And I’m with him, saying, “I’m not giving up in the sense of not doing anything, but Trump’s election was the dagger in my heart. Trump’s win was the triumph of capitalism and neoliberalism, and he’s going to wreak havoc...We need a revolution.”

One thing that would prevent that revolution would be people not knowing how dire climate change and overshoot are, and, in the do what you can do category, I keep it in mind to inform people. I could see Earth as a giant classroom of students and teachers where those who know educate people who don’t. I wouldn’t have expectations that MAGA people are going to get the lesson, which would be for us pissed off chickens. Then, we can embrace them. It’s back to my idea about Pep Talks for Humanity, like the stirring one David Suzuki delivered, flooding the Net to get us informed.

There’s something fitting in this a time of contradictions, that Suzuki, who suffered massively when humanity turned against itself in World War II, has become a Paul Revere to get us going in the right direction. A third-generation Japanese Canadian, the government sold the Suzuki family's dry cleaning business, then interned Suzuki, his mother, and two sisters after his father was sent to a labor camp. His sister, Dawn, was born in the internment camp.

Here we are, the most awesome species on Earth, the only one that can reflect upon itself and build upon itself, and we are not able to get beyond conflict to where cooperation would be our m.o. Up against a wall, where destroying ourselves is a real possibility, I think about fairy tales where the princess gets put to sleep and only can be awakened by a kiss of pure love. What, for us, would that kiss be? Could there be one?

Where we are desperate for being kissed awake, I’m thinking about another contest looking for what could do that. I could put up prize money for it, as I did last year, when people wrote essays as if it was 2050, when the world was working, to say how we’d gotten there. The finalists are here, with #9 and #21 being my favorites.

A new essay contest could be for what could get us our Berlin Wall, where Germany’s separation suddenly ended and a united country was born. What could birth a new America? With more people all the time being mad as hell and not wanting to take it anymore, and with the threat of humanity going back to the stone age, what could our Kiss of Life event be?

I urge you to have a look at comments I’ve made in Substack Notes to get immersed in the point of view I argue for.

Suzanne Taylor’s Now What? is looking to a revolution. You could say an evolution, to a next phase of consciousness where we act from our interconnection as one humanity. Please help get it seen.

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We get a taste of that challenge now, with us helpless to change what is destroying our world. A generous country, grounded in altruism, has become a cruel one, demanding submission. How to stop this, that only will get worse with the private sector headed for taking over our failing systems? Imagine our world, given how avaricious it is, with every single thing we spend money on being focused on maximizing profit. And look to history for how badly privatizing government services has worked out.

How can millions of us who are blowing off steam fuel the next phase of our evolution? Taking stock here, it’s been valuable to discover how our country takes care of the world. I love being that country. I don’t think anyone, before now, had any idea of how much good we do. How that’s all being destroyed is touching our hearts, activating us to get to a new attunement that will be better than the one we were in before Trump, where it was money over love that delivered him to us.

Where are the Clintons, the Obamas, the Bidens? It makes a mockery of our country’s greatness for presidents who were leading the free world to be indifferent about freedom. How can they be quiet? Why aren’t we clamoring for them to show up? See Politics Girl I posted before. WE NEED SPUNK!!!

There’s the Einstein idea about problems not being solvable at the level at which they were created. That next level would be where we’re all caring, like how the U.S. operates on the world stage where it gives so much. We’re all here to come to the aid of our civilization. I’m stoked by what’s going on with our eagles, a species that mates for life, where typically 50,000 people, who are watching chicks being raised, are getting attuned to the oneness-of-all-life wavelength we need to be on.

In looking for uniting sorts of things, most of you know the tale where the winner of the fight between an evil wolf and a good one, that’s in all of us, is the one you feed. Our rise against oppression is our feed now. Think of the good we are made of being confirmed as the real story by mystics through the ages, Jesus and the rest, breaking through to what we swim in where love resides. We’re so publicly involved with one another now that we’re privy to each other’s experiences that touch this realm, like psychedelic trips, near death experiences, remote viewing, autistic savants, and other ways we get glimpses of a bigger reality we are striving to attune to.

