I've read about a legendary meeting between Tesla and Westinghouse where Tesla showed W his free energy system to a cynical response: "How could we make money from this?" He couldn't, so a corner was turned and we headed down the road of energy dependency.

What if Westinghouse had shared Tesla's vision - free energy for all. ???

This was just one of many forks in the road throughout our human history where we have consistently chosen short term benefits for the few over long term benefits for the many. Those choices all put control over sharing.

How do power players stop making those lousy decisions? Only when something other than power profits becomes more important to them. "Don't hold your breath" I hear you warning and I agree. But, change has to start somewhere... how about with me?

What if I change my own priorities? That's a start. It's easy. I just think ahead before I act. "How ill this decision affect my great grandchildren?" That simple question seems to make decision making a whole lot easier.

For instance, I can get a bag of screws for $4.00 at Lowes. They cost $4.50 at my local ACE hardware. It costs some gas to get to Lowes but, more important, the extra 50 cents I pay at ACE goes towards salaries for neighbors. They can then spend more in my little town... it adds up.

So, I'm happy to pay more - not feeling that I am getting ripped off or losing, but that the extra is my investment in my local community. So, I start to see pricing differently. There is the cost of an item and then the investment in my local community. On that basis, I don't mind paying a little more because I like where it is going.

If enough of us thought this way and did it, actually redirected our buying power, that would begin to accrue a lot of value in our locally owned businesses and drain money away from the giants.

What if?

Comment (238)

This 1957 movie starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas has been described as the classic Western. In 2011, humanities movie could be described as the classic insane asylum.

This just in, "A nuclear expert has warned that it might be 100 years before melting fuel rods can be safely removed from Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant." This nuclear disaster is shocking the world into reassessing the "clean and safe" nuclear brand. And some people are even doing personal research, enough to discover that all this technology does is boil water.

That's right. Nuclear power is about boiling water to make steam to turn turbines. Uh, might there be a simpler way that actually is clean and safe? Like... how about THE SUN!

Here's where we get to the insane part. We have ignored the Sun. Without the Sun there is no life on earth. Everything, everyone, is solar powered already. So, how come we didn't develop technology that related to the Sun? Instead, we created toxic substitutes.

I think this is quite the ironic symbol of what we have also done in consciousness, substituting "religion" for genuine spirituality. I'm referring to indigenous practices that often, interestingly, acknowledged THE SUN, plus the rest of nature, animals too.

How isolated we have become in our arrogant humanity, marauding across the planet with utterly no concern for the litter we leave behind. And now, this Japanese disaster, is making the obvious obvious. Maybe a few of us will finally get the message and do something about it.

I can't really change nuclear energy policy, beyond voting and writing a letter or two, maybe attending a march. But I can explore what it would mean to acknowledge the Sun in my daily life, both on the physical level and including all of nature and on the inner level as an acknowledgement of Source energy that powers us all.

As I do that, even in the beginning stages, I wake up from another aspect of this insane nightmare, the concept that we are separate. No, we're not. We're all powered by the same Sun. And that makes our differences easier to celebrate. So much for conflict!

The Sun just came out from behind a cloud, think I'll go outside and bask for a bit. My cat Yogi beat me to it... I think he knows something I don't!

Comment (198)