By moving from an individualistic mindset to one that is of an individual who contributes to their local peace economy in their own small way, we can each transition this economy from one of violence to one of vibrancy.