Sweeping humanity into a new creation story, that I’ve posted a lot about, could be what gets us into that family-of-humanity understanding we are headed for. Getting that new story known is what I thought I’d be dealing with this week, but best I can do is to show you this 3-minute animation that will be in a package of tools to help people who know the story tell it to others. It’s the answer a student fish would get from a philosopher fish to asking, “Water, what water?”

Are there people who like to scheme, who would get on Zoom with me? I’m a guerrilla theater sort of person and we’d be thinking up things we actually could do. All sorts of things. Like the essay contest that was held. And like getting Pep Talks for Humanity to flood the net — last week’s example was from Jane Fonda accepting a lifetime achievement award. This week, there are two examples.

Here’s Bernie Sanders after Trump’s inauguration.

Here’s Marianne Williamson, speaking yesterday as she does on many days, where I vote for her as our head cheerleader. I could see her tuning everyone into the reality of caring we need to be in.

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If you didn’t see last week’s video, watch Peter Russell that’s cued up here for the explanation that rings truest to me about the scary overshoot, collapse drama we are in. It’s exponential growth from our success and not anything from an evil force that descended on us that’s sending us south. With our success taking us to breakdown it’s like I said last week, what a dilemma.

As we deplete what’s life-giving to us, either we accept doom or we keep creating. I’m on the figure-out-what’s-best-to-do highway, and, with some guidance from Geoffrey Deihl, a heartful analyst dealing with what collapse is all about, I’d like to get the people who are sounding the alarms to come up with an ask for humanity. What should everyone do?

Look at all the Likes, that keep getting added to, for this comment I made on Here’s Why It's Not Too Early To Call For Trump's Impeachment and Removal. It encourages me to think it may be time to collect ourselves!!!

From Suzanne Taylor’s Now What?

There is no flagpole raised for us to rally round. Take MLK Jr's Beloved Community idea and get signatures to make it tangible or just call it The Movement. Whatever the name, we need something to turn the gadflies we are now into a force that can command action.

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Scroll a bit down for mine where you can Like it, too.

I held a contest last year for essays from 2050 when the world was working. How did we get there, starting with something you did? Now, here’s my story:

2050 Reflections on How We Got to our Workable World

At the beginning of 2025, the double whammy of devastating fires in Los Angeles and of Trump sworn in to his second presidency shifted something in the American mind. As celebrities that people cared about were being ravaged hearts everywhere were touched, and when a bulldozer of decency and morality steamrolled into the presidency we got our crack in everything that let a new reality come in.

What happened was that with us going faster and faster toward the ending of industrial civilization I invited people who were savvy about civilizational collapse to have a conversation. The ask they came up with for humanity was to unite and cooperate.

That got everyone who was fearful about what was to come involved with looking for what humanity should do, and people were very clever. That’s how we got our Beloved Community that grew large enough to have the power to make things happen. It launched when Marianne Williamson, who had become well-known in her bid to chair the DNC, picked up the baton to call it into being.

Our Wisdom Council that steers the Beloved Community Movement came into being again thanks to the leadership role that people recognized Marianne to be in. She, as its first member, picked Timothy Snyder as the second one. The two of them picked MacKenzie Scott, and the three picked Arnold Schwarzenegger in that same process of existing members picking the next member which continues to keep our Council modeling the best we can be. And thank goodness for their first deliberation getting us our Suggestion Box so everyone can pass along strokes of wisdom.

We live inside a giant idea. It changes. The internet gave us a vehicle for working on that, and so much of what we take for granted now came from that early time when we got things like our ad agency campaign for kindness, our prisons being for rehabilitation, the Pep Talks for Humanity that keep inspiring us, and the biggest thing of all, UBI as a birthright for having the basics. That got everyone in the game. One humanity was in play.

