The Butterfly Effect

It's Sunday morning and I am mulling over this weekends seminars.  I have been trying to figure out why I came home so depressed yesterday after class when after Fridays session I was so enthusiastic.  The discussions on vitality, energy, frequency, collective consciousness, sent me home interested in learning more.  I pulled out my Biology of Belief, and was so enthused when the next day Stephen had brought that book along with some other interesting reads regarding the mind/body connection.  These connections are so much more, with the potential to have a universal impact.  The power of prayer, meditation, thoughts.  So how did this enthusiasm turn so quickly to depression?

Saturdays afternoon seminar was an impressive display of visual aids, games, group discussions and M and M's.   The topic, however, left me feeling depressed and overwhelmed.  Income inequality, the wasting away of the middle class and gender inequality brought to mind one of my favourite George Orwell quotes from Animal Farm  "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".   Despite our exercise to come up with ways we could model change, I felt an overwhelming feeling of 'why bother'.   Are we being idealistic to think that, despite the fact that we are a part of the 90 percent, our voice is strong enough to elicit change? Is it as simple as buying from local farmers?  Isn't that a bit naive?  Is this going to have any impact on the one percenters? Will Safeway's CEO Robert Edwards really care if I don't buy my spinach from him? Will that dent his 850K salary, not including stock options? If anything wouldn't he just close down the produce section, affecting more 90%ers?  I'm just not that optimistic.

 Reading some of the links provided by the seminar team, I felt slightly better as it was pointed out that some of these 1 percenters have strong philanthropic tendencies and that most of them are self made.  Think Warren Buffet and Bill Gates.  Though oddly I can't help but feel sorry for their children who will not be the sole beneficiaries of their parents estates.   As I researched this more, I learned of Bill Gates philosophy of creative capitalism, which, as defined by him is  "an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world's inequities."  and continues to state that  "This kind of creative capitalism matches business expertise with needs in the developing world to find markets that are already there, but are untapped. Sometimes market forces fail to make an impact in developing countries not because there's no demand, or even because money is lacking, but because we don't spend enough time studying the needs and requirements of that market".  Suffice it to say that I fell a little bit in love with Bill Gates today, and I already loved Bono - you'll have to read the article to get that reference)

WholeFoods founder John Mackey is another guy I've found a bit of respect for.  After making his fortune, his salary is now  70K/yr, including stock options, has developed the idea of Conscious Capitalism the philosophy being to  focus on the stakeholders more than the shareholders and that businesses can be used for social good.  I have only glossed over these two concepts and of course the cynic in me is skeptical at the sincerity, but it did give me hope.

In the end though, I brought Friday and Saturdays seminars together in my head and thought of the power of not just 'the people' but of 'the thoughts'.  If we buy locally, supporting the local economy, that provides an immediate service to the local farmer, but maybe thinking about it can help to raise the collective consciousness, a kind of butterfly effect, with this leading to great change.  Maybe the change will come from the combined efforts of some of us in the 90%, but I am still hopeful for the 1% that they are wanting to be a part of that change.