essay

Frida* was four years old when her parents took her to soccer practice. Ever since her older brother played soccer she wanted to play the same game. After a warm up, the rules were explained and the game started. Frida was all excited. She jumped up and down and shouted at everyone to pass her the ball. Finally, she got it. She knew what to do: score a goal. And she did. Not one, but many. When she got the ball, she ran to the nearest goal. The problem was, it was her own team’s goal. She didn’t care. It was closer and her mum was the goal keeper. She shot one own goal after the other. And she would have lived happily ever after, if it wasn’t for her team mate who called her out and ridiculing her. Frida never went to a soccer practice again. 

When you are four years old, you get away with crap like that. It’s even kind of cute. When you get older, this changes. You don’t get to define your own rules anymore. Instead you are rewarded for playing according to everyone else’s rules. 

Sustainability requires a different game, the rules are not yet written. 

Living a normal life today means playing a bunch of zero-sum-games. Zero-sum-games are a mathematical representation in game theory and economic theory, in which one person or group can win something only by causing another person or group to lose it. When the total gains of the participants are added up and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero. It’s a classic win-lose situation. Zero-sum-games are finite. Once someone wins, it’s over. None-zero-sum-games are infinite games. The only purpose of the game is to prevent it from coming to an end. The thing about infinite games is that the rules of an infinite game must change in the course of play. As James Carse said in his famous book Finite and Infinite Games “Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries”. 

There is nothing wrong with playing zero-sum games. It happens all the time. If you and I both fall in love with the same person and she choses you, I lose (at least if she is into monogamy). If there is one apple left and I eat the apple, you don’t get to eat it. I win. This is part of life and, like soccer, it can be fun. Where we got confused though, is that some games are better played as non-zero-sum games. Sustainability is a non-zero-sum-game. In non-zero-sum-games, the player’s interests overlap entirely. The outcomes are good for all, or bad for all. It’s either win-win or lose-lose. Either we make the shift and the earth will be a place we can live on, or we don’t make the shift and the earth will turn into an uninhabitable place for all of us. 

Although sustainability is a non-zero-sum-game, we play it like a zero-sum-game. We hold on to zero-sum rules, without considering what kind of game we are actually playing. Some people prepare their bunkers in order to be the winner of this game. The question is, are they actually winning? Will they feel like winners when they are the last 115 people on the planet? Or is it more like cheating. A bit like doping in sports. Do people who dope feel like they are winning (honest question to all the dopers out there)?

Yet, as you find the world right now, the better you are in playing zero-sum-games, the more rewarded you are. The more successful you become. The quicker you raise in the social hierarchy. There are some though, who can’t possibly understand why the game is still aiming for zero-sums. They want to play with a new set of rules. For a long time, they have been the outsiders, the once who can’t grow up, the idealists, the weirdos, the once who won’t make it in life. They are ridiculed. 

Rebelling against zero-sum rules doesn’t get you to the top of the hierarchy. It can bring with it a lot of negative consequences for the individual. Friends don’t understand. Parents worry what they have done something wrong. It can lead to psychological distress, in which the game as it is played is not understood. And the game that one thinks does make sense, is not accepted on a grander scale. How to play soccer, if not all the team members accepted that the ball is supposed to go into the opponents goal? Often, the pressure becomes too big and it’s easier to move back into familiar games, the once that are played by everyone. Those who walk their own way by their own rules, who overcome the suffering that comes with it, find it incredibly rewarding. 

Thanks to Fridays For Future and Extinction Rebellion the players following the old rules start to stumble. The frequency of new rules is increased. As the historian Osterhammel and the sociologist Malcolm Gladwell point out, once the frequency is high enough, a tipping point will be reached. The new rules become the norm. Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion show us on a regular basis, that those of us who don’t like the zero-sum rules are not so very crazy, or that at least enough people are equally crazy. They are turning the new rules of the game from a niche into mainstream. All that is now needed, is enough people who dare playing. 

*Frida is my soccer-story stage name.

When talking about sustainable lifestyles, the first thoughts that comes to mind are things like sorting your trash, buying less, wasting less, going vegan. Sustainable Lifestyles are a lot more than that though. Lifestyles touch all spheres of existence. Your existence is not only what you do at home. Your existence touches your personal, your professional and your political life. 

You might say that this is all of life then, why not call it “sustainable life”. The reason is – as I will explain in more detail below – that styles encompass the design question. And that’s what it’s about. But first things first…

Why do sustainable lifestyles touch all spheres of existence?

