A Better Life

For you. For the planet. For everyone.

For most of us life could be better. Life could be simpler, slower and more rewarding.

We can make a start toward a better life by:

• Growing some of our own food

• Reducing our waste

• Wearing natural fibres

• Consuming only what we need

• Supporting our community

• Learning to be gentler in our interactions

• Living at human scale - walking, riding a bike, gardening by hand

• Sharing resources

• Supporting businesses and groups that share our aspirations

We don’t need to start everything at once. We can pick one thread and follow this until we have found a place of comfort.

We can network with like minded individuals, work together and share the benefits.

We can stay within our existing lifestyle and transition one step at a time. We can make a leap, move to a shared space and start a new life.

A better life might mean doing fewer things and doing them well. It might mean shifting the balance from working to living.

What matters is that we make an effort and take a step towards a better life for ourselves, for our planet, for everyone.

The future should be a better place

Community Guidelines

We all live in a community.

Communities provide collective wealth. Communities provide security. Communities can provide us with a sense of purpose, acceptance and mutual support.

For communities to flourish it's members need to commit to the strength of their community. A collection of individuals pursuing their own interests is not a community.

Society is a mixture of community endeavour and the pursuit of selfish interests. At times the strength of the community can be diminished as individuals funnel resources into endeavours that benefit very few. Greater individual wealth generally leads to a lower overall contribution to the community. Wealthy individuals tend to prioritise their interests over those of their community. A more balanced distribution of wealth leads to stronger communities.

Imagine a society which focused it's collective wealth on:

• Health care

• Education

• Social support and development

• Fair laws and policing

• Environmental protection and improvement

• Public facilities and infrastructure

It would be a better place to visit. Wouldn’t this also be a better place to live?

If we were starting a community from scratch what guidelines might we put in place?

When considering this question we might take into account that:

• It is normal for humans to have some selfish motives

• There will be a range of abilities and motivations amongst any group

• There will be conflict at times

• There will need to be boundaries on behaviour and ways of encouraging people to respect these boundaries

It is not uncommon for people to imagine communities of happy, conforming members striving only for the benefit of their community. This would be reasonable if we were social insects, such as ants, wasps, bees or termites. However we are not. We are primates. We tend to form small groups and compete with others, we can be ornery, combative and pretty darn difficult to deal with. However over the last 700 years we have also shown a remarkable capacity for change. A change toward more civilised behaviour. The best of this behaviour is actually very reasonable - it's just that not a lot of people are doing it.

So what does civilisation need? Well to start with:

• A state monopoly on violence
  This means that don’t fight if we have a dispute. We invoke the state and engage with them to sort the issue. For example calling the council when the neighbour gets a bit rowdy, rather than torching their vehicle and kicking off a cycle of retribution.

• Emotional regulation
  We accept that our emotions are our issue. We don’t make our emotions someone else’s problem. It’s OK to share happy emotions, but when we get angry it is not OK to dump them on someone else.

• Empathy and acceptance
  This means investing in understanding others. Their perspectives, their ambitions, their challenges. This probably means avoiding dogmatic religions, as they can lead people to shift their focus from what they do, to moralising about what others do. “That behaviour is wrong, therefore you are wrong - and I am going to do something about it.''

• A general preference for rational thinking
  There is a tendency for some people to lean toward fanciful explanations of the world around them. This will always be the case. However the community will be exposed to unnecessary risk if key decisions are left to tarot cards, tea leaves and horoscopes. Nonsense is OK, but it needs to be viewed as such.

• Investment in collective resources
  Some services provided by our society could not possibly be provided by a small group. For example higher education opportunities, advanced health care, research and development of tools and technology for food production and energy generation. To do these things well requires a broad investment from the community.

• Prioritise social outcomes
  Great social outcomes do not always come about by themselves. Too many times the pursuit of economic gains, or individual wealth, has resulted in poor outcomes for many. If we want to live a in a fair community where as many people as possible can look after themselves and contribute to those around them, then we will need to invest in positive social outcomes for as many people as possible.

There will always be things we can change to improve our communities.

We have all benefited from the changes made before us and we have a responsibility to continue to making improvements for those who follow us. They are our children.