DQ claims that there are no programs that are going to help and that “just talking” is the best method. Are our hands tied? When does our action become mere programs?

I NOWHERE “claim” that “there are no programs.” I support and endorse many programs, merely pointing out that they ARE programs, which mean that they do not entail embracing any new vision. ANYONE can “recycle, reduce, and reuse.” ANYONE can support the Natural Step. (For more on this, see below.)

I NOWHERE suggest that “just talking” is “the best method.” Uru doesn’t say that those he awakens should “just talk.” He says again and again, “Since I can’t know what you’re capable of, how can I possibly tell you what to do? But if you can’t think of anything else to do, you can’t go wrong by using your faculties to awaken others.”

You ask if your hands are tied. In probably ten different places on the website, I offer Ray Anderson as an example of someone who has looked at his resources and done what he was capable of doing. Does it sound to you as if his hands are tied? The steps he’s taken in his industry don’t represent sticks stuck in the riverbed to IMPEDE the flow. He has acted so as to CHANGE the flow.

You ask when action becomes a program. This misses the point. Programs aren’t “forbidden.” What is important is to understand the DIFFERENCE between vision and programs. Programs are inherently reactionary. This doesn’t make them “bad,” it just makes them reactionary, meaning that they ALWAYS follow, never lead (because they only react to something else). Programs are like first aid. This doesn’t make them “bad,” it just makes them provisional and temporary. Programs are invariably responses to something bad, which means they must WAIT for bad things to happen. (Again, this doesn’t make them wicked, it just forever makes them play catch-up.) By contrast, vision doesn’t wait for something bad to happen, it pursues something desirable. Vision doesn’t oppose things, it proposes things. Vision doesn’t stand in the way of bad things, it opens the way to good things.

Although B nowhere says that programs are wicked and to be avoided, plenty of people have managed to read this into what he DOES say. The paragraph above (or one like it) will be added to the book when it comes out in paperback in the fall.

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