Sustainabily & Minimlisiam Sustainability is the ability to continue a defined behavior indefinitely Too many things wrong, so little time. It’s 2011 and I’m unhappy with the way life is going. Like most teenagers, I am upset by my appearance, my indecisive choice of clothing, my weak grasp at the latest trends and still trying to figure out who it is I really am, confused by the thoughts of the world and still unsure of how to express my thoughts and ideas to other people. I realized that trying to follow the suit of what society tells me that I should do or look, doesn't work out for me. I feel I am wearing a mask, and I step outside myself and see that many other people around me have them on too. They are faking the idea that they are expressing their own thoughts through what they wear and the choices they make, but really aren't in touch with how they feel about everything. The most amazing thing I did that year was taught myself to feel. I put the brakes on and asked myself what was it that was bothering me? I stripped myself clean, in my own form of baptism, I washed off my mask. Literally, I washed off my makeup that I tried so desperately to like how it looked on my face, I threw away any clothes that were too confusing or uncomfortable, even if they were expensive designer clothes, I didn't care. I refused to eat anything that didn't make me feel good or wholesome, I felt like I could see myself for the first time, uncovered, unadulterated, even though I hated to see my acne-covered skin without foundation on, I still could see that I was real, and not pretending anymore. I finally felt like I could focus on my inner self, and then was able to express how I really felt from my inside by reflecting outward. I now feel that I can sustain my time and energy through knowing myself and knowing what is right for me, by being in touch through how my heart and body feels about things that will make me happy sustainably, and what will not. All teenagers go through this faze and it is my analogy that we are treating our earth is like how a lazy teenager treats picking up their room, we need to grow up and mature now, and clean up our earth, but this can only be done by stripping ourselves free from all our unnecessary things we are tied to.
Minimalism is sustainability. In order to sustain energy and confidence in knowledge we must illuminate the things that weigh us down. A plant cannot thrive with too many weeds. For proper sustainability
we must illuminate the unnessicary bondage and open ourselves up to the bigger picture. With lots of stuff, we keep ourselves stuck within a world of our own cluttered up with things that don't make us happy. A conventional report on sustainability will state the definition of the three pillars of sustainability, which are social, environmental, and economical pillars. This is true and vital, but I believe that it is much bigger then just that, by looking at social do we see the diverse complexity between malls and villages? I invite us to explore a broad view of what minimalism and sustainability really means to our world.
THE WAR ON THE WORLD Consumerism, Leadership, and the deprivation of our planet
“We learn more and more how to poison and to toxicicate the land, the water, and learn to destroy everything. I feel like everything we do is so complicated, we just make it hard.� - Jon Jandai
What is unsustainable? . War War is utterly unsustainable, taking huge amounts of money, time, energy, lives, leaving the earth with nothing left. . Consumerism the world is bombarded with trillions of millions of pathetic unattainable things that plaster our earth day after day continuously. All of these things are because of consumerism. Shopping for clothes at the mall, processed and packaged food at grocery stores, gameboys, eating animals and all dairy, all of this is consumerism and the consumer is what keeps it all going. Seaworld is a perfect example of consumerism, a circus that parades around using commercials and other pompous propaganda to rein over the fact that they torture, humiliate and disconcert their animals into insanity, and other Zoos do the same. Zoos are a brutal assembling in a particharal scheme, to lock animals up and issue the people to pay to go there and further humiliate them by staring at them in tight places. This is one of the things that keep us following in a suit of
patriarchal unattainability, by continuing to do what others do, just because the world says it’s ok. Another one of those is eating animals. . Eating Animals Eating animals and dairy is not only insensitive to the lives of thousands of living creatures who have the same heartbeat as you, and could just might as well be your pet dog or cat, it is also a corporation that is literally too toxic for humans to eat. And too toxic to live on for agriculture is responsible for an estimated amount of 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gasses, which a significant amount of this comes from methane, (cow gas) which is 23 times more powerful then carbon dioxide. Methane also has a global warming power 86 times that of carbon dioxide, not to mention that it takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef, and 1,000 gallons of water are needed to produce 1 gallon of milk. Livestock also covers 45 percent of the earth’s total land. Hows that for sustainable? Livestock is also responsible for the leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution, and habitat destruction and overfishing is leaving our ocean deprived of food for our sea animals. . Pesticides & other Chemicals We know now that all chemicals including pesticides are polluting our ocean, as well as oil spills that continue to deteriorate the ocean’s natural beauty and life, making our sea animals sick and leaving them with no food. Not only that, but the pesticides pollute our own food and that are released through fracking make our environment extremely toxic to live in, making people across the globe sick and dying.
