Redefining the Life Well-Lived: Plenitude, Abundance and Sharing
Wealth. Well-being. Happiness: the words have a well-rounded, easeful feel to them, while "sustainability", though a great concept, has an implication of discipline and scrimping that can be taken as negative.
Author Juliet Schor argues that seeing the world through a framework of abundance as opposed to a fight over scarcity is the essential shift that needs to take place for healthier, happier societies.
In this video, Professor Schor describes her vision of this concept, Plenitude, as the essential shift to take us from what is to what might be. She gives numerous, concrete examples, from permaculture to fab labs to small business incubators, of how people are moving away from Business As Usual and rejecting the concept "you are what you buy" to move toward a more easeful, expressive way of living:
Juliet Schor: Plenitude from toddboyle on Vimeo.
Plenitude, abundance, gross national happiness, thrivability: the meme of "true" well-being is taking hold in communities across the world.
Wolfgang Hoeschele takes the frame of abundance and applies it to a vision of how cities could become vehicles of abundance: "life’s activities only become meaningful if they express something about the person’s self and values to others in that person’s life."
Schor, Hoeschele, and Shareable are at the vanguard of a movement that is striving to redefine the well-lived life, away from quantifying and consuming and towards quality of life and sharing.
On Thursday, June 24th, 2010, 6:30-9:30pm in San Francisco, Shareable.net will co-host a discussion with Wolfgang Hoeschele about his new book, The Economics of Abundance: A Political Economy of Freedom, Equity, and Sustainability. Details about the event are here.
Read more: How to Create Abundant Cities
Comments
Anonymous wrote on 08.10.10, 7:35pm:
We are down-sizing for several reasons as well, living on less. My husband is also back in school and looking forward to a career for love not for money, teaching at the college level while I work as a nurse. We are loving it but find others just can't "understand" which is OK too... Nice to hear of others!
Anonymous wrote on 08.10.10, 8:13pm:
After losing my job during this recession, I have found it has been the blessing of a life time. My husband and I virtually cut our income in half, and yet live better now than we ever did before. We now have home cooked meals everyday with our children present at the table for a family meal time, as opposed to rushed, quick, meals with us rushing all the time and not spending time at the table together. I have found that I must think of each dollar I part with and where it is going versus before being able to spend any amount and not think about it. I would not trade it for the world. I was off in the wrong direction, having things control me. Just buying and spending more, at the cost of not having time for the things in life that really matter. I now have a quality life everyday.
super interesting.
introduced me to the transition movement and a lot of other exciting community things happening right now that i've been looking for for some time.
thank you for posting.