• Protecting Water and Farmland in Simcoe County

Love is all we need — and do we ever

By
In Environment
Sep 8th, 2012
0 Comments
1073 Views
By Jacob Kearey-Moreland Orillia Packet and Times September 2, 2012
This week, I participated in a panel discussion at Lakehead Orillia as part of its summer sustainability series. The question of the evening was, What are the challenges to sustainability? The short definition of sustainability presented was “enough for all, forever.” The popular definition of sustainable human development offered by the UN’s Brundtland Commission is “…development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
For many of us who read the news or who have an understanding in basic ecology, it is frightfully obvious that the current pace of human development is not sustainable. Forget about meeting the needs of future generations; we seem increasingly incapable of meeting the needs of this generation. Consider millions of children die every year due to easily preventable illness, hunger, lack of clean water, sanitation, etc. It is a crime that childhood poverty is so abundant in this rich country despite past government resolutions to abolish it. This inability to meet basic needs impoverishes us all. It is something that exists in our little city, on our streets and in our homes.
Some obvious challenges raised by the panel included the lack of political leadership and co-operation at all levels of government and civil society, inequality, waste, overpopulation, consumerism, materialism, apathy and a lack of hope. These are not separate issues; they are all connected.
For me, the biggest challenge to sustainability is the illusion of separation while the biggest opportunity for sustainability is love. Connection is the opposite of separation and love is the recognition of interconnection. Simply put, we have become convinced the illusion is real and have separated ourselves from each other and nature, mentally, physically and spiritually. Our global economic system separates producers from consumers. These relationships and the impacts of our decisions on others are so offensive that they are deliberately obscured or otherwise ignored.
You can see this philosophy of separation being perpetuated by the dominant economic and political discourse and through the media. Events are described in themselves without reference to history or otherwise contextualized. The economy is separated from the environment, as is our health and well-being. There is a public sector and there is a private sector, and our leaders promote the latter while attempting to destroy the former. This separation manifests everywhere in our lives and society. It is seen in the breakdown of the family and the systematic dismemberment of our social institutions.
Love is powerful because it provides the greatest incentive of all, infinitely more powerful than money. The vast majority of labour on this planet required to sustain human civilization is not done for money; it is done in the name of love — the kinds of love shared among friends and lovers, between family, mother and child. When people make love; life is born. Love is the feeling of finding one’s passion and pursuing and mastering it regardless of getting paid.
Love is a complex biochemical reaction that occurs inside our minds that fills our bodies with endorphins — happiness, inspiration and positivity. It is addictive. You are the centre around which everything you love revolves. The people and things you love the most are those things that are closest to you.
It is possible to love everything and everyone simply by opening up and recognizing the deep interconnection of all things. I have discovered that the community garden is one such place where this infinite interconnection is animated in all its beauty. Community gardens batter down the walls of alienation and reconnect what truly sustains us: nature and each other. The biggest challenge to sustainability is love and we need it now more than ever.
Jacob Kearey-Moreland is a local resident and student at the University of Toronto studying philosophy and sociology. His founding and co-ordinating of Orillia Community Gardens demonstrates a sustainable alternative to current monetary-market economics. Contact him at jakop79@hotmail.com.

Leave a Reply

Commenters must post under real names. AWARE Simcoe reserves the right to edit or not publish comments. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *