A connection of mine laments the dysfunction of our economic system, which makes the human way of life unsustainable. I agree. But our economic system merely reflects our dysfunctional collective behavior. We have been behaving against ourselves, dominantly—it is our behavior that we must change.

This episode is the first of two to start clarifying what is dysfunctional in our behavior, and how using our senses will help address this problem.

The Difference between Sensing and Interpreting

There’s sensing and there’s interpreting. Those are two different abilities, yet we often confuse them. Proper sensing, alone, has us living, experiencing, the facts directly. Truly, we are part of the facts, then. The experience is subjective. We are the facts. I can say: “I see a tree,” but even a simple sentence like that has already taken me into interpreting and objectifying what my sight sees. Further interpretation can get us into trouble. It is when, for example, we start asking ourselves why the tree is there, why its leaves are greener than yesterday, how much carbon it stores, etc. We are in thinking mode then. And since we cannot focus on two things at the same time, when we focus on thinking, we are not mindfully sensing. Yet we need a sufficiently well-functioning interpretation ability to establish whether the facts we are sensing are bad for us, and if so, decide that they must change. And then act in the right direction. Sustainability professionals interpret reality all the time. But do they sense it enough?

What is Behavior?

What makes our bodies behave, that is, move in one way or another? If we do not pay enough focused attention to what our senses are sensing—what we are experiencing—with our bodies, we then cannot describe what we sense. Yet good science—one that helps us change for the better—is mostly based on observation: seeing, hearing, things. Without sufficient perceptual intelligence, as unencumbered with interpretation as possible, we are simply unable to account for reality in a sufficiently detailed manner. We can then only make mistakes when trying to interpret or change such an ill-perceived reality.

“There is no planet B. There is no planet blah, blah-blah-blah, blah-blah-blah (…) Net-zero by 2050, blah-blah-blah, net-zero, blah-blah-blah-, climate neutral, blah-blah-blah, green economy, blah-blah-blah. This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Words. Words that sound great but so far, have led to no action. Our hopes and dreams drown in their empty words and promises.” – Greta Thunberg, 2021.

The Economic Language vs Experiencing Economic Facts

The economic system is about costs, benefits, and their distribution. But we seldom describe the precise human activities that lead to costs, or those that lead to benefits, in sufficiently specific, tangible terms. We seldom describe the reality that these economic words and figures represent. We cannot therefore fully sense these facts. As Greta Thunberg puts it, we remain at “blah-blah-blah” (that is, abstract) levels with our words (see Episode 1 – Sustainability is an Abstraction).

OK, I know, exhaustive description is impossible, so we use metrics (numbers of units of things) and generic terms like “people”, “animals”, “plants”, which limit things in “reality bundles” that we can count and see vague contours of. Yet even though we may only approximate reality, let me tell you: It is possible to make vastly better approximations than saying things like, for example “a low carbon cell phone!”

If we are the leader in charge of changing a certain portion of reality, we must be able to unpack this reality sufficiently, and see and describe what’s in it, so our people can understand us, and we may obtain the results we want.

No disrespect, but I cannot see or hear what a “low carbon economy” looks or sounds like. Nor what “net-zero” is, as something that can be experienced. We sustainability leaders have reached a collective deadly level of dysfunction in our abilities to observe, describe, and communicate about nature and what we are doing to it.

“Most of us think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, but we are actually feeling creatures that think.” – Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight – A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey, 2009.

We Must Sense It before We Can Speak About It!

Our economic terms, and most terms we typically use in the area of sustainable development, are too disconnected from ground realities. No wonder our economic system is dysfunctional.

We must sense and become aware of what we sense before we may think and talk about that accurately. Otherwise, we are quite literally, not knowing what we are talking about, and not making sense.

Stay tuned for the next episode about how sensing affects our interpretation.