propelling.ca

debting it all on repayment

so, typically if you owe money to someone, they expect you to repay it, with interest, interest being the extra money paid for the service of current "liquidity" of future assets. if somehow, you are not increasingly productive to create extra value in repayment of your loan and interest, your situation will not improve, but will deteriorate.

the ethic i know best is leave things as good or better than you found them, which allows you to restore the initial amount, and more if you are able and choose to do so. This approach means that the lender only lends to those who have a very good risk of repayment, and may even compell the lender to partner with the debtor to help them restore more than the current amount.

the drawback is the lack of liquidity, why would those who have resources lend them out, without a reward for that loss of security?

is it reasonable to say, that intensifying the use of resources increases their value. so that, the owner of resources is richer because of their high use-value, circulated through many users. for example, an snow-blower owner who never lends the machine out, is not as rich as a neighbor who has the very same machine and lets people make use of it as they wish. the second snow-blower is worth more, it has more use-value as a tool, it deepens community and creates valuable social connections for that owner. the loss of security is compensated.

its not quite the same as money, because we have neglected the wear and tear on the snowblower due to high use-value, but we can call that negligible relative to the high value of social connections.

money, then, may be most valuable if used as a tool, creating social value, lent as necessary, with an ethic of returning original value.

it is hard to see how current debt levels can be repaid. resources on paper are many times greater than the total value of all goods on the earth. future generations are already indebted and resources are declining. the average american personally owes more than $10,000. the american economy is indebted in the trillions.

ah, sweden

process leadership

from Torbjörn Lahti, in The Natural Step for Communities:

"There are considerable demands on our ability as process leaders to listen and be flexible. We continually adjust the change process design according to the ideas of participants. At the same time, however, we need the ability to introduce new questions and themes that we believe are important to the change process, even if nobody in town has yet thought of these ideas.

From many years of experience in sustainable development, I have acquired several aces up my sleeve that can help at different stages of the change process. For example, I might suggest strategies, such as a local trade and bartering system or an interest free financing program, to spur economic growth. The challenge is to be sensitive about when to produce these aces. If I am uncertain, I need to test these cautiously and be willing to put them aside if the timing isnn't right or use them if they are appropriate and well-received.

As process leader I walk continuously on a tightrope, balancing when to guide and when to be guided. The more experience I have in a particular community and the clearer I am about the goal for the change process, the easier it is to guide. However, the risk is that my vision could turn into authoritarian guidance, where participants become dependent on me as the leader. One way to avoid this is to guide through asking the right questions, encouraging community residents to find solutions themselves."

>laura

taking the lead

leadership is about integrity, being a whole that others do not disturb as they follow, but appreciate and grow, adding their own interpretations and knowledge, building meaningful movement

leaders want to know how it all works, because they will be steering at some point, and they are interested in the destination. it is nearly impossible to be a leader in no particular direction.

leadership, being out at the front in new territory, having a strong sense of one's own capability

some characteristics of a leader:

• must be able to perceive new options, ways to improve
• must hold passion and energy for movement and change
• must be able to communicate the better way to others through initiative, argument, skillful facilitation, and other means
• must be able to listen intently to the following and step back or slow to keep an appropriate pace of movement
• must maintain an attitude of willingness to relinquish the lead

it is a responsibility that we all share, if there is noone to follow, it may be time to lead. it requires practice, there are so many opportunities to sharpen skills and fine-tune into the frequencies of social energy for movement

interesting, that it is difficult to find one person to follow

>laura

integration

a good little clock, ticking off the time

hiking through cowfields, curious about urban sophistication as the apex of human development, and how it relates to the footpath i am walking and the rural built environment, wooden fences ajar in the wintertime and stone walls covered with moss

later, a gospel concert in downtown karlskrona, the audience on their feet for miriam makeba, and my cameroonian friend beside me holding up the joys of song, pushing this town further

reemergence

and self-reflection, to string along the understanding of regular readers:

there has been some kind of an extended lull in the writing-it-out activity of the main perpetrator of this site over the past many weeks, carefully planned as a human experiment to prove the benefits of blogging

having shown that *bad things* happen to bloggers without a regular thought outlet, staff are back at creating interesting and meaningful posts to be broadcast at regularly scheduled times, right here on propelling

we apologize for the inconvenience

>laura

**audio-blogging! now you can broadcast from your own digital recorder and post online, anyone who subscribes to your site can get voice bits direct into their listening device, getting updated with real live voices every morning over tea and oranges