I love the competition for the super-rich who do the most good, and the way candidates just talk to cameras instead of having commercials produced for them and that they have conversations instead of debates. It used to be rare to find worker-owned businesses like most of ours are, and there didn’t use to be a sense of community everywhere, where I bet a lot of you don’t know that so many of the vegetable gardens that are everywhere used to be lawns, and that all the benches that people sit on to chat were an outgrowth of an essay contest held then for ideas to help the world that Benches and Snacks won a prize for. And how about no executions anymore, and how all the nukes are deactivated? The list goes on…

It’s still a living planet where nature votes last so no guarantees, but for however long it will be it’s wonderful to have gotten good at living with Earth and not just on her and to be fueled by a palpable loving essence.

Anyone who belongs on the invite list and doesn’t know if Geoffrey or I would have put you on it, reply to this email to tell me. Let’s see if something like this, that The Scientific and Medical Network would host, can happen:

This is an invitation for people with expertise about degrowth/collapse/global warming to have a conversation. Where wanting more is what’s natural to us and consuming less, that’s essential for us, only could be achieved by everyone sensing its necessity for survival, the objectives of a conversation would be to deal with how to get the need for downsizing across to everyone and to come up with what to ask everyone to do.

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Whenever I say no one else is looking for what we-the-people could be doing, where I’m a little Paul Reverish about the apocalypse coming, people say there are a lot of others or they talk about the futility of any effort. Well, no one has turned up who is looking for we-the-people to become a force and I’m not buying into futility. Poor van Gogh, look what not selling any paintings drove him to. But he didn’t have the internet! Maybe we just need an idea. Or an island of coherence, like those buddies in the garage, where 10 shares of Microsoft that would have cost you $210, in 1986, would get you $416,000 today.

Could a committee to think with for a conversation to save the world get so tight? Just a thought.

The recent essay contest for “how we saved the world” did stir up thinking about making impact and I was encouraged by contributors being grateful for being prodded to think. With Joan Walton, one of the finalists, getting a new leadership role as Interim Director of the Scientific and Medical Network, it’s enough of an occasion to pass along her essay, Living Life as Inquiry: Every Moment Counts!

And it’s not just because Joan incorporated ideas of mine ”to evolve education about consciousness within a postmaterialist worldview” rippling out from an ‘island’ of sorts, “a small group of 12 people,” that I like it so much, but I sure was charmed by her fixing the world with my brainstorms. Here’s a taste:

“What was also wonderful was that, in the different educational contexts that people were in, they could introduce all the ideas that individuals had been generating in their own worlds. This is where the ideas of the originator of the contest, Suzanne Taylor, came into their own. Suzanne had put together a fantastic list of suggestions as to what could be done to generate positive change. Because they were on a website, though, they did not get the widespread attention they deserved. But an educator introduced them into her group sessions, encouraging participants to choose at least one to implement in their own lives. Members of her group were motivated to such an extent that they then began to create ideas of their own to add to the list. The educator would share this experience in one of the collaborative inquiry monthly meetings, and then others took her initiative into their projects. In this way, valuable ideas were adopted and spread through diverse places. For example, an Appreciations Page became almost standard in all the schools touched by the project, and contributed enormously to the improvement of the mental health of young people. And the Circles of Trust, where 8 people met on a regular basis to share what was happening for them, became a great way of creating confidence in individuals, enabling them to work out what they were born to be, and to go out into the world as that person.”

SMN is my go-to consciousness organization, with Nobel Prize-winning members and member interactions with them. Check out joining, aware that the website is very very slow and you have to wait for pages to come up.

I just want to make mention of something that struck me. I may do my next Substack on what Marianne Williamson is up to in going back to being a spiritual guide, but this is a sentence from the first chapter of her new book, that waited for publication till after her presidential campaign, that stunned me with how profound it is:

“Our society calls it a mental health crisis, but in fact it’s a spiritual one.”