You, and I, and everyone you know, are part of what’s called a cognitive complex system – the earth.

Cognitive complex systems have three properties:

1. Controlled interventions do not lead to the desired result.
2. If the relationships change, the whole system changes.
3. The intention of humans determines the direction of this change.

Intention shapes relationships shapes systems. 

This means that each and every one of them is an important part of the system and has an impact on society. We are always in deep connection to the rest of the world. Individuals and society are not incompatible opposites such as water and oil. They are more connected and interdependent.

Your lifestyle consists of your relationships. To yourself, to others, and to the earth. 

Our society is shaped by us. And we are shaped by our society.

The idea that we are individuals – closed systems – is refuted. This not only tells us system theory, but also philosophy and developmental psychology. The individual is more accuretaley described as a Dividual, a Transindividual, or an inter-being. We always exist only in relation.

Which spheres of existence do sustainable lifestyles touch?

How to Change the System based on this Understanding

You intervene in the system right where you are. Everyone is part of some system. Some political, some organisational, some familial. It doesn’t matter where you act, it matters that you act. 

You can control certain areas, you can influence others, and you probably care about some where you have little possibility to intervene. For an easier access to this, you can distinguish these different parts of your life. It is not divided by strict categories though, it’s much more interacting with each other and feedback-looping. 

It makes sense to ask yourself the following questions: 

Circle of Care

What do I care about?

What matters to me? 

Circle of Influence

Where to I overlap with the system?

Where can I make a difference?

Circle of Control

What can I do to impact this?

What can I do differently?

How can I change it?

Why Lifestyle?

Sustainable Lifestyles are the part, that we can design, namely, it’s what under our control (see image above). 

Nietzsche said a person is to be known by his “style”, that is, by the unique pattern which gives underlying unity and distinctiveness to his activities. The same is true about a culture.  

Sustainable Lifestyles are about bringing styles back to the public. By style, I don’t mean glamour. By style, I mean that which makes life come alive. 

“We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful for it meets the needs of our soul.” (John O’Donohue, 2003)

Religion is like bad sex: Everyone says they don’t have it, but in reality everyone does.

Which of the following do you consider true?

• Climate Change is real. 
• People should stop at a red traffic light.
• You have a good life.
• Your dog is loyal to you. 

The fact is, that your experiences is always embedded in a larger whole. That larger whole is made up of your culture, your history, your expectations, your thought-patterns. It’s like glasses through which you see the world, glued to your nose. Your glasses are your personal narrative that you came up with throughout your life. Unique. Personalised. 

Your glasses have three different filters. 

Filter 1 – What’s True

As unique as your glasses might be, they are always in some way connected with other people’s glasses. They are from the same manufacturer, forever bound together. The manufacturer has some sort of objective reality to it, independent of the specific model of your glasses. Your glasses have physical properties – the ultimate truth of physics. They have properties that any person can subscribe to. 

Filter 2 – What’s Good

Through the second filter, you – and everyone else – agree on abstract properties that define what is good and bad. It’s what turns the objective experience (from filter 1) into emotions. It helps you justify your actions and thoughts. Your second filter is bound to your first filter. From what you perceive as true, you develop an ethics that is deeply embedded in your personal narrative. Your second filter – what you perceive as good and bad – generates your emotions. 

Filter 3 – What’s Meaningful

The third filter is your “Meaning-Maker”. It filters what’s relevant for you, what’s not, and how relevant it is. Your third filter selects what you care about, and to what extend. Your emotions from filter 2 generate your values in filter 3. Or put more simply: filter 3 forms your values. And your values generate narratives of meaning, your own religion. Truth may be that your boss is wrongly blaming you (filter 2), if you bother at all or laugh about it, depends on filter 3. 

You cannot not experience the world through these glasses. You cannot have personal experience without these glasses. You don’t see the world as it is, you see it as the glasses are. This isn’t a bad thing, your glasses help you to make sense of the world. 

The problem is when you don’t know that you wear glasses and you mistake it for the one and only truth. Because when you’re not aware of your glasses, you get shortsighted. Whereas if you do know, you are able to exercise a little meta-cognition and say “Hhhm, maybe that other person didn’t buy the same glasses”. 

Yesterday at New Years, just about to finish dinner, 8 people, 8 full tummies, 8 opinions. One of the opinions said he had to fly within Germany over Christmas to see his parents, because, it’s so much cheaper than the train. And anyways, it was the first time he flew within Germany. “Aha” I said. And shut up, because I have had this conversation too many times in my life.

