Universal Mind at Work?

Seems as though the great (and I don't mean that sarcastically, he's one of my heroes) Thomas Friedman has been thinking along the same lines as my previous post. His most recent New York Times column discusses The Great Disruption of 2008 in both the economy and the environment, and how we (as in, the human race) have begun to move from basing global economic growth on the one-time-use of one-time-mining of resources to creating renewable resource flows for cradle-to-cradle closed-loop products.

In other words, we're knocking down the blocks that comprised the old ideas and economic structures so we can rebuild our society and economy in more sustainable ways. He's even optimistic about our ability to rebuild before the environment and economy are too far gone. If he's got hope, and if Obama's got hope, then I can have hope.

Here's the link to his article: The Inflection Is Near?

Forget the Phoenix and Butterfly, I've Got a New Metaphor

Last night, I had a conversation with a really wise old woman named Carol. The discussion eventually turned to the economy. Carol told me a story of how she used to teach young children. The little boys in her class would inevitably end up at the back of the room playing with the building blocks. They'd build elaborate structures (or not, depending on the creative faculties of the child), and then knock them down in a loud clatter. Sometimes a flying block would hit a child in the face, maybe even hurting him, and he'd cry for a bit, but ultimately, the hurt would stop. More importantly though, they needed to knock down their creations in order to build something new and better and keep learning. Carol made the analogy that that's what's happening in our economy right now. I hope she's right.