More balls than dogs

A parable. Which dog are you?

The dogs at the dog park:

• Ollie wants more than one ball. Will hoard multiple balls in his mouth.

• Korra only wants her ball. Is possessive about it.

• Wu Wei doesn’t want his ball. Only wants Korra’s ball.

• Gus only wants the ball that other dogs want. Won’t give it back.

Here’s the crazy thing: there are more balls than dogs. Every dog could have their own ball. Yet somehow there are not enough balls. As another dog owner laughingly asked:

“If dogs can’t figure it out, what hope do we humans have?

Wu Wei and Daisy: more balls than dogs

Greed, selfishness, and envy: funny at the dog park. But who is the dog? I am the dog.

There is more than enough

For us humans, there is more than enough for everyone. There is way more than enough. Can you really see that?

But as individuals we want more than we need.

We only want what others have.

And when others no longer want something, we don’t want it either.

What hope do we have?

Economic growth isn’t going to solve this problem.¹ Greed, selfishness, and envy are human nature. Or, as we’ve just seen, maybe simply nature.

But our capitalist system exacerbates our worst impulses. And our worst impulses are really dangerous to our children.²

Are you the dog too?

postscript

Final reminder: FF1 starts next week and Money and Meaning starts this weekend.

1. “I used to think the top environmental problems facing the world were global warming, environmental degradation and eco-system collapse, and that we scientists could fix those problems with enough science. But I was wrong. The real problem is not those three items, but greed, selfishness and apathy. And for that we need a spiritual and cultural transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.” — Gus Speth, founder of the NRDC

2. In pursuit of producing more, humans have breached seven of nine ecological boundaries that support life on the planet. Global consumption of fossil fuels reached record levels this year. We are planning to consume more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than what is consistent with capping global temperature rise at 1.5C. In the book Collapse, Jared Diamond predicts that, one way or another, the world’s environmental problems will get resolved within a generation:

“The only question is whether they will become resolved in pleasant ways of our own choice, or in unpleasant ways not of our choice, such as warfare, genocide, starvation, disease epidemics, and collapses of societies.”