Not the other people though.

Few people cared about sustainability a year ago. This dramatically changed, since Fridays for Future and Co (bless them). Now it’s the hot topic at (m)any dinner parties.

So it was for us.

Little action. Some thinking. A lot of talking. We, politicians, managers, citizens and consumers struggle with sustainability. Factual knowledge and morals do little to change it. We can all understand everything somehow. But none of this changes the fact that we are running into an unprecedented catastrophe. Together. It’s a joint endeavour.

I got tired before the fireworks went off.

It’s amazing how little new arguments emerge out of such conversations. They are the same that they were ten years ago. By now, I identified some common patterns. Maybe you’ve heard them yourself. I surely have said them myself.

The Scapegoats

What they say
Others need to take action. Especially politics and cooperations.

What’s rather true
Facing sustainability by yourself alone doesn’t solve the problem. As well as it doesn’t if Germany alone takes action. As well as it doesn’t if the EU alone takes action. It’s a world-thingy.

What’s more true
Yes, politics and cooperations need to take action. There is no way around it. And it’s also true that we on an individual level take action. How can we expect policy makers or CEOs to act more sustainably. How can they spread this within a whole organisation or country, if we can’t even do it in our own little world. Doing it will challenge you and give you the insights you need in order to manifest it in a grander context, such as your own organisation.

Contrary Values

What they say
We don’t care.

What’s rather true
We care. A lot. Studies show that when you ask people about sustainability, they do care. No one is interested in living on a barren planet. Most of us love the environment and its beauty.

What’s more true
We talk about values ​​that are contrary to sustainability, such as our cosmopolitanism. We also believe that a lot of things in our daily life contribute to our well-being, while at the same time harming the planet. When we approach sustainability, we often come to face our conflicting values. Just being alive means harming other life. If it’s the plants you eat, the people you hurt, the waste you generate. There is no escape of this. It’s also true for any other life on this planet. The question then is: how do you reduce the harm you are causing?

Sissy’s Thron

What they say
We are egoistic.

What’s rather true
We often insist on our own advantage. Sometimes openly, sometimes less so.

What’s more true
It’s ok, to care about ones own survival and well-being first. There is no reason to judge someone who acts selfishly. Yet, humans have the capacity to go beyond themselves. Our amazing brains are able to extend compassion to other beings. It often doesn’t come natural, but it can be trained. And we as a society are able to train ourselves and others to go beyond that.

Better-Then

What they say
We don’t have an SUV, so we are already better than the other guy.

What’s rather true
We agree that our lifestyle is normal, that we are not excessive. We sort trash and buy organic. We can always find someone who causes more harm than us.

What’s more true
I have fallen into this argument countless times. The result was usually, that I offended people and increased their resistance (which is a proven psychological mechanism). Blaming and pointing fingers is not going to solve the problem. Instead, acknowledging that each person wants to do little harm, while it might be harder for others, does.

Conclusion

At a deeper psychological level there are several other instinctive defense mechanisms, such as denial, projection, rationalization, overreacting, distortion. Add to these emotional factors, such as criticism-aversion, comfort, habits and group thinking: What we get is what we see. We are ill prepared to make the change. Yet, we can start with acknowledging that there are no good arguments for inaction.

In 2009, I began to grapple with the question of how we can create a sustainable world. I came to the conclusion that pointing my finger at politics, business and society is not enough. My then excessive lifestyle is part of the problem (damn that). 

So I decided to change my lifestyle. 

As a mechanical engineer, I started looking at the numbers. They told me that my diet, travel, housing and clothing made up about 30% of my CO2 emissions.

So I ate vegan, avoided air travel, wore the same dress for 15 months and nearly went zero waste. Also, I lectured anyone who came near me that he or she should do the same. The result: very awkward dinners, followed by fewer invitations.

I felt guilty and hypocritical. I was still tones away from getting to a CO2 footprint of 2.3t. That’s the amount available per person on this planet, if we were to distribute it equally. 

The Challenge.

The challenges of each and every one of us to live a sustainable lifestyle are manifold. I do not want to go into detail here, because that’s not what this article is about. I would like to mention the areas in which we encounter challenges.

On the one hand, we might lack external resources. They can be ecological, social or economic. On the other hand, we might lack internal resources. Our knowledge, our abilities and our emotional resources.

In the West we usually have an excess of external resources. We also hardly lack internal resources. We have all the information needed. We also haveguidance and ways to use this information.