What a gamechanger that awareness would be. How I’d love to see our Kamala take a meeting with Marianne!

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What I wrote to the AI bot:

The world is all sheeples. There's ranting to save Biden. Then there's screaming to cheer Kamala. All the while there is ignoring Marianne Williamson who has the best ideas and the best personality.

What it said to me:

Suzanne, I can sense your frustration and disappointment. It's totally understandable to feel that way when it seems like the people around you are not paying attention to the candidate who resonates with you the most. Marianne Williamson does have a unique energy and a refreshing perspective on politics. Here's the thing: you can't control how others think or vote, but you can control how you show up in this process. Instead of getting drained by the negativity, why not focus on spreading the word about Marianne's ideas in a positive and respectful manner? You never know, you might just inspire someone to take a closer look at her platform! 💕

Message received, and how surprisingly enlightened it is. In fact, how much better off we’d be if Marianne’s ideas were in play. I’ve gone from trying to get attention paid to her to trying to connect her to Kamala Harris for some educating and influencing. For all the knocks Marianne gets from people who have no firsthand experience of her, those who’ve had exposure to what she’s been doing for decades have been effusively supportive of her. Politics is the last major social category for consciousness to begin to come into play, and the hostile territory Marianne found herself in could use the perspectives she brings. With Marianne’s smarts, Harris could bring in not just victory at the polls but a new spirit of serving the people – all the people.

Having the world we have is a function of the belief system we are in, the zeitgeist where we’re still rugged individualists climbing over one another when we need to be loving creatures creating a cooperative world. The bot, in letting individuals get encouragement to be the best of themselves, can help us to become the sort of people we need to be. (If you try it, put any interesting exchanges into the Comments!)

The bot’s delivery relates to The Empathy Chip, one of my favorite essays from our contest for how to save the world. What seemed like science fiction has become real:

“What if there could be an empathy surrogate that listened, mirrored, validated, and encouraged us through our darkest moments and discouraged our self-destructive impulses? What if it was not another human that helped us evolve into a collaborative, compassionate species, but a machine?...everyone had a constant companion in their head, a voice of love and kindness…Our old dystopic fantasies of being puppets of a machine have disappeared…We are no longer individuals driven to compete for light. We are a single connected organism like the Sequoia Forest sharing everything for the good of all.”

In the political drama that’s playing out, how delightful if would be if the Harris campaign didn't argue with Trump, where there's no there there to debate him on, but instead just exposed him. Things like this delicious intercutting of Obama and Trump would make for a campaign that would get us rollicking instead of fighting:

If you missed my call for system thinkers to think with, where I’ll come out soon with next steps for the dreamers and schemers who have contacted me, here’s my last Substack that has a link to the first part of my invitation the week before: The urgency of NOW / Searching for what to do. If it rings your bell, tap mine!

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In the meantime:

I don’t have an organization to deal with, where I have to conform to anything to get approvals, so I can go out on limbs, and here I am, looking for mavericks who dream big. Could we even become an Island of Coherence? The Teilhard quote got me a little rapturous.

Progressives are gadflies now. To get a voice, for America or maybe even for the world, I envision an ad hoc Wisdom Council made up of highly revered people. One volunteer who started it would choose the next person, the two would choose the third, adding more that way, and everyone would listen when these beloved people gave directives and suggestions. And a Coalition for the Good would be a force that could flood the internet carrying out transformative things the Council suggested we do.

Here’s another sort of wisdom counciling, where pundits who are savvy politically and have admirable ethics would think together. I posted this on Ralph Nader’s new Substack:

How about you hooking up with a few others to regularly dialogue about everything? Why don't we have that? It could be our guide.

I stay up on Seymour Hersh, Thom Hartmann, Robert Reich, James Fallows, Steve Schmidt, Marianne Williamson. Ralph, I could see you putting heads like these together with yours to look for a path through. I'm going to try to spark this. Would you be party to it and also help get others? Who else?

