The fastest—and perhaps only—way to fully reverse climate change is neither the retooling of the energy sector nor the retrofitting of every building on Earth, supported by an all-electric fleet. The answer is literally underfoot (and overhead), and the numbers are stunning. — Bill Reed is the co-founder of the LEED green building rating system and one of the world’s leading experts on the environment. Several years ago I invited him to speak at an event I hosted. Chatting privately, he said two things that changed my perspective on sustainability.

‘Enough’ is anti-consumerist. For one, it espouses limits. For another, it looks at needs, not wants. And above all, it values long-term societal health over short-term personal gain. It just might save us. — Enough isn’t a sexy doctrine. Far from the life of the party, it’s the rational voice that tells you skip the nightcap and get a good night’s sleep. While everybody knows it’s right to espouse these things, nobody enjoys the reminder.

In most global cultures, meat is associated with wealth, virility and power. Unfortunately, it is also wildly destructive to both body and planet, and until Colonialism, a rare treat. While we are willing to sacrifice the planet for our dining pleasure, the high cost of meat seems to be gaining an audience. — The case for a plant-based diet—by which I mean the prioritization of non-animal foods over animal sources, not their wholesale replacement—can be made on the basis of three topics:

In a shift pod in the desert, under the influence of an “ally”, fifty years of trauma poured out in a deluge, freeing me from a lifelong cage and returning me to wholeness. This is the story. — Ted was gently insistent. “I felt bad that you didn’t get to have the experience two years ago.” He was referring to the fact that two years earlier, while on a retreat in the California highlands with 30 other people—after a life-changing evening under the influence of Cambodian mushrooms, followed…

The Hollywood script isn’t for everyone. So why is there so much pressure to follow it, and such animosity toward those who choose a different path on their way to “happily ever after”? — We are a judgmental lot. From “only” children to mid-life “crises” to “failed” marriages, Western society and its language choice largely compel us toward a singular life script, applied liberally and universally. …

There are many measures of friendship. The best one I know is: “Who shows up for you when you need them most?” — I have a thousand friends. Maybe two thousand. Or, at least, it would be true if I were to apply the definition most of us do when we use that word. I have work friends, school friends, childhood friends, ski friends, Burning Man friends, travel friends, drinking friends, spousal friends…

Our ancient stories provided comfort and belonging in times of darkness, but were ultimately disempowering, outsourcing our wellbeing to hope. Eventually, we developed tools to demystify the world and manifest our dreams. — There was a time when fantasy — those magical ideas that fill the minds of wide-eyed children and raw-hearted adults alike — exhilarated me. Gods and religion, sorcerers and dragons, soulmates and happily-ever-after, aliens and superheroes, good and evil… they tapped into a deep-seated human predilection I shared with so…

Romantic marriage is a relatively new concept—one that has fully consumed Western culture, and whose mixed success record belies the complexity beneath its central truth. — Western history is replete with stories that extoll romantic love and relationships. Whether it’s Shakespeare, Hollywood, poetry, ballads, valentines or books, every last one of these treats love (and honoring it, through marriage) as the acme of human focus and achievement.

Nations are an ever-changing and illusory fiction about shared heritage no more than a few hundred years old, whose rise was fueled by an unfounded fear of “the other”. Today, these fictions limit the reach of their own members, and are driving us all to the brink. It’s time for the next stage of our evolution. — I have long felt that nationhood (and nationalism) are false prophets. That is, they are primarily mechanisms for demagogues to control resources and people through the use of compelling stories.