Underwatcher Astonishments: Amazing Ourselves into More Humane Choices

Posted on February 7, 2013 by zoeweil

A friend became vegan last year, largely to lose weight, but also to consume a diet more aligned with her values. She loves animals and realized she didn’t want to cause their suffering. But she’s found remaining consistent in her eating habits challenging, and at times she consumes dairy products, fishes, and calamari. Calamari are squid, and when she wrote about her challenges remaining true to herself and her goals with her diet, I shared the above TED talk with her, “Underwater Astonishments.”

I wanted to share this talk with readers of our blog, too, not only because it is truly astonishing, but also because seeing such astonishments often leads to our awe, wonder, reverence, and sense of responsibility to cause as little harm and suffering as possible. My hope is that this film will ignite your passion to protect the ocean’s creatures by doing the most good and least harm through your diet and your life choices.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxYouth@BFS “Educating for Freedom”

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Breaking Out of Our Comfort Zones

Posted on August 9, 2012 by zoeweil

 

 

Image courtesy of p_x_g via Creative Commons.

Like many couples, my husband and I have certain roles and responsibilities in our household. I cook the meals; Edwin does the dishes. I do the gardening; Edwin fixes everything. This works out very well for us. Edwin doesn’t enjoy cooking or gardening, and I don’t enjoy doing dishes and haven’t a clue how to fix anything.

But over time, it’s easy to get stuck in one’s roles and fail to branch out and grow in ways that might be positive and healthy. And so, every so often I push myself out of my comfort zone to do something I wouldn’t normally do.

In addition to being the family dishwasher and fixer, Edwin also does the heavy lifting. If we go canoeing or kayaking, he’s the one to lift the boats on the car and tie them on securely (while I’m usually busy making sandwiches). Edwin got me a paddleboard for Christmas last year after I raved about an experience using a friend’s paddleboard last summer. I love paddleboarding on our beautiful bay, but it’s not easy for me to carry the board very far to go elsewhere. It’s awkward and heavy after about 100 yards or so. But I wanted to venture beyond the bay, specifically to a wilderness area, where we’ve canoed many times, that’s full of wildlife and so serene and lovely. But that meant figuring out how to carry the board a third of a mile, get it on my car, maneuver it over some rapids to get to the flat part of the stream, and portage it over beaver dams and through woods and brambles.

As I headed to where I would put in, I felt my heart beating a little faster than normal. I knew I was about to embark on something challenging for me. Every time Edwin and I had canoed at this spot, he’d always been the one to deal with the canoe, the rapids, the portages, etc., while I simply carried our lunch.

But despite my worries, I did it all with no mishaps. I waded and pushed and lifted the board over the rapids and through the woods. And alone on that beautiful stream, I noticed even more than usual: the green stream grass that looks like gorgeous hair, undulating in the current, turning frizzy when the wind dances on the surface of the water; the hundreds of small and medium-sized fish everywhere in the water; the ubiquitous and postcard-perfect frogs sitting on blooming lily pads; the bald eagle who was so close because she or he didn’t notice me (quiet as I was on that paddleboard); the fluttering black-winged, iridescent green and turquoise damselflies; the dozen beaver lodges and the dearth of dams (most broken, some seemingly being built).

Although the word empowered is so overused, I felt empowered. It was good for me to practice a certain kind of strength and independence. Interdependence is wonderful, and I’m blessed by my 27-year partnership with Edwin, during which we’ve found our best roles; but pushing myself out of my comfort zone has its benefits.

Yet while I’ve shared this personal story about pushing myself out of my comfort zone regarding paddleboarding, the truth is that the even more important ways to push ourselves our of our comfort zones are in relation to how our choices affect others. As readers of our my blog know, I try to live by the MOGO principle: to do the most good and least harm to people (including myself), animals, and the environment, and as a humane educator I try to inspire others to do this as well.

