The rent is long overdue.
Like guests who have usurped and abused the abundant givings of their generous host.
To aim for a goal of sustainability now is laughably shortsighted.
Yet to dare to imagine a mutually nourishing relationship is almost too far fetched.
To understand this predicament is to know the value of less.
To the parent wondering how to provide for their children, the only appropriate and responsible response is less.
Less than you ever had at their age.
To the business wondering about their impact, less.
To the board member defining organizational values, less.
To the politician crafting a vision of the future, less.
Less is not more.
Like a parent that manipulates a child to feel encouraged by the disguised proposition of more.
“Finish your vegetables and you can have dessert.”
Vegetables will never be enough.
Dessert is surely guaranteed.
A culture of boundless growth is no culture at all.
A land without limits is placeless.
It is everywhere and therefore nowhere.
If there is such a thing as human culture, it knows limits and endings very well because it is defined by them.
This is the wisdom our times are speaking.
Do we have the courage to listen?
