{"id":3258,"date":"2008-08-04T11:17:09","date_gmt":"2008-08-04T17:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=3258"},"modified":"2008-08-04T11:17:09","modified_gmt":"2008-08-04T17:17:09","slug":"towards-a-redefinition-of-sustainability-justin-van-kleeck-and-caroline-savery-4-caroline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/towards-a-redefinition-of-sustainability-justin-van-kleeck-and-caroline-savery-4-caroline\/","title":{"rendered":"Towards a (Re)Definition of Sustainability: Justin Van Kleeck and Caroline Savery. 4-Caroline"},"content":{"rendered":"
Dear Justin,<\/p>\n
You make some very effective arguments!<\/a> You are right to use my own posts in illustrating your thoughts. \u00a0Granted, those posts, written toward the end of the Sust Enable<\/a> project, demonstrate that my original<\/em> concept of Sust Enable did not pan out because its original assumptions were flawed. \u00a0Indeed, for other people to have success with living sustainably, they must be gentle<\/a>, have fun<\/a>, and go slow<\/a>… three things that I failed to consider for myself when undertaking the “radical” experiment.<\/p>\n I think the strongest point you make with your last post is the importance of living in a way that honors your own<\/em> health and wellbeing, not just the Earth’s. \u00a0 This is something that I’ve learned to consider the hard way, through the tribulations of the Sust Enable project (during which I ran up against my own physical limits of hunger, sleeplessness, and stress). \u00a0I completely<\/em> agree with that: respect for yourself, as a living being with needs, comes first in making a healthy approach toward respecting the Earth and other living systems.<\/p>\n However, I recognize that our<\/strong> level of comfort is learned–it is borrowed from the culture that surrounds us.\u00a0 It is by no means an “absolute” measure of comfort or happiness.\u00a0 Even our very venues for acquiring what you and I need to survive are hugely affected by the culture we were born into. \u00a0People in Third World and sometimes Second World countries live sustainably every day<\/em>–and in my experience when visiting Mexico, are considerably happier<\/em> than the average American. \u00a0Is this because they have struck a good balance between respecting the natural world and their own personal patterns, in ways that over-worked, over-stressed and over-consumptive Americans can only dream of? \u00a0It’s a theory.<\/p>\n