Something not valued in Orange society, but which started to be praised by Green and Yellow mentality is Voluntary Simplicity. It is in mutual consistency with all Universe-centered values.

Voluntary Simplicity was, basically, about to decrease your level of consumption in order to increase your level of living. Consuming less, you need to work less and so you can have more time to do what is really meaningful to you. In time, voluntary simplicity became much more.

The fundamental cause of our non-sustainability as a society comes from two sources. One is its inequity toward people. The second source is its exploitative way, an inequity toward Nature. To choose Voluntary Simplicity is to choose a road that drives us toward legality to Life Laws. Choosing this deep equity, it means to choose a moral way to live, a moral way to produce, a moral way to inter-relate. This is what voluntary simplicity is about.

From a self-centered mentality, voluntary simplicity could seem a strange, almost stupid decision. But, regarding our ecological situation perceived from the Universe-centered lens, it becomes the only moral one.

Though I had a hunch that our green energy technologies (solar panels, wind turbines, burning biofuels or biomass, electric cars & bateries) are not so green, some documentaries (Planet of the humans, by Michael Moore, two TED conferences by Michael Shellenberger etc.) made me understand that they are far away to be as green as we usually believe (or their promoters try to make us believe).

Why we tend to believe so easily that they are sustainable in the long run? Though we are aware that our exploitative civilization is destroying the planetary ecosystem just to maintain itself (its political, economic and military system), we are not ready for a true change. Though we are aware that our exploitative civilization is destroying the planetary ecosystem, most of us are even not ready to renounce to their “high standard of life” to “save the planet”. So, it is so easy, though highly biased, to think that we can “save the planet”, without any necessity to change our “high-standard” way of life. “With green energy we can continue our fancy lifestyle, travel the world, have big houses, electric cars and so on”. “Disruptive technologies will save us!” We don’t need to change ourselves or our way to be. It is so easy to take the responsibility from our shoulders and to lie ourselves that “the green technologies” will do the work for us…

Green technologies are our perfect mask to continue to lie ourselves that there is no need for a real individual and social change in order to face the ecological challenges that we are facing right now. Deep in our hearts, we know that this is a lie. We know that very soon our Planet will change dramatically and the human world will never be the same. But we still hope that it will be not in our lifetime. We still hope that we will continue our fancy lifestyle until we die, without any necessity to change something. We have arrived at a point when even inventing better and better technology will be not enough to go further. If we will not evolve toward higher levels of consciousness, all the “disruptive technologies” will strengthen the divergent forces that are tearing apart the human world…

We simply have to evolve!

Our Earth is actually a spaceship: We can not afford to destroy our survival basis. We can not afford to waste our resources. We have to learn how to regenerate them. We can not afford to continue to fight each other. We have to evolve non-aggressive ways of living. It is possible that in future we will develop new nuclear energy technologies (based on Thorium), that will allow us to create clean energy. All these new disruptive technologies claim us to evolve. Because not the clean thorium energy will make the difference, but our way to use it! Our way of organization, our approach to the planet will make the difference.

We can continue trashing the planet or we can regenerate the planet. Voluntary Simplicity approach will make the difference between trashing or regenerating the planet, regardless of what technologies we will employ. Voluntary Simplicity means a fair relation with Nature and a fair relation with each-other. If we will continue with an unfair society, regardless how high-tech it will be, we will need huge resources just to maintain it: for the military and police system, for the unfair politic system, for the unjust juridic system, for the unfair economic system, for the human-crushing educational system, for the manipulative mass-media system, for the medical system that keeps us dependent on it and so on. If we will not evolve as individuals and as a civilization, we necessarily will collapse toward totalitarianism and destructive approaches toward everything. Voluntary Simplicity is choosing a deep equity toward people and Nature. It is choosing a fair social relationship. Beyond all of these, is choosing another purpose for human life. A purpose that is oriented toward a simple, joyful and meaningful life, toward non-aggressive and collaborative way of being, toward Earth and human society regeneration. A purpose that makes justice for each individual, for our communities and for our shared planet.

Everything is inter-related and reinforced by its mutual-consistent environment. Our almost blindly evolved political and economic structures (based on competition and exclusion) along with our organization in super-human scale societies enhance the fighting-competing aspects of our instincts. Our law system, that defends and enhances the competition, immorality and inequity, drives the exploitation of natural environments and our choice for exploitative life strategies. All these are in mutual consistency, strengthening the vicious cycle of the selfish meaning of live, exploitative ways of living and aggressive communication…

But we can change this!

We can start to be aware and choose generative and non-aggressive ways of living. Butterfly Communities is an open-project that is about this change of perception and life strategy and could be brought forth only with your participation. Only by choosing consciously we will be able to get out from our old exploitative paradigm and to create a generative one.