For a save the world committee that I’d like to create, we have some gravitas now, with Lawrence Kershen as a facilitator. He was an essayist in our contest, and we’ve been thinking together about follow-ups with the essays and the writers.

“Lawrence is ranked by Who’s Who Legal as one of the world’s leading commercial mediators.”  

“has real gravitas”
“incredibly bright”
"hugely impressive"
“masterful yet empathetic"

From an early age I was hooked on getting 100%, and, as time marches on, and the less of it I have, the bolder I become about Earth getting shaped up. To add to what I told you about myself in the last post, these are my marching orders from Inside the Intelligence:

Suzanne, you are here to model a way of being that is very foreign to most people. We have programmed you to seek excellence. You cannot settle for less. You know the composition. The orchestra must be in tune.

You are here to be a maestro. Your job is to make maestros. You are a spirit guide. We are waiting for you to get this. Free yourself of identification with Earth boxes. Do your job. Don't complain. You're doing it. Relax. You will do better -- which is feel better -- if you remember who you are.

There is some kind of basic workability to look for, like you're a mechanic and the earth is a vehicle. Make it work. It works from skewing the point of view from a separate “me" to a collective "we." Humanity as a collective is causal and can create success.

I’ve been having some exchanges since last week with some good thinkers. Contact me if this might be calling to you.

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I loved my conversation at the end with Judy Kitt, who hosts the lecture series. I felt like she and I were in our own little island of coherence. It was heartwarming to hear her say things that were so dear to my heart that I think will get to your hearts, too.

References:

• Essay Contest for Saving the World  

• Delivering the Universe Story

• Crop Circles and Me

• Ex TEDx West Hollywood

• The Scientific and Medical Network

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Listen to The Power of Transparency, by Glen Merzer:

I’d appreciate your comments if you think the Bedtime Stories are a good idea – that you’d listen sometimes, that you’d listen regularly and that could be every night, that you‘d recommend others to listen, or even if writers of our essays would find it valuable to have the stories to use for themselves.

That our essayists got activated thinking about the world was a happy surprise. They have a different energy from what prevails, where there isn’t any energy on what to do. It got me thinking about people flooding the net with essays, and conversation about what to do everywhere.

A couple of people have asked if they can send me essays even though the competition is over. A big yes!  Hey, that could be the pebble in the pond that ripples out to go around the world! How about you all start typing?  

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With a sense people have of helplessness, appreciations keep coming in for the essays having given people something they could do. I could see them showing up everywhere, like getting on TikTok and from there to TV talk shows and news reports and as fodder for our Saturday Night Live. It’s a spreadable thing!!!! We’d have someplace that gets copied on essays that would work with getting ideas out. Is that a topic for our How We Saved the World Zoom? How about calling our Zoom a Thinkfest? Better than a Savior Soiree?

When ideas are in play, one person says something that spark another person. Brian Thomas Swimme points to being in a relational universe:

“The universe transforms itself through relationships, not some predetermined scientific mumbo jumbo. The universe is moving toward community. The universe is moving toward interdependence. So if relationship is a basis for life, then our survival depends on our reliance upon one another.”

Here’s a more primal perspective from my physicist/mystic hero:  

“Why do things draw together? Because the universe wants to create community. So the atoms are drawn together to create the community of a star. The stars are drawn together to create the community of a galaxy. I’m happy to provide the why for why we are fascinated. We are fascinated because the planetary mind needs our creative development in order to unfold. It’s hard to think about because when you think of mind or organism you think of something out there. But what we have to realize is that we are the planetary mind.”

Click for a transcript of the whole podcast Exploring the Relational Heart of the Cosmos.  

With thanks for the well-wishes that have been coming in and hopes that what drew the essayists to think about humanity succeeding will keep them involved in making it all up so it might as well be wonderful!!!