. Patriarchal Leadership Any type of leadership that revolves around greed and war is patriarchal. Wars are being started, and rainforests are being slaughtered by the carelessness and outright obnoxious gluttony, this is patriarchal, not just in the way that the world is run by men, but the abusive indoctrination that is bled into males. After a lifetime of patriarchy all feminine intelligence has been blocked out, not only in the physical form of women, but the feminine judgement that is within both sexes. Also, not to discriminate any group of people or religion but to look at it with a open and scientific point of view, religion diverts generous impulses and good intentions, and is a huge greed factory of a patriarchal mechanism. Vatican City occupies 0.44 square kilometer of marble immaculacy, while outside 31,702 people are reporting to Italian homeless shelters gaining over 20% in the past year. In California, there are over 191 megachurches in the state, with the attendance of about 765,000 people each week, while California is held responsible for 22% of America’s homeless rate. Religion is not sustainable because it runs off of wealth and
greed, and greed is ultimately unsustainable because it is out of balance, leaving money to the limited few and the rest poor.
“It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last.” - Walt Witman, This Compost In Walt Witman’s poem, ‘This Compost’, he describes how the turmoil of the filth and discretion in our world is turned into beauty through the compost, which is the circle of life. He defines how mankind takes what they are given and manipulates it into something awful, but also says how it can be turned back just as easily into it’s natural state. This I’d like to use as a way of introducing the thesis for this report to show that our corruptness that we are projecting can be switched into loving and ultimately caring about our world.
what is left?
unmasking the mirage, the bare necessities
In the 2014 TED talk by The Minimalists, Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus put it in plain words that money and stuff do not make you happy, “What is left” makes us happy. What if money and stuff do not make our world happy, ‘What is left’ is what makes our world happy. What is Sustainable? . Nature nature is incomparably sustainable because it works with a mind of its own, it is always changing and yet is always the same, it is on a cycle of replenishing and falling, life, and death, fall to spring, the leaves are tossed away and replaced with the new. It is
ultimately not sustainable to stay stuck in our old ways, our old skin, we must always be changing that is our only way to thrive. . Love is sustainable because with love we give, and receive, and this keeps us on a treadmill of giving and receiving, without love and care in life there is nothing, you cannot function without it, therefore it is infinitely sustainable. . Spirituality is presumably sustainable for only in connecting with our inner power and a divine source within ourselves are we able to find the right answers we need in life, and are able to make the right choices by stopping and listening to our thoughts. . The Arts with spreading joy, and laughter through any form of art that we make, through music, painting, theatre, decor, style, literature, or any other form of entertainment that brings people closer together and uplifts and opens the heart is sustainable (as long as it is not using fur or toxic chemicals). This brings us better faith in the incredible world that we can create and that is yet to come if we keep thriving in beauty. . Sharing Ideas sharing ideas will continuously bring more harmony and peace to our planet if we stop and listen to what others have to say, and be open to new ways of handling things. One person having an idea to have a community garden in every city can jumpstart a thousand beautiful gardens that will be helping our earth to thrive.
To start living sustainably and to become a minimalist it is not as simple as climbing on board and staking yourself as one of them, it is a moral commitment and belief that you hold in your ground. If you already care about the planet and you are eager to help then your very close to getting there, but in order to really and truly care you must know and love yourself and care about your own beliefs. You must know what it is that you want to
project and remind people of when you speak to them, you must honor and hold to what you believe in your heart.
Things we can do to live sustainably: . Meditate . Staying open . Do not be a consumer (support non-corporate businesses) . Do not eat any animals or an animal by-products . Live simply . Focus on the things that MATTER. . Share & Learn . Create . Live through your heart, not your head. . Think, before you do. (a form of meditation) . Garden . Share Ideas . Community gatherings . Focus on real friendships & relationships . Support Organic and Sustainable Farmers.
There are a great many people who are taking responsibility for their work with helping the planet and by doing so, inspiring others to follow. This is what we need, and thorough the smallest of ways each one of us can take a step toward better life for our world and our well being. To thrive and live sustainably we must have open mindedness, open hearts, and sharing ideas even if we are living in an environment that is not open to sharing ideas. We must always come back to nature, for the earth and nature is our home. We must come together, and not stay segregated, constantly sharing and connecting with one another, spreading love and taking time to be with each other, forgetting the nonsense and confusion that makes our world so complicated and spending more time with, what is left. Thank You.