Sometimes I wonder if society could be vastly different, redesigned almost from scratch.

It stems from my belief that somewhere along the line, we allowed ourselves to be sidetracked from what’s important — people — and instead have put profits, corporations, productivity, and consuming at the forefront of everything we do.

We’ve become workers focused on productivity, because we need to earn a living, so that we can … buy things (including entertainment). Including a car, which is needed to go to work and to shop. We need to send our kids to school, so we don’t need to worry about them when we work, and so that they can grow up to be good workers. We need to buy fast food and convenience food, because we’re too busy or tired from work to cook.

We’ve gotten fat, tired, sick, deep in debt, disconnected from our kids and other family members, divorced, separated from our neighbors. We’re polluting and causing global warming, all in the name of money and work and profits and buying. This seems broken, to me.

But what’s a better way of living? A society reimagined, built around people and a love for our environment and living and working and playing together, a love for being outside and playing and being active, a love for doing things and spending time with people rather than for buying things and working to support that buying habit.

What would such a society look like? I hesitate to put forth my vision, because it shouldn’t come from one person but should be reimagined by everyone who will live it. However, I’ll put forth a small sliver of such a vision, just to get the conversation started. Read more »