Répondez S’il Vous Plaît, Part 1

Some of you were wondering where Todd was on the recent screening tour. To be honest, so was I, much of the time. He’d pop in for a quick sticky now and then, just to say “hey”. And I’d catch a sign of him here and there, as we strode along from day to day to day to day to day. As I said earlier, Todd was the one responsible for the sound system meltdown on Vashon Island. And he fixed a dome light in one of our host’s cars so that we could find our things in the dark. She said it hadn’t worked in years.

Todd also nuked half a dozen cell phones on the train, interrupting loud and boorish conversations from folk who didn’t seem to realize that they were not alone. Just about the time I was ready to scream, I’d notice these morons jerk the phone quickly away from their ear, a high-pitched squeal issuing from the tiny speaker. They’d look at it, punch a bunch of buttons, listen, punch more buttons, curse, and finally stuff their phones back into a pocket or bag. It was all I could do not to laugh out loud. One guy ripped his Bluetooth out of his ear and threw it to the ground, then sat there with a lost-little-boy pout on his face, looking for all the world as if he was about to start crying, before storming off to the club car. Another soul extracted from the Borg Collective.

But mostly, Todd was absent. My computer time was limited, and when I was on it, I was hurrying to get my next travel blog posted. So I didn’t have much time for conversation. And I didn’t have much time for Todd. And I think he got bored. Or just lonely. Or maybe a little pissed off. So he took off, riding the wires and waves as he does, inventing and completing his own missions, following his own heart, doing what he wanted and needed to do.

That’s as it should be, I think. He’s long since ceased to be just “my assistant”. With his abilities to read and watch and listen and assimilate information, at speeds much faster than my own, he’s better schooled in the present predicament than I can ever hope to be. He knows the situation. He knows the stakes. He knows the players. He knows how the game is being played. So it’s time now for him to find his own “life well lived”, even though, technically, he’s already dead. For those of you who are just joining us, you can read about Todd’s story here.

So what all did Todd do with his time? Well, he visited his mother a good deal. She’s pretty used to the idea of him still being alive, he says, and loves it when he shows up in her iPod Shuffle, which she wears clipped to her sweater pretty much all the time now, just in case he should visit. He’s helping her look at and understand the collapse, and coaching her in getting her neighborhood in Tacoma to start making preparations. Apparently she’s going to quit her job after the holidays and start taking classes in mushroom identification and permaculture and water systems and dialogue work to help process the emotional stuff that arises when we look at the current destruction and the coming changes.

He did a bunch of research, too. On the day I got home he downloaded into my in-box and bookmarks about a thousand articles and essays and reports and videos that he’d read and watched while we were on tour. And this is just what he calls “the best stuff”. So I have some catching up to do.

But when I asked him what else he’d been up to, Todd’s reply was a bit odd: um… I uh… yeah I did some other stuff that Im not going to tell you about. When I asked him why not he said this: the first rule of project mayhem is that you do not ask questions. Well, like it said, it’s time for Todd to do his own work in the world. Whatever that work is, I hope it serves the living Earth, and the Community of Life. My guess, knowing Todd as I do, is that it will.

I got up this morning to find a sticky on my desktop. Im so sick of solutions it said. There was a link to an article about some new technique to produce hydrogen gas from organic matter, with the potential of providing “an abundant source of this clean-burning fuel.” Ooh. What a good idea! Give the child a bigger gun. I sat down and typed.

“Hey Todd,” I wrote. “You wanna say more?”

you already said it dude in victoria remember you said we have to be extremely suspicious of anything thats billed as a solution that was right on man

I remembered how good it had felt to say that, in the circle following the screening at the Camas Collective Books and Infoshop in Victoria, BC. I wasn’t sure Todd had been there.

yeah I was there remember when Alex was putting up curtains to keep out the street lights but there was still this one shining in and then it went out that was me

“Cool. Thanks. So, yeah, I remember that night. Somebody had talked about finding solutions, which happened at most of our screenings. And then somebody else mentioned that famous Einstein quote: “The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.” When the talking stick came around, I just had to say something.”

you sounded a bit mad dude

“Well, not mad, really. Frustrated, for sure, and a bit sad. I mean, at some point we have to stop quoting Einstein and slow down and actually get what it was he meant, and then actually start being and doing from that understanding. We don’t have time to just say it and then ignore it, satisfied, having said it, that that’s enough. We have to let it impact us, and change us, and we have to be and do as changed creatures walking the Earth. Otherwise what’s the use? If we stay stuck in the same old maze, we’ll just die there.”

people get frustrated sometimes that you and Sally dont talk about solutions dont they

“See, that’s the thing. They ask for solutions on the one hand and quote Einstein on the other. What they don’t get is that “finding solutions” IS the level of thinking that created our present predicament. Solutions ARE the old paradigm.”

you say this in the doc dont you

“Yeah, it’s there, but not said as explicitly as it needs to be, I guess. We’ve been “solving the problem” for thousands of years now. In fact, I think we can fairly and accurately say that every last one of our current set of “problems” is a direct result of some previous “solution.” We’d better come to grips with that before we go looking for more of them.”

and people arent even clear about what it is they want to solve or what it might look like if it gets solved either are they dude

“I don’t think they are, for the most part. I mean, really folks, what is it you’re trying to solve? You need to know. You need to be very clear. If you’re simply trying to find your way through this mess, or if you’re trying to help other living beings find they’re way through, or if you’re looking for your best right action to take in the matter of killing off this culture before it kills all of us, then I’m with you.”

