News, Visionaries | August 23rd, 2006
Watch this presentation by William McDonough, a man who refers to human beings as “designers,” and looks at everything we see in our world as our intentional creation, so as to take full responsibility for creating the kind of world we really want. If you’re in the Power To Stand course (register free), this man is exemplifying the distinction between Positionary and Visionary. He speaks of the positionaries on each side, Capitalists and Environmentalists, and unites people in a stand for shared values and a vision that inspires all sides to step forward from behind the walls of their position. It’s the new revolutionaries who will change the world. They are visionaries, not positionaries (the distinction is here). The next revolution is our evolution from a positionary consciousness to a visionary consciousness.
Please comment on the video here.
David Losey
Aug 24th, 2006William McDonough’s speach Was: “The Best Example” of a Man Driven by His VISION I have ever heard..
He masterfully meshed every aspect of Our World; Humanity, Societies, All natural life, birds, to fish in the seas & oceans to every element within our world and our planet, “Earth”‘
His speach clarified, in simple, understanable terms; The Difference between Growth vs Controls, Mandates & Laws.
His examples of What has Happen to our planet By Design.vs Natural events, (that complement each other and perpetuate Life, to the lowest element): Was Profound.
His explanation of Why these Natural Events work: The benefits of allowing them to grow and to provide: vs Mankind’s; Controls, Laws, Regualtions and the Cause & Effect syndome, which, day by day, which destroys and is having a profound effect upon every element of our planet.
The Design – Cause and Effect is destroying everything:
The Air every creature breaths; The Water we drink and nourish our agriculture to every animal and other element on the planet.
The Design Affect has an overwhelming effect on the medi/physical condition on every creature, man, beast.and every element on our planet. This approach has had and will continue to cause extreme changes to our environment.
William McDonough’s presentation was GREAT!
More compelling than His Speach ithat informs; Is the Fact:. .
HE iS TAKING ACTION to bring about CHANGE!
My Compliments to Him. He is a man of Vision,
A True “VISIONARY”
David Losey, Reston VA
Andrew Carlisle
Aug 26th, 2006Who would think that such a small shift in logic would result in such profound change. Brilliant.
Audrey Parker
Aug 26th, 2006Wow! How inspiring! The thing that really ‘stuck’ for me in his speech was the comment that ‘if you’re heading to Canada at 100 miles per hour, but you’re supposed to be going to Mexico, then slowing down to 20 miles per hour isn’t really helping anything’. Ha! SO true! I read a book called “Ishmael” in college (thanks to my incredible professor recommending it to me), and the author caused me to look at things that are normally NOT looked at, and see them from a new perspective. He noticed that “programs” in this country never seem to work all that well… and then, we see that they’re failing, and we tend to decide, well, let’s put MORE money into them and then maybe they’ll work! It seems so obviously silly, and yet it’s what we see happening all around us all the time. A redesign of the actual PROGRAM is what’s in order. Perhaps the thought behind the action, which is “let’s throw more money at it – money solves all problems”, is flawed. Slowing down in the wrong direction does NOT get us moving in the RIGHT direction.
WE are the ones to CREATE the NEW systems which must be created to effect true, lasting, positive change… The world needs visionaries. To apply new vision to ALL SORTS of existing systems, programs, and thought patterns. Vision Force, keep up the awesome work!!!
Ted Howard
Aug 26th, 2006I like many things in this presentation:
I love the power of the vision, and the commitment to finding creative solutions to real problems that support life and creativity itself.
I see so much possibility, and it is like two great currents converging, and not being quite sure which way the resulting flow will go, then coming to the realisation that it will always look like that at some level, and there isn’t any freedom from responibility, only responsibility as a freedom.
Perhaps history will come to characterise the 21st centary as the age of the birth of responsibility. The age where the notion of responsibility evolved it’s way into all major streams of consciousness; and the flowering of growth, technology, and ecology that resulted.
Yesterday I shared an email with a few friends and allies – I reproduce it here for any who are interested;
This may or may not make any sense to you.
It may or may not be useful to you.
This is my understanding of what human beings are and how human beings work.
It is based on a scientific paradigm, of observation and experimentation
It seems we exist in two realms simultaneously.
We have various names for those realms – the subjective/objective, language/sensation, creativity/habit.