We all have not only roles but also habits. And the truth is that many of our habits are destructive to others. The foods we eat may cause suffering and harm to people, animals, and ecosystems; the clothes we wear may have been produced inhumanely and unsustainably; the energy we consume always has its negative effects; the time we spend outside of our work and family responsibilities may not include the kinds of volunteerism and changemaking that our world most needs from us.

Breaking habits and breaking out of limiting roles may be just what we and the world most need. And chances are, if we’re willing to take the plunge and leave our comfort zones and make some choices that at first appear challenging, we just might find greater purpose, joy, meaning, and a sense of empowerment in our lives.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Reclaiming Mainstream Media: Eschewing Tom Cruise’s Divorce for Meaningful News

Posted on July 16, 2012 by zoeweil

A couple of weeks ago I met a wonderful, brilliant, soft-spoken, powerful man: Sailesh Rao. We were both leading workshops simultaneously at the Voyager’s Peace Conference, and as luck would have it, another speaker scheduled to present that day cancelled at the last minute. Because there was an empty slot, Sailesh repeated his presentation, and I was able to hear him. I was captivated by this man, who had spent his career as a high-powered computer engineer and who, after learning about global warming, became committed to teaching about and promoting solutions through the organization he founded, Climate Healers.

Sailesh and I had some time to talk and connect, and we agreed to give each other a copy of our respective books. I’ve been devouring his book Carbon Dharma: The Occupation of Butterflies, and I wanted to share some sections in this and other blog posts. He says:

“Here’s what’s amazing: the greatest story to ever unfold on the planet, our imminent march over a cliff following an invisible Pied Piper, is playing out in slow motion while the mainstream media seems to be strangely apathetic, especially in the United States. As if it has also been drugged into a state of stupor.”

How often I have thought the same thing. How is it possible that in the midst of grave problems and looming catastrophes the media can be focusing on Tom Cruise’s marital problems and child custody issues? I recently met with a group of students from the University of Richmond and asked them to list what they considered the biggest problems in the world. One of the issues that came up was the absurdity of the mainstream media’s focus.

What is OUR responsibility in relation to this strange paradox of our time? I believe it’s our obligation to contact those media we follow and ask them to cover the issues that truly matter and to promulgate the important information of our time. We can also eschew what is petty, gossipy, and unimportant, and commit ourselves to be purveyors of what is of meaning, value, and importance for generations to come.

It is our job to ensure that we do not personally fall into a state of drugged stupor, no easy task in a culture that constantly feeds us messages of instant gratification, the pursuit of happiness through materialism, and satisfaction of our immediate desires over our true yearnings for joy, health, peace, and kindness. But we can be vigilant and diligent in our efforts. The world and all the species on Earth depend upon those of us committed to solving the challenges ahead.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Curiosity and Care: The Core Necessity for Learning

Posted on April 25, 2012 by zoeweil
Image copyright Edwin Barkdoll.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from “Curiosity and Care: The Core Necessity for Learning“:

“Yesterday afternoon my husband and I went out to Otter Bog, where we stumbled upon a vernal pool filled with salamander and Wood Frog egg masses. It was marvelous. We had decided to go to Otter Bog instead of attending a vernal pool conservation talk that evening. We didn’t think we had time for both, and attending a presentation didn’t seem as exciting as heading outdoors with our dogs on a beautiful spring afternoon. But once we saw the vernal pool and realized how much we didn’t know about it we decided to head back in time to attend the talk.

…We humans love to learn. We are endlessly curious and eager gatherers of new knowledge. But we do need motivation to learn new things, and that motivation comes from our enlivening experiences and our ability to care. Most people have no reason to get excited or care about vernal pools and their ecology or conservation, because vernal pools mean nothing to them. Even if they stumbled upon a vernal pool in the woods, they would be as likely to find it mucky and gross as they would to find it amazing and compelling. There’s a positive feedback loop that occurs with curiosity. It is fed by care and some knowledge, which then inspires the desire to gain more knowledge and which makes us care even more.”

