--- title: "So What Do We Do?" url: "https://books.mutin.life/7/choose-life-habits-that-feel-good-and-do-good/72/so-what-do-we-do" --- # So What Do We Do? So what do we do? Do we panic? Or we can act: action cancels fear. The probability that things will turn out better increases if: - there is an understanding, among the widest possible fraction of the population, of - the situation as it is - the possible ways out - and the beginning of spontaneous organisation of the population to move in the right direction, within all small-scale organisations: companies, local authorities, associations, neighbourhoods... The goal being that everyone finds a role and a social status in this new organisation. We thus increase the chances that this understanding of the situation, and the organisation flowing from it, rise to the tops of countries' hierarchies, and help prevent the emergence of dictatorships. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Change can only come from the bottom of a hierarchy By definition, democracy is a bottom-up system: elected officials only move when the base moves. As long as we are not a majority changing our ways of living, elected officials will not change. Change will come only from the base. From all of us. And not from the top of a hierarchy. It starts by choosing more measured life habits. That is, consuming less: less oil, gas, coal and ores. That is, buying fewer things, produced as close to home as possible, with as few machines as possible. A more measured life leads to better health and inner coherence — and therefore to a happier life. It is worth it. If, in addition to adopting a more measured way of life, we prepare plans and organise ourselves in advance, then on the day the shock arrives, things will go better than if we remain passive. Instead of waiting for the last drop of oil, it is in our interest to once again produce locally everything essential for survival, starting with food. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Voting with our wallets To support and encourage this local production, the first thing we can do is buy only local products, buying what has been produced locally and is essential for survival. By buying, as a priority, local food, as unmechanised as possible, having used as little fertiliser and pesticide as possible, as unprocessed as possible, in as little packaging as possible. This is called voting with your wallet. And it is the only effective way to vote, because today money runs the world. When we buy what is necessary for living and produced locally, it represents a vote for what we wish for. In the same way, everything we do not buy is a vote against what we do not wish for — it is a way of voting against what we do not want. Everything that is not essential for living, everything we do not buy, besides being a way of voting, also saves an enormous amount of money. What we refuse to buy and what we buy are two ways of voting, and they are the only effective ways of voting. Because producers whose customers dwindle every day eventually shut up shop. Those whose customers grow every day endure. *"When we have enough to feed and shelter ourselves, why chase money and power?"* Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari Is it not better to preserve a democracy, happy to have enough to feed and shelter ourselves, rather than spend everything we can on products we do not really need, and find ourselves under a dictatorial regime because of the then-inevitable onset of famines? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Cohesion Changing our life habits, and keeping them up over time, is not easy when we are among the forerunners. It is a genuinely courageous act to keep up this measured way of life when the majority of the population continues to live immoderately. For this, it is important to surround ourselves with people making these same choices of measured living. To surround ourselves with people who want to move forward, with a positive mindset and a real desire to change, starting with themselves. People who act concretely, by genuinely changing their way of life. Concrete action. Not just talk. Acting reduces anguish and anxiety. Action creates optimism. The more of us there are changing our way of life, the better our chances of pulling through. Alone, holed up in a bunker, there is no chance of making it: after a while, the stock of canned food runs out. The network we have built for ourselves — that is, the people we have helped and who are ready to help us — is a survival factor. The life habits we have put in place are a survival factor. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ## Turning the flock of sheep In summary: - Awareness of the situation - Adopting measured life habits that make us happier - Voting with our wallets - Cohesion: mutual aid, collective projects, human values There is an observation to be made. As soon as a certain number of sheep changing direction is reached, the whole rest of the flock suddenly follows this new direction as one. The population behaves like a flock of sheep. Because the majority of the population does not have the time, or is too lazy, to think about the current situation. This majority of the population therefore relies on others to think and decide in their place. If more and more people change their life habits, it is enough for a certain small percentage of the population to have adopted a measured way of life for the whole rest of the population to suddenly follow and swerve towards that same way of life. This turn towards a measured way of life can take place if those who currently own the most are the ones making the greatest efforts to adopt this more measured way of life. Because otherwise, those who own the least will feel nothing but a sense of injustice, which leads only to anger and conflict. It is up to those who currently consume the most to reduce these non-essential energy expenditures, starting for example by giving up private jets, chauffeur-driven cars, tourist trips to space... If those who own the most set a good example, we have a chance of pulling through. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ### What would happen if the majority of the base adopted a measured way of life? Let us imagine what would happen if the majority of the population, overnight, bought very few things — only the essentials for living, produced as close to home as possible, with as little mechanisation as possible. What would happen? Many industries would be forced to change course or shut up shop. These industries, to survive, would have to reorganise their operations by setting up as close as possible to consumers, producing with as many local resources as possible, with as little transport as possible, and with as few machines as possible. The number of small farms would increase; more and more people would return to work in agriculture. To feed those remaining in the cities, rail transport would take precedence over leisure travel, which is far less vital than ensuring the transfer of food to densely populated areas. Cargo bikes and electrically assisted bikes with trailers would multiply in the cities to redistribute this food from the stations to the shops, complementing the existing fleet of electric vehicles, which would in fact be mostly present in the countryside to transport foodstuffs from the farms to local points of sale and stations. River transport would resume its role of old, supplying ports with construction materials for the renovation of existing buildings. Demand in organic food shops and points of sale would explode; the number of shops and jobs in the sector would consequently multiply. The number of bicycle manufacturers and repairers would increase, the number of jobs in building heat pumps in the country would increase, sales of locally produced insulation materials for building renovation would increase, and sales of quality clothing made from healthy, local materials would increase. People would be in better health, have more energy, be happier, more cooperative, more motivated, more effective, more confident. Useful group activities would multiply; hedge planting to protect crops from the wind would multiply thanks to these groups, as would the planting of tree species resistant to climate change. Seeing this unexpected transformation that will have happened all by itself, observing that the majority of the population has adopted a measured way of life — one that moreover makes people happier — elected officials would finally change the content of their programmes in order to keep being elected, and would finally stop promising impossible growth and a now-pointless rise in purchasing power, thereby ceasing to squander our tax money on the very destruction of the Earth's resources essential to our survival. To speed up this turn of the flock, if a writer-director managed to imagine a realistic, genuinely plausible story of a population changing its life habits, thereby forcing industry and agricultural production to change, and thus in fact changing elected officials too — and if this writer managed to make it into a film that grips the heart and genuinely makes people want to change their life habits — we would no doubt manage to reach and carry along more quickly all those who carry on with their heads down, without the time or the desire to look up. For the story of such a film to be genuinely plausible, so that we can truly believe it and truly want to do the same, it will be important to consult people competent in the field, scientists and others, starting for example with the reports of the Shift Project: Shift Project - Plan for the Transformation of the French Economy Shift Project - Agriculture Shift Project - Publications Feeling that the majority of the population is beginning a turn towards a more measured life is infectious, and motivates us all the more to change our own life habits in that direction. Reaching that small percentage of the population adopting a measured way of life — one that in fact makes them happier — is the only hope for the rest of the population to then follow as a single block.