Beyond "my block"

Most people in the world are conditioned to believe they are disconnected from the greater whole -- and not only from the greater whole, but from Nature itself. Western culture (which has been exported to much of our homogenized planet) has organized human behavior, in many ways, in direct contradiction with life -- and not just plant and animal life, but often, human life itself: Our own health and our own welfare.

There are two schools of thought on how to respond to this contradiction.

One urges us to "be more local." Pour yourself into the PTA. Start a garden. Brush your teeth. These are fine things, individually, and, yes, we should be more aware of the block, the neighborhood.

A person can't take care of the whole world. And even if he or she did, how would one do it? You'd have to start by thinking and doing things in your own life, with your own family, in your own community.

What's necessary, though, is to align our thoughts and purposes with the larger world, and the still-larger logic and operation of Nature of which our material world is merely a physical product or reflection.

The world needs all these local doers to come into some kind of agreement -- or at least, an alignment of purposes -- that will move beyond the pettiness we're prone to fall into when our town, our block, or even our own little house with our own little flat-screen, becomes the alpha and the omega of our existence, and even our thinking.

Even if we can't tend the whole world, we need to see it. We may live in it, and love it, but we need to think beyond our own block.

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