Hi,

I’m a young person.  I’m buying a house with some land.  I care about the environment and the world.  When I was in college, (not that many years back)  my professor recommended a book called Cradle to Cradle.  It’s a plastic book.  In the introduction when Bill the architect is talking about the issues and how he met Michael the chemist, he mentions when he was learning about the now termed “green technology” that it was a side thing that wasn’t very green.  The focus was on being less bad.  Bill wanted to be able to make architecture that was good. 

I was forwarded this article http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2009-07-13-young-farmers_N.htm  It’s about young farmers breaking into the community and doing small organic farms which can be successful because of the amount of farm markets out there and the demand for local, organic grown food (GOOD THING!!!!)  A 28 year old in Washington, Jacob Wilson, is quoted saying “‘When I was younger, the best you could expect was nothing — you could make something not happen,’ he says. But protesting was all about stopping things. He wanted to start something.” 

And that was common ground in both things for me.  To cease the mindset of trying to be less bad, trying to stop things and to be able to fill the space where the ceasing was, with the power to change things so much that all you have to do is Do the good thing, create the good, start the good.  We need people to stop the bad – look at police officers.  But we can’t rely on stopping the bad.  It gets dark and dismal in that hole.  You loose hope easily and you loose sight on what you’re doing.  You get distracted because stopping the bad is hard work.  But we need to set aside stopping the bad to create the good, spread the good, immerse ourselves in the good, live the good and do the good.  The good will be hard as well, farming is hard work – I’m going to be honest, I’m sorta not excited to start my garden by preparing this fall and getting it going in the spring.  It’s going to be hard work.  But it can be rewarding.  It’s taking a balance of the two.  You need some of both.

So I’ll reiterate.  Lets cease our dependence on stopping the bad – and start just being the good.  I think 80% will spread because it’s good and healthy and life giving in many ways.