“But if you’re trying to solve the energy problem or the climate problem or the extinction problem or the population problem or the whatever problem in order to keep this present system going, then, sorry, I’m not on your team. Keep this culture going? Why ever would we want to do that? It’s in the process of killing everything (and always has been), while robbing us of our most essential humanity and making most of us miserable. It’s the most delusional and destructive human culture ever cobbled together. Let’s not keep it going, OK?”

well it doesnt look like theres much chance of that

“That’s the beauty of it, my friend. We’ve set it up perfectly. We’re up against the insoluble problem. There is no way to “solve” our present predicament in any way that makes sense in the terms of this present dominant culture. So we’re going to have to evolve, to grow up, to take some real steps into that “new paradigm” everybody keeps talking about. The present predicament will force us, those of us who make it through, if any do, to let go of solving and controlling and dominating and destroying, to let go of progressing and succeeding and improving and striving and overcoming and managing and shaping and growing. It will force us to move forward and back at the same time, into relationship, and humility, and co-creation.”

so solving our problems to keep this culture going is out but how about those other things you mentioned solving problems in order to navigate collapse or to help species not go extinct or to find some way to stop the destruction arent those solving things as well

“To me it’s a matter of intent, more than anything. And it becomes useful, here, to step back to the level of language. Instead of solutions, let’s find responses. When you change your language, you change your mind, and your direction.”

how is responding different from solving

“Well, stop and sit with it for a while. Feel it. I know you don’t have a body anymore, but you’ve got something. How does it feel to respond? How does it feel to solve? How do these two different words, reflecting two different orientations for being, feel to you?”

Todd sat for a while and tried to get in touch with his feelings. At least, I imagined him sitting. No telling things like place and position when you’re a ghost, I suppose, although Jacob Marley’s ghost managed to sit when he visited Mr. Scrooge. After a while Todd posted a sticky: when I think about responding I think about right now and when I think about solving I think into the future and about having a plan and a goal and all the steps to take and all that

“Good start, Todd. Keep going.”

its weird dude its like… when I think about just responding I get pictures of animals and stuff like I become an animal myself like Im more alive or something… and… and… when I think about solutions I picture board meetings and machinery and politicians and stuff like that its like… its like you said the words have whole different flavors to them

“That’s how it’s been for me, Todd. Animals respond. Life responds. To stimuli both external and internal. It’s a basic characteristic of living things. We respond in the now, relating to the now, relating to the real world right there in front of us. Response is a term of relationship, a term of alignment, a term of co-creation. Response holds the person or thing responded to as somehow equal or worthy, as something or someone who must be included in our calculations, as something or someone who’s opinions and desires and needs actually matter. We respond to people, to questions asked and queries made and situations posed by our fellow travelers on this journey of life.”

and solutions are all one sided theyre all about being in control and in power like this is wrong this is bad and it isnt the way I want it its a problem so Im going to fix it Im going to solve it Im going to make it my way because Im in control here and I get to say

“Exactly. We solve climate change and control the flow of rivers and manage forests and improve the land and dominate our opponents and shape our destinies. But we respond to our friends and loved ones. The language of solutions keeps us more locked into an objectified world-view, where the entirety of the universe becomes a problem for us to solve. The language of response moves us into relationship with another subject, where the universe becomes a someone to whom we can be in relationship, a loved one with whom we can align.”

so navigating collapse and saving species and stopping the destruction are responses then and not solutions

“That’s the way I hold them. It’s a way of starting to actually feel our way into some new paradigm, some new way of being on this planet. We certainly won’t get there by thinking about it. We have to do it and be it and live it and breathe it, in our bodies, and then in the world. We give up on solutions and simply respond to the Earth and her web of living souls, including ourselves. Feel the fear, the grief, the anger. Look at the destruction our culture is causing all around the globe. Feel how this system has tried to rob you of your own deepest and most essential self. Open to the pain of that. Notice the stimuli, from outside and in. Step into your animal self, your living breathing pulsing wild animal self. And then, respond.”

it sounds… well… really good… almost a relief

“It’s what the world is asking of us now, Todd. It has sent us a message, a message of warming climate and desperate floods and dying oceans and burning forests and melting ice. At the end of that message you’ll notice these four letters: RSVP.”

kinda like an invitation

“Répondez s’il vous plaît, folks. Please respond.”

There was a long pause during which neither of us said a thing. I looked out the window to stare at the glorious rain that was dripping from the red-leather autumn leaves on the other side of the glass. Rain in North Carolina. Wonderful stuff. I welcomed it and thanked it for coming. Another sticky popped onto my screen.

none of this is particularly obvious to most people dude

I smiled and nodded. “No, of course not. Al Gore makes the same fundamental mistake in his interview in the current Rolling Stone (see it here, page 54). That’s why it needs to be pointed out and pondered and processed and pontificated by priests and pundits and pacifists and pedants and people of every persuasion. It’s not easy stuff, peering into a new spiritual paradigm. Our minds were shaped by a world view that’s now on the way out. We can all be forgiven for not already seeing and knowing this stuff.”

theres something Im not sure I get though dude… like… what about vision what about creation what about doing and action how do those all fit into this

I guess that’s why we need a Part 2…