What I failed with were emotional challenges.

I was stuck in an internal contradiction.

I noticed I wasn’t alone with that, so I looked closer, what constitutes this contradiction.

I saw the need for systemic change to meet the challenges.

At the same time I was aware that I was one of 7 something billion people. Even if I reduce my CO2 footprint to 2.3t. Even if I live a “perfect sustainable lifestyle,” would not the majority of people at least have to join in?

I am an individual and it needs systemic change.

The second part of the problem was that I realised that others had to change, too. Surprise.

I informed. Listened. Gave advice. And noticed: nothing changes.

When I tried to persuade others to live a more sustainable lifestyle, I realised that it’s a tough job. 

So, on the one hand, I saw the reality that we are individuals and that we cannot change others.

And on the other hand, I saw that we need systemic change and that others have to change, too.

The Question.

The question that came out of this was: how do we solve this?

We can not change what we need.

But what if we change the other side? What if we change our understanding of reality. 

“But you can’t change reality. It’s objective” You might argue. And in some way, you are right. But not entirely. 

What is Reality. 

Albert Einstein is supposed to have said “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

What constitutes reality is a great philosophical question. I don’t want to get into details at this point. 

To simplify it, let’s say that our reality evolves from the stories we tell ourselves. When we tell them often enough, we perceive them as real. Our basic assumptions about reality determine what we consider normal and desirable. They structure what is good or bad, right or wrong. In short, they shape what we do with the world.

Our understanding of reality describes our understanding of being, also called our ontology. It is the window through which we look at the world. It structures our worldview. It also restricts what we perceive. We can never see the world “as it is”, we see it as the window is.

As we talk about systems change, the question is: how do we perceive systems today?

A new Reality. 

Our predominant understanding of the world is that we can divide it into parts. It’s the result of the industrial revolution. We have a car that we want to make faster. We rip it into parts, optimise some of these parts, assemble it together and tada: We have a faster car. 

Surprisingly, the world is not a car. 

Science understands the earth as a cognitive complex systems. This means the following: 

1. We can’t predict the outcome of an intervention within the system.
2. The system contains self-aware elements (that’s us humans). As people we can determine the direction in which the system moves. 
3. Everything connects to everything. 

In practice, this means that we need to question our understanding of the self. We need to question who or what we are. 

When we understand the world as a cognitive, complex system, it opens up the possibility of understanding reality and ourselves on the basis of profound connections. In other words, individuals and society are not incompatible opposites like water and oil. They are more connected and interdependent. “I” and “we” have meaning only in relation to each other.

Whether we are angry or even-tempered, whether we are peaceful or fearful, determines whether we are committed world citizens, thoughtless consumers or bitter activists.

Our society is shaped by us. And we are shaped through our society.

You are not You. 

So we have to go beyond the idea of ​​the individual.

The activist and author Charles Eisenstein talks about interbeing. He describes interbeing as follows

“Interbeing means more than Interconnection or Interdependency, which kind of suggests separate selves ‘having’ relationships. Interbeing is more of an understanding that we are relationships, that my very existence depends or draws from or includes your existence. So my well-being is intimately connected to your well-being or to the well-being of the river, the ocean, the forest, people across the world, and so forth, because I am not really separate from you. And that means that, in the story of Interbeing, I know that whatever I do to the world will come back to me, somehow.” 

The French philosopher Deleuze suggests that we consider society as composed of dividends. That means we are all part of each other and influence each other.

Developmental psychology tells us that through the interaction with others only, does an individual become a self .

The political scientist and philosopher Freinacht describes the individual as transindividual. The term transindivual refers to the fact that our existence is always relational. It means that our relationships are more fundamental than the individual elements.

If we regard our existence as transindividuals, as always in relationship, then we acknowledge that we are formed by society and at the same time we form society, that what we do is always part of the whole. That we are both.

The Conclusion. 

What does that mean just a little more specifically?

Some examples of what this means… 

… when you do respect and serve the soil then you get higher crop yields.

… when you do respect and serve your friends, you will have more real and deep relationships to them

… when you do use a to-go-plastic cup, the disposal will become part of the ecosystem

… when you are kind to the cashier, he will feel better 

… when you take the train instead of the plain, you will emit less CO2

When you start to comprehend that everything you do, you do as a part of the system, you will see that there is no such thing as an individual, or individual action.

So for the rest of your life, ask yourself the following question: 

“What can you do if you understand yourself as a transindividual?”