Read the complete post.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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How to Help Our Children Make the World a Better Place

Posted on February 22, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of Fabio Medda.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from “How to Help Our Children Make the World a Better Place”:

“We all know what compassion feels like, and what kindness looks like. We know when we empathy, and we are aware when we are kind to another person or animal. We also know how kindness feels when we are its recipient. But what does it mean to be kind within a globalized economy? What does it mean to be kind in relation to our food, clothing, product, career, transportation, and dwelling choices, and in relation to the economic, production, agricultural, energy and other systems in society?

The most ostensibly kind teenager in a high school may be complicit in horrendous cruelty and exploitation and shocking levels of environmental degradation when she sits down to eat in the school cafeteria or when she buys a new electronic device or pair of athletic shoes. But how would she know?

Fostering good character in a globalized world necessitates an education that extends the best qualities we seek to foster in our children beyond the classroom walls, beyond the local community, and beyond our nation’s borders.”

Read the complete essay.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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When Desire and Will Compete

Posted on February 17, 2012 by zoeweil
Note: This is a repost from 10/19/2009. Enjoy!

I was reading an excellent essay by Eknath Easwaran in the Blue Mountain Journal, titled “Will and Desire.” He begins:

“Desire is the key to life, because desire is power. The deeper the desire, the more power it contains.”

The Upanishads say:

“You are what your deep, driving desire is. As your deep, driving desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”

Ah, but we are filled with such conflicting desires! And the strongest-willed among us, those who might become dedicated changemakers, leaders, visionaries, and doers, may also be those who are driven to fulfill desires that do not further a better world. What do industrial tycoons and Mahatma Gandhi have in common? Powerful wills to achieve their passionate desires.

As Easwaran’s excellent article explored, our desires are manifold and our will to manifest them a double-edged sword. He quotes the Bhagavad Gita: “The will is our only enemy; the will is our only friend.” As someone who has been accused of being strong-willed since I was a little child, I know this well. My strong will made me a challenging child to raise because I was endlessly attached to my desires and often inflexible. Yet, my strong will also became my great ally in achieving my goals and living according to my principles.

Making MOGO (most good) choices in our lives requires a strong will. Inevitably we will have conflicting desires. We may desire a certain food or product that is produced inhumanely or unsustainably. We may desire certain pleasures that have negative effects upon other species, other people, and the environment. We may also deeply desire a life of integrity and purpose and the unfolding of a peaceful, restored, and compassionate world. These desires may compete, and this is where we must harness our will.

Recognizing the range and breadth of our desires allows us to focus on those that are aligned with our values and pursue these with tenacious wills while acknowledging, but not indulging, those desires that don’t ultimately serve our greatest goals and the world we hope to create.

This is no easy task. But the very struggle can be rewarding, because when we wrestle with our desires and direct our will consciously, we create more freedom in our lives – freedom from the incessant pursuit of pleasure; freedom to create the lives we want most; freedom from advertising, peer and societal pressures; freedom to choose with wisdom and compassion.

What is your greatest desire? Your most fervent hope? Harness your will towards this end.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Helping Students Live Big Lives

Posted on February 15, 2012 by zoeweil

Award-winning educator and educational revolutionary, John Taylor Gatto, wrote in his book, Weapons of Mass Instruction:

“Being a mature being means living with a purpose, your own purpose: it’s about welcoming responsibility as the nourishment a big life needs: it’s about behaving as a good citizen – finding ways to add value to the community in which you live; it’s about wrestling with your weaknesses and developing heart, mind, and spirit – none of them properties of the spectator crowd.”

What I love most about this quote is its underlying call: choose to live a big life.

Living a “big life” doesn’t mean we strive for fame or fortune. It doesn’t mean we need to be the next American Idol. It simple means we live with a purpose that we determine for ourselves and take responsibility for achieving. That’s all. It’s that simple and that meaningful.