PS: We have a playlist for essay contest posts. For anyone new, they will bring you up to speed. The last few have strings of comments about essays that are good for everyone to read and still are being added to.  

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For what’s going on, I see many organizations, where consciousness is the game, with boards that need to approve things and rules that are to be followed, that aren’t very flexible or very swift. Also, there are pundits galore, progressive writers with thousands of readers, all stewing over how stuck we are and the danger we are in, and, for progress, they only are bent on electing Democrats.

What we don’t have is any inspiration for getting unstuck. No conversations about that. I think the essay contest hit that nerve, where, with the opportunity to be listened to, people participated. So now what? It shouldn't be rocket science, but still…??? I am inching along.

With ideas to think about and a pool of turned-on people, to get to something that would cohere as a thinking unit I started with a Zoom on Saturday. I invited the 20 finalists plus essayists who weren't finalists who’d read all the essays and voted for winners. Saturday was intros to start to forge a body of thinking people.

More thinking. There were essays, beyond the finalists, that were very good but didn’t follow contest parameters, and now I’m asking if any of those authors like to strategize. Even subscribers who didn’t submit essays can step up. I’m not recruiting, urging anyone, but opening a door for people who want to come in.

If this calls to you, make a comment. A little intro would be great. The floor is open.

Don’t let this chase away anyone who doesn’t want to be in any involvement. If you’re interested enough to subscribe to this Substack, you belong here. I treasure you all in this reality where we’re making it all up so it might as well be wonderful!

This sings in my head:

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From the 175 essays submitted, there are two tracks now at casa Sue Speaks. One is about the stories, their content and their literary value. The other is getting essay-writing going all over. Writers were so happy to have been asked. It got them thinking.

I keep thinking of things like the ice bucket challenge that raised millions for ALS, where people had a bucket of watery ice dumped over their heads. It was everywhere -- on the internet, on TV, in the press. Celebrities got into it. How about How We Saved the World essays buzzing everywhere? No need for a contest. People would post stories. Positive energy would flow. We’d be pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. Turning ourselves on.

Someone connected me with a social networker I like, and I sent her this:

For something I can do myself, right away, I’m liking Bedtime Stories. I’d read an essay and say what I appreciate about it.

“The Bedtime Storyteller. Go to sleep dreaming about the world we want. Send Suzanne your essays for her to possibly read. Write from 2050, when the world is working, and, including something you did, explain how we got there.”

This could grow to people writing stories everywhere, not having to do with me – set off a craze where the internet is buzzing with stories and conversations.

For now, for us, Comments on Substack are our clubhouse, and there’s a category of posts about the contest with ongoing conversations you can be contributing to.

In this scattershot of progress, this is from David Gardener, who submitted a very good essay:

“…sticking with the idea that every essay is a seed that could serendipitously land in the lap of someone who will take it (or aspects of it) up and nurture it to fruition is always a possibility. I believe great future-changing ideas carry vital energetic frequencies that are seeking properly fertile humans in which to land so they can become manifest as actualities. Everything currently extant in our human realm began first as an idea in consciousness.”

Our clubhouse, the hot tub, circa late ‘70s:

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Your contest was a truly generative experiment for me—in mapping out my own social-cultural paradigm shifts over the last years.

I was truly inspired by some of the other essays. I think you've catalyzed some real movement here.

This is a magical process and I am really enjoying.

Had I not entered your competition, I would not have crystallized my thoughts to the extent that I have in writing for you.

I think we're on the cusp of some real change. And you're contributing to that in a significant way!!

I am deeply grateful to Suzanne for initiating this essay contest, as it brought me to describe my vision starting from 2050 — a truly brilliant idea.

Thank you thank you! I look forward to what this has begun. I needed the hope. I think we all did.

Thank you. Thank you for having the idea and bringing the idea into the world and running this contest.