Rene Descarte’s famous quote “cogito ergo sum” (roughly translated as “I think therefore I am”) encapsulates it all in a sense.
There are many possible “I”s.
“I think” – is the “I” of language, the thing that listens to our own self talk.
That “I” is not the “I” that is our body, nor is it the “I” that is the habits that our brain has learned, it is the “I” that is an awareness born of the self referential declaration of a brain using symbolic language. That self referential declaration sets up a pattern that has many quantum attributes, amongst them access to the power to create, out of nothing, independent of any prior cause.
What we normally lump together when we use the term “I” is really three quite distinct entities, that are all linked. in that each successive one is built upon the one that preceded it.
The first one is our body.
That body is the result of billions of years of evolution. At every level it is mind bogglingly complex, in the interrelationships (chemical, physical, and electrical) that keep it together and keep it functioning.
It is both part of an unbroken chain of life that stretches back billions of years, and the result of a union of two gametes a few years ago.
After many years of study I have the barest hint of the levels of complexity operating, and almost none of the detail (way less than 1%, and what little I have would fill volumes).
The brain has evolved many capabilities, and many separate structures.
Each of these structures and capabilities, and drives to action, are part of us.
There are many, many of them.
Becoming aware of each one, is part of personal development.
Learning when to consciously override any of them is part of wisdom.
One of the things our brain can do is learn behaviours from others, and by our own trial and error, (and very occasionally by logical deduction or inference).
The second thing is our “Culture/habits”
Our brains learn the culture that we are born into. That culture is more than any written history, it is the living experience of our youth that is part history and part ongoing experiential evolution.
We also learn habits and skills. We learn to hear, to speak, to crawl, to walk, ….
Our brains also learn language (as part of culture).
The third thing is self awareness.
At some point (usually around 3 years old) we become aware of ourselves as separate beings. We declare “I” into existence. We will have heard the term “I”, so it will be a symbol in our language repertoire that we will have used many times, but on one occasion we will use it in a way that is subtly different to any previous time, in the declarative sense.
Almost immediately we get the question – well if I am, what am I? But we have far too little information to make any sort of sensible answer at that point, so what normally happens is we collapse the three separate aspects of self (body, habits and consciousness) into one. And therein starts a confusion that persists for most people for the rest of their days.
Distinguishing those three aspects is not a simple task.
Distinguishing all the sub-aspects – the attributes of each of the major aspects, is a lifelong enquiry, that may be without end even with infinite time.
Learning to honour and respect each of those aspects, for what they are and what they are not, is an even more arduous process.
Learning that almost all of our thoughts and actions come directly from the lower (first two parts) of what we are is often hard to cope with. Seeing just how little of what we experience as our own actions, actually comes from the “I” that does the experiencing can be quite shocking.
Learning that the experiencing “I” can exert control, and that it has a responsibility to do so isn’t easy.
Coming to terms with the responsibility that accompanies the power of infinite creativity, and choosing which aspects of the infinite to explore next can be a task without end (can also be a lot of fun, when one practices the art of experiencing responsibility as a freedom).
My experience of being is filled with love when I get to see myself in others, when I choose to see the commonality of the human experience, when I experience my fears and my doubts (which are the same, yet different, as everyone else’s) and choose to act in a way that is in harmony understanding, and with life generally (eg the environment), and is of service to all.
This is the story I use to make some sort of sense of who I am and what I might choose to be at any time.
To me this story (this artifact of language) has a lot of power, and a lot of freedom.
In this story each person has a “probable almost certain future” that is given by their past, their habits and their understanding, and each has access to infinite creativity, and the ability to transcend that “probable almost certain future” by an act of creative will.
Those creative acts are often not easy, as they are by definition, unknown and unpredictable.
In this story the “probable almost certain future” for humanity gives way to a dance with the consequences of millions of creative acts. At this level all certainty is lost, and one is left with responsibility and choice, moment by moment, ongoingly.
I offer this story to you (and everyone else)
I trust you will choose to use it responsibly
Ted
Sean Clarke
Aug 27th, 2006Wow! This has given me a paradigm shift…
The fact that we can be (ARE in fact) ALL designers, in every human endeavour…
“Design is the first signal of human intent”
So, what are you going to design?
