I was fortunate enough to be a part of a ‘Whole Thinking’ workshop at the Center for Whole Communities in Warren, Vermont this summer. It was a fantastic three-day experience, and I would recommend it to anyone who is working within the realms of social and environmental change.
One of CWC’s mantras is a quote attributed to Lila Watson: “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
When mentioned in the context of work in sustainability, the term “help” seems to take on two meanings. First, it can be used as shorthand to denote what special skills, insights and efforts someone can bring to a given situation. In this context, we have plenty to offer to any green project team.
But the term “help” can also be used to define the relationship that we see between the fractured roles that we sometimes play – the opposing jobs of teachers and students, thinkers and doers, designers and builders, consultants and clients, helpers and the helped. In this context, it’s unfortunate that you will see many references on this site to how STACK can be a “help” to your project teams. It’s not because it is untrue – it’s unfortunate because it paints an incomplete picture of how we intend to work with our partners and collaborators.
As professionals, we are usually bound by cultural habit and contract to simply focus on one piece of the puzzle and to deliver unique and brilliant ideas on one single subject. This is incredibly common in the urban design world. We are the helpers helping the helped with one particular problem. But in design and sustainability, this role of “helping” often “solves” one “problem,” but sends many other “problems” elsewhere (for other “helpers” to “solve”). It’s frustrating, ineffective and wasteful to work in this way. And it won’t get us to sustainable society.
The challenges we face are inextricably intertwined – sustainability is literally a study of ‘a little bit of everything.’ It’s social. It’s economic. And it’s environmental, too. To liberate each other from the grip of un-sustainability, we have to take on three basic changes in our practices. These are other ‘parts of the picture’ we need to illuminate.
- First, as we take action, we must work on developing our awareness of ‘the whole’ – the practice of looking at the connections that link the parts, not just the parts themselves. This may sound complex, but it really just starts with cheating and looking at the picture on the puzzle box before starting work of sorting out the pieces. By slowing down to take this step, we can speed up the entire effort as we move down the road.
- Second, we can certainly co-learn through on-the-job training and a fair bit of trial and error. The issues we face are a bit too urgent to not start taking direct action pretty soon (many experts give us a little under 100 months to pull our act together), and we need to start reaping the return on investments that can already be generated by taking easy first steps. We’ll certainly learn from our mistakes while taking strides in the right direction.
- And third, we should insist on reciprocity. We can unlock far more of our collective potential if we learn as we teach, ask questions and solicit ideas as we suggest, and seek healing as we build. This is how we start to function as part of a whole again. We participate in a positive way. Give and receive. Help, and be helped.
I hope we get the chance to “help” one another on a project sometime soon.
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