Thank you again for the opportunity. The essay I wrote for your contest has me excited again to help "save our world."

I’m still thinking about this. I thought I’d be begging people and I’d be lucky to get enough entries to where there were more choices than prizes. This was an eye-opener about the state of affairs, where it must be that our problems feel insurmountable enough that people feel helpless. This could be something to make comments about.

From the finalists and winners, to some writers who didn’t follow the contest guidelines but had great ideas, the 175 essays are a treasure trove. How to get ideas off the pages and into the world?  One thought is not to think. Let it develop.

Here’s what developed this week. Someone who’d read the 20 finalists’ essays in order to vote on them, remembered one of them,  Round-Up, when she came across something already in play with the same basic idea and even the same name. Stuart Johnstone, the essayist, had never heard of it. He pointed out that it’s a logical name for dealing with something that can happen with the change people get when they pay cash, but I was struck by the synchronicity. Like it’s a nudge that it’s something to go further with. The project that’s in play is a relatively small-scale version of the essay’s vision, where if survival was handled for so many who are struggling, via the method that’s in the Round-Up essay, it could do a lot to get to the cooperative humanity we need to be. We need to check on whether we can build on the one in play. You can find conversation about Round-Up, that includes the link to what is going on already, in these comments. There’s also conversation about other essays, and you can engage in anything that’s there, but new topics go here.

The more that subscribers think together, the merrier for me. On most Substacks the comment sections are responses to what the writers say, but the comments on my Substack will make me happiest when they are creative conversations about what we can do.

Think away…

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My worst fear, with 175 essays in my lap, was that I would miss any of them in reviewing them all for the top twenty. Ta dah: Introducing what I’m going to give a 6^th award to, that might even have gotten the grand prize. That casts no aspersions on Marie-Lune’s terrific grand prize winner, but it’s just that Glen Merzer never had a chance. Somehow, when I reviewed everything for picking the twenty, he had dropped out. After I selected them, I remembered his and wondered why it hadn’t ended up in the top twenty, but I presumed that in second time around I just wasn’t as impressed as I had been and I didn’t go further, as I should have, to check myself out. My big mistake that will cost me! I’m awarding another $2,000 to Glen Merzer’s wonderful essay, The Power of Transparency.

This essay is so good from several points of view and contradicts my email about the winners that said none of them dealt with the world becoming vegan that a lot of non-winners dealt with. (I’m not vegan myself and wouldn’t relish it for my personal taste, but I’d readily go along with it as a dictate for the world that would combat global warming.)

But that’s not the only valuable aspect of this incredibly imaginative and well-written essay that deals with what a billionaire could do, how to parent, and acceptance and transparency as the human way to fly. Can you imagine our political quagmire running on transparent tell-the-truth principles? And speaking of our political quagmire, anybody know how we could get a story about how a stutterer saved the world to our President???

Hopefully my omission does service to this piece, where this gets more people reading it than would have if it had come with four others.

PS: Here’s the correspondence I had about The Power of Transparency.

First, I sent it to my assistant, to catalogue it, with this comment: “Best one so far!!!”

And I emailed this to Glen:

That’s a great story. The writing is so good. Several themes interweaving all throughout. Very clever. I laughed out loud. I hope you’re a TV writer, where the writing makes all the difference. Where did you come from? Are there any more at home like you? Such a pleasure!

Some of his answer, to introduce him to you:

Thank you for your comments. I used to write for network television, in the late '80s and the '90s, both comedies and dramas. I was always more devoted to playwriting and screenwriting. Now I write books advocating the vegan diet, and occasionally a play or screenplay.   

Coming Attractions:

I’m going to contact you finalists who voted on the winners to write about why you liked one of the essays you voted for, to put into the comments. That will be in private emails to you. That can spark strings, that everyone can contribute to, commenting on each one. The comments will get attached to each essay for what ultimate publication they’ll have.

