For much of my life I have heard the topic arise in conversation, both locally to me and in broader social and media contexts as well, the topic of growth.
Most often, this has surfaced as a discussion of a growing economy, or the ballooning expansion of our species across the surface of the Earth.
Naturally, given the evolutionary state of our species, these conversations have tended towards a linear interpretation of things; either an implicit necessity of keeping a fiscal economy on a growing track, or the limits of expansion within the boundaries of an apparently finite planetary system.
These conversations hold a great deal of legitimacy and contain within themselves an infinite territory of generative reflective possibilities.
In the first case, having abstracted nearly all conceivable wealth conditions to empty, albeit vastly versatile, financial metrics, the theoretical space of considering the simple biological numbers of our given species reveals wildly exciting possibilities as we imagine our intelligence and spacefaring technologies carrying us out into the cosmos like dandelion achenes into the fields in spring.
In the latter case, we have the Limits to Growth case which simply runs the numbers of calories in and calories out calculations for the biosphere, drawing logical conclusions as to the practical viability of crossing certain distinct reciprocitive thresholds.
All very reasonable.
Recent conversations about the topic of growth, and in particular, de-growth, have drawn me to pause and reflect on this construct with a little more care that I may have given it in the past.
Within this consideration, I stumbled upon an intersection between wisdom and economic growth which makes a good deal of sense to me.
In the first place, somewhere recently along the journey, I have come to rest with a relative definition and metric which I like for understanding wisdom. Wisdom, I suggest, is connection to place. The depth and degree to which an individual is connected to the place in which they find themselves, is the degree to which we may consider them wise.
Place in this sense begins with the subtlety of awareness of self, expanding through mind and through the physical flesh to the surface of our skin, and outward into energy fields, the environment with its inhabitants beyond and beyond and beyond…
A wise being has a deep and broad appreciation for their own self nature, and more so in context in each given moment; recognizing a moment as contained in expanding conceptions of time itself. Wisdom is knowledge of place in the biblical sense.
Home is where the heart is, says some subset of “They.” Home is place, it is where we find ourselves, it is that place to which we give stewardship and care, as if it were our own [self.]
Those who know me might chuckle with a sense of familiarity as, like a dog with a bone, I return again and again to the etymology of Economy as referring to the “care and upkeep of the home.” I very much like this ground for the term as it holds implicit in its condition, a full-spectrum wholeness for that which must be accounted for, leaving nothing out.
Within the boundaries of the home, there can be no waste, when we are truly connected to that place; when that place is truly home, our care must embrace with totality.
So what might we mean, or what might we mean to mean when we speak of “Economic Growth?”
Might we consider that true economic growth is made up explicitly of a growing connection to, and therefore care for, nurturance of, and continual expansion of our sense of home and place in the evolving context of self and cosmos? Grounded in ourselves, we consider others and relationships, we bring mindfulness of the interior landscapes of inner peace and harmony, as well as the outer objects of land and water and air and space and indeed, all our relations.
Is it not so much limits to growth, but limits instead to carelessness, hubris, and ignorance that wisely deserve a place in the center of our collective discourse?
Is the wild cosmos, not at home in itself; is it not this very growth that brings us to being in the first place? At the subtlest of levels, it seems, growth is really just a playful expression of loveliness, love, and an increasing celebration of a primordial liveliness of creativity itself… What does it mean to be at home in that?