Louetta Finch
Aug 28th, 2006This has been the most exciting 45 minutes. I am not good at expressing how I feel. I think that what Andrew Carlisle had to say, ” who would think that such a small shift in logic would result in such profound change. Brilliant.”pretty well says it all. I do hope that this video will remain accessible for a long time. I would like to play it over again and share it’s contents with friends. It is very powerful. I am blown away and so glad that someone is able to act on their personal and passionate feelings about life. And this video certainly gave me a new perspective on the word Design. Thank you!
William Holleman
Dec 29th, 2006Bubba I am hoping this worksop is in texas and there is a motel 6 nearby.
Rosanne Kitchener
Feb 10th, 2007I have enjoyed what I seen of this mans good insights and speech at the Bioneers conference……… Spiritually and we all have a spirit one of my names is called the gaurdian of the sanctuaries, this extends out to the wider field of the world…..not just Scotland where I live. The sanctuaries for health care and nurture in Scotland and the UK are poorly run, many people indeed thousands die needlessly each year, my work centred around this arena. It always will if one was allowed the freedom to do it here but there is no freedom in the United Kingdom at present.
We are all capable of being designers, all of mankind all species and cultures are capable of becoming designers, it takes not just education but great wisdom. And like the man in the speech says we need to urgently put gaurdianship into commerce but how you achieve this with the vibration of commerce so low and unenlightened I right now do not know.
I believe we all start first with ourselves and put our own house in order and then extend out to the world…….
The earth does indeed belong only to living, but just how many will be living if we dont start to transform our thinking, the way we live and relate to one another, and how we treat our environments. I believe as I work hard to develop ways for to show the greater larger community new ways to cope and be for to save lives and the planet in time, we need new instructions for the masses of people round the globe. we need to become TRANSFORMERS of our lives and the planet pronto. This can be achieved in group format…………
Indeed we need to set up our very own bill of responsiblities
and our responsibiliy to our selves is to be all we can be, help more and then extend this out in our world……………….to start to make a brand new day, where people and human lives and our animal species all kinds are viewed as more important than profit and gain for a minority few………….
Education is important but wisdom does tend to superceed knowledge on the highway to higher evolution………..
I have enjoyed watching this video and hope to see the rest once I work out how to download, technology and me are not compatible, but we get there.
God bless -Rosanne Kitchener. UK.
Rosie Coulton
Feb 22nd, 2008Fantastic. Forty five minutes of such vision and intelligence. It has certainly given me a jolt and renewed hope that we can begin to design so that ‘we love all of the children of all the species for all of the time’. I am inspired to become a tool for nature.
Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to see this great man.
Love Rosie.
kiki
Apr 16th, 2008Mc Donough helped design the Almere Principles; the town where I live in Holland is going to be a major cradle-to-cradle experiment. I saw him give his presentation on the principles, because I work for the local governement. He is absolutely brilliant and because of his modest way of talking, the content of his words is extra inspiring.
kirsi
May 18th, 2008Thank you for sharing this video. I am circulating the link, sending it to all my friends to show what is already happening. This paradigm shift is not just POSSIBLE, but already a FACT.
This video gives something much more important than HOPE.
Hope is useless. It is something you have when you don’t quite believe. In fact, even belief can become unneccessary – KNOWING what already IS SO is much more powerful.
Wasn’t it C.G. Jung who once said, when asked if he believed in God: “I don’t have to believe – I KNOW”?
Happy knowing to y’all
Kirsi, Finland
mark mironov
Nov 1st, 2008‘There are only two ways to live your life. One, is as though there are no miracles. The other is as though everything is a miracle.’ Albert Einstein….
This video along with the Zeitgeist Addendum offers a way of transcending the mess we have created for ourselves. It is a time for each of us to be the new paradigm within our own lives, then to give it wings to fly. The inspiration in this is to begin to be aware of our tribal global roots and to decide to live as stewards of the earth rather than dominators of each other and nature. It is about being the creators of a new way of living on this planet that most indigenous people took for granted, sustainability versus expendability. It is time …dare we live and embrace our birthright. I for one say YES ……its the only sane decision to take in the light of the worlds questioning of ‘what we as a species are abou?’.
Thank you for the inspiration , guidance and passion . God knows we all need it.