Thank you Ernesto. Powerful as always. I appreciate your reflection on hope and resilience. There is so much to unpack within your writings, but one thing that stayed with me was the idea of stewardship.
"So this is where the essay lands — not on hope, not on despair, but on stewardship. The questions become intensely practical, and intensely personal. How do you invest? Where do you live? What do you build, and what do you preserve? How do you steward land, family, capital, community — and your own consciousness, your own hope? These are not questions with a single answer. They have places, experiments, relationships, and consequences. They must be lived."
Yes, Christy, and thank you for your support and for accompanying me through this evolution in my writing and thinking.
Perhaps one of the most challenging realizations emerging for me is precisely this: we need to become stewards. Not someday, when the transition becomes clearer, but now.
And stewardship, as I am beginning to understand it, is not passive care. It is a proactive posture toward the future we believe is possible. It asks us to take responsibility for what is within our reach—our land, our capital, our institutions, our communities, our relationships, and ultimately our own consciousness—and begin aligning them with the world we hope will emerge.
We may not know exactly what that future looks like. Perhaps we are not supposed to. But we can begin creating the conditions from which it might grow.
In that sense, stewardship may be one of the defining responsibilities of this moment: to care for what exists while consciously cultivating what wants to emerge.
Excellent reflecting. What we need to be doing. Seeing the biggest picture to best serve the whole.
I was invited to write about what gives me hope, and hopefully there's something to be gotten from what I said:
I’m starting by telling you thoughts I have about the idea of hope, because I wouldn’t say I am hopeful. Then again, it’s not that I’m not hopeful. In fact, from my lived experience I could say I am only hopeful. But that’s not related to the world’s current affairs, or whether I feel good about myself.
Here’s a quote from Carlos Castaneda that captures this “hopeful” idea I live with: “In a world where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time for regrets or doubts. There is only time for decisions.”
We live inside a giant idea. The world that can be observed in its material dimension is running on concepts. They can change. If it’s sinners needing redemption it’s a different perspective from sacred beings in a divine universe — it’s from struggling with others to cooperating with them.
Our ideas about life shape our practices, and my framing idea is that, good or bad, reality is what it is. What is is.
First is to recognize that. Acceptance is a word for it. It’s not that you like something, but that fighting with reality is a losing game. Start from what’s so. Then, all energies can go to moving ahead. No moaning about the past. Only action. You’re always starting. It’s always the beginning of the rest of your life.
The evolutionary path can be tracked by good periods following bad ones, where life over death has always been the choice. There’s a logic to existence. Humans can go for pain or for pleasure. Pleasure is logical. What gives me hope is knowing this. That we could step into that pleasure-focused reality.
Here’s another quote I live by, that’s on a plaque on a brownstone where W.H. Auden lived that I passed on my way to my classes at NYU:
Another wonderful and heartfelt piece Ernesto, thank you! Yes, we have arrived at a crossroads and it is time to decide what kind of world we wish to prepare for. I don't believe hope as an abstract concept is particularly helpful but a hope borne of intention can be a powerful force. I believe the universe reflects back the intentions we broadcast. It is up to us to act in alignment with ideas of regeneration and reciprocity and stewardship and humility and kindness. It is up to us to embody the world we wish to be a part of.
This article may be a bit strong in its analysis, Ernesto, but I'd like to dovetail some of your concepts and observations with https://ecosocialismandnature.substack.com/p/climate-migrants-arent-fleeing-from I don't believe we can take the climate disruptions out of socio-political contexts at this point, as we are indeed in a metacrisis--siloing and attribution studies are far outstripped by the speed of our descent. I'll add more later in my own Substack.
Thank you Ernesto. Powerful as always. I appreciate your reflection on hope and resilience. There is so much to unpack within your writings, but one thing that stayed with me was the idea of stewardship.
"So this is where the essay lands — not on hope, not on despair, but on stewardship. The questions become intensely practical, and intensely personal. How do you invest? Where do you live? What do you build, and what do you preserve? How do you steward land, family, capital, community — and your own consciousness, your own hope? These are not questions with a single answer. They have places, experiments, relationships, and consequences. They must be lived."
I absolutely agree.
Yes, Christy, and thank you for your support and for accompanying me through this evolution in my writing and thinking.
Perhaps one of the most challenging realizations emerging for me is precisely this: we need to become stewards. Not someday, when the transition becomes clearer, but now.
And stewardship, as I am beginning to understand it, is not passive care. It is a proactive posture toward the future we believe is possible. It asks us to take responsibility for what is within our reach—our land, our capital, our institutions, our communities, our relationships, and ultimately our own consciousness—and begin aligning them with the world we hope will emerge.
We may not know exactly what that future looks like. Perhaps we are not supposed to. But we can begin creating the conditions from which it might grow.
In that sense, stewardship may be one of the defining responsibilities of this moment: to care for what exists while consciously cultivating what wants to emerge.
Yes, Ernesto. Stewardship is not about waiting for a better future. I believe it is about how we choose to live, care, and act now.
Well said !!!
Excellent reflecting. What we need to be doing. Seeing the biggest picture to best serve the whole.
I was invited to write about what gives me hope, and hopefully there's something to be gotten from what I said:
I’m starting by telling you thoughts I have about the idea of hope, because I wouldn’t say I am hopeful. Then again, it’s not that I’m not hopeful. In fact, from my lived experience I could say I am only hopeful. But that’s not related to the world’s current affairs, or whether I feel good about myself.
Here’s a quote from Carlos Castaneda that captures this “hopeful” idea I live with: “In a world where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time for regrets or doubts. There is only time for decisions.”
We live inside a giant idea. The world that can be observed in its material dimension is running on concepts. They can change. If it’s sinners needing redemption it’s a different perspective from sacred beings in a divine universe — it’s from struggling with others to cooperating with them.
Our ideas about life shape our practices, and my framing idea is that, good or bad, reality is what it is. What is is.
First is to recognize that. Acceptance is a word for it. It’s not that you like something, but that fighting with reality is a losing game. Start from what’s so. Then, all energies can go to moving ahead. No moaning about the past. Only action. You’re always starting. It’s always the beginning of the rest of your life.
The evolutionary path can be tracked by good periods following bad ones, where life over death has always been the choice. There’s a logic to existence. Humans can go for pain or for pleasure. Pleasure is logical. What gives me hope is knowing this. That we could step into that pleasure-focused reality.
Here’s another quote I live by, that’s on a plaque on a brownstone where W.H. Auden lived that I passed on my way to my classes at NYU:
“If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.”
Another wonderful and heartfelt piece Ernesto, thank you! Yes, we have arrived at a crossroads and it is time to decide what kind of world we wish to prepare for. I don't believe hope as an abstract concept is particularly helpful but a hope borne of intention can be a powerful force. I believe the universe reflects back the intentions we broadcast. It is up to us to act in alignment with ideas of regeneration and reciprocity and stewardship and humility and kindness. It is up to us to embody the world we wish to be a part of.
This article may be a bit strong in its analysis, Ernesto, but I'd like to dovetail some of your concepts and observations with https://ecosocialismandnature.substack.com/p/climate-migrants-arent-fleeing-from I don't believe we can take the climate disruptions out of socio-political contexts at this point, as we are indeed in a metacrisis--siloing and attribution studies are far outstripped by the speed of our descent. I'll add more later in my own Substack.