Imagine if our schools invited each student to live such a life. Not to get good grades for the sake of those grades (and the college those grades allow them to enter); not to pass No Child Left Behind tests for the sake of moving to the next grade; not to regurgitate memorized equations or dates in history because a teacher said so; but to become mature — meaning, to find our purpose and to be agents of our lives, rather than followers of someone else’s plan for us.

When I imagine schools that invite students to live such a big life, I feel a bit tingly. Can you imagine bored children in such a school? Bullies? The very air would be vibrant with possibilities, each child understanding from the earliest age that their life was so important and sacred that finding and pursuing their purpose and welcoming responsibility as nourishment were their holiest of callings.

Perhaps what I appreciate most about Gatto’s quote is that it blends individualism with community. The call to live one’s own purpose cannot be uncoupled from being a good citizen and a contributor to the community. Together these comprise the big life.

It is possible for schools to achieve this vision. Educating students to be solutionaries for a better world – the purpose that we promote at the Institute for Humane Education and in my TEDx talk – demands that we provide students with the knowledge, tools, and inspiration they need to chart their paths as contributing members of their communities and of our very planet. It invites them to take responsibility as the surest path toward their own freedom, while ensuring that they will chart their course humanely, sustainably, and peacefully. It is a vision for education that provides students with the greatest opportunities to live big lives.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Image courtesy of badkleinkirchheim via Creative Commons.

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The Depth of Animal Emotions

Posted on January 30, 2012 by zoeweil
Image copyright Zoe Weil.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from “The Depth of Animal Emotions”:

“On January 14, we adopted a new dog. He was found tied to a tree a week earlier and brought to the veterinary clinic where my husband works. There he waited for his family to retrieve him. No one came, which meant, at week’s end, he needed a new home. About a year old, dirty, thin and matted, Henry Hershel (as we’re calling him) joined our crew of two dogs and a cat. He wasted no time in endearing himself to us and seemed very happy to join our family.

A week after we adopted him, we went out for a couple of hours, leaving all the dogs at home, and my husband set up his computer to videotape our living room in our absence. …Nothing would indicate that Henry Hershel had been at all upset by our absence. But then we watched the video. Henry Hershel cried plaintively when we were gone, settling down for a while only to howl after 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 60 minutes, and so on.

…It’s amazing to me that there are people who believe that animals don’t feel. Henry Hershel shows every sign of feeling as deeply, if not more deeply, than humans. Whether what he was feeling during our absence was sorrow, fear, loneliness, yearning, anxiety, longing, worry, loss, or some combination of these or other emotions, I cannot be sure, but he is certainly feeling something. His utter delight upon our return offers a glimpse into his other, more positive feelings. Like us, his spectrum of emotions is wide.”

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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The Power of Humane Education

Posted on January 27, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of soot+chalk via Creative Commons.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from “The Power of Humane Education”:

“It really doesn’t take much to ignite a passion for good among youth and adults alike. A week of [teaching humane education] classes turned an eighth grade that, on Monday, did not feel particularly moved to action or responsible for helping to create a more just and humane world, into a deeply caring group that eagerly embraced a project to make a difference by Friday. I witnessed this transformation as each day brought out even more of the compassion and kindness they had identified on day one as qualities that were most important to them.

“What is harder than sparking concern, care, and commitment is sustaining and nurturing this energy; providing the breadth and depth of accurate information about entrenched and pervasive challenges; and teaching them critical and creative thinking skills so that they remain the bedrock of each individual’s approach to healthy, positive, wise changemaking for all.

“The issues that humane education addresses are complex, covering human rights, animal protection and environmental preservation. The solutions to the interconnected – and sometimes conflicting – problems in the world aren’t easy to determine or implement. A week-long humane education course may seem life-changing, but for many that change may fade unless it is fostered and nourished.”

Read the complete post.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Authentic Patriotism

Posted on October 19, 2011 by zoeweil

I just watched a fantastic TEDx talk by Stephen Kiernan on “Authentic Patriotism” (also the title of his book which I will be reading). He echoes so much of what we at the Institute for Humane Education teach. Enjoy:

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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