Arjen Mulder - The World According To Plants
How are you doing today? Coping, trying, muddling along? It's no wonder we all feel so strange when you can see the mounting crisis and everyone pretends it isn't happening.
We often gripe about busted politics and divided societies, but at least we are united by the knowledge that everything is broken and we seem unable to do anything about it. The Western system is out of ideas and has run out of road. What if the only thing keeping this system alive is the criticism of it?
The superpowers of tomorrow will inherit a few burnt-out continents and billions of refugees. People will look back at our times as the Age of Blindness, when everyone knew what they were doing to the living earth, but effective reaction proved too difficult, demanded too much effort.
So we should stop criticising or supporting the old and dried up value systems. Instead, let’s anticipate the value systems of the future. There’s no need for science fiction, the future is active this very moment: pay attention to the plants. Let go. Learn to think like a plant. For half a billion years mosses, ferns, trees and flowers have kept the most beautiful ecosystems working on our planet. Plants provide oxygen and food, retain water, offer shelter to animals and human beings, extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and in so doing moderate fluctuations in climate. All they ask for in return is an intact living space.
Beyond the closed reality of media, nature simply goes on existing. We should try that out more; to exist and thrive beyond the closed, digitised and monetised systems. Both literally and psychologically: let's go outside!
Plants can save the earth and its inhabitants. If we want to learn to think in a new way, cyclically instead of fixated on the end point, this book will help you switch to the side of the plants.
Published by Duizendeneen 2021.
Paperback 14x19cm 64 pages.
New copies available.