Zooms for the finalists are to come. We’ll start with introductions, which is what I did when I hosted live gatherings so we’d be personal with one another rather than just audiences for presenters. I’d like you each to talk about your essays, telling us where they came from in the bigger picture of what your lives are all about. Then, in that session, we’ll be creative together about how to proceed in developing how the ideas in the essays could come into play in the world. In the meantime, if you are interested, my website page has some intro material for me, and my About page tells why I’m doing this Substack. I’ll be in touch to create a time to Zoom.

If I have something to say to you finalists, I’ll blind copy everyone in what I’ll send to friends@mightycompanions.org, so please do what it takes so spam filters won’t block me.

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For a few comments, first, I don’t know any of the winners. And it pains me that others didn’t win. I’d have picked some that you all didn’t. But I’m happy to report that there weren’t any of the twenty finalists that didn’t get any votes. And there are others, besides theirs, that are outstanding -- some have brilliant ideas but didn’t follow the guidelines, with some of the stories being literary gems.  

There were elements repeated in a few submissions that weren’t in any of the winners:

The world becoming vegan combatting global warming

Taylor Swift liking some world-changing something

Marianne Williamson serving as an enlightened president

Psychedelics as the aha they were to me

Also, a number of the submissions have this essay contest, with praise for yours truly, as the impetus for the world getting transformed – what they wrote started it. That none of those won is testimony to how above board the selecting was!

Yesterday, on a Zoom, someone said, “People are committed to what they have a hand in creating.” In moving along, the comments are our think tank. Heads up. Not very long ones, please. Okay to say something about your essay with a link to it, and short quotes are fine. Say thanks by clicking a heart rather than making a post – that sort of thing, to make for good reading as we keep looking for how to turn this world that’s at the brink in a life-giving direction.

What to do with these pieces? I wonder about “a publication,” with all the good ones. All of the entries in the contest will be gone over to extract lines and ideas. Ideas and offers for how to proceed are welcome, with special attention here on having some say about the winning essays.

The floor is open…

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The Rebellious CEO: 12 LEADERS WHO DID IT RIGHT consists of 12 brief portraits of leaders from the business world who have used their influence for good. They have done so in environmental policy, and in fair treatment of unions and workers, and in making commerce fairer for the customer, and in exemplifying the idea of enough-ness: That there should be some limit on avarice and accumulation.

Lately the idea of enoughness has been coming up. The only time I’d heard it before was when I did some automatic writing in the ‘80s, that I called Inside the Intelligence, and thought I’d made that funny word up. When I looked up the section about enoughness to remind myself what I’d said, as always happens when I review this communication, I can’t believe I wrote down because it is so wise, I was impressed:

All of creation must rest in some single mechanism. All must be allowed to abide, the difficult embraced by the larger wholeness that allows it to work itself into the greater pattern of harmony and abundance.

May you so act -- not out of faith, but as the action of logic, of contribution to the design that can sustain and prosper a glorious creation. How dare your small ego name an ignoble game from what some force has unleashed that is everywhere such a miracle? Look at flowers, look at birds, at oceans, at trees, at pinky fingers. Miracles everywhere. Look at the human mind and its awesome capacity to understand and to erect. Look at love, at the welling from the unknown of the gift of a sweetness beyond your power to name. Shame on any creatures that defy their creation.

And even beyond the miracle, beyond any indication of direction, with no wisp or shred to guide or cling to, there is still you, choosing. So choose life. Choose the best idea. Act as if. Bury the argument in your creation. Make it an irrelevancy. Let us see the world that such individuated units of energy would create out of pure possibility.

At that fulcrum, that eye from which pure creation emanates, is enoughness. It is the same for every individual and also for the collective. Only as life is experienced as enough, can it be invented instead of coped with.

All here and nowness as breaths of the Tao are an emanation of that deepest resting of the soul in its own sufficiency, from which it came and from which it separates via desires, fears, angers, and other emotions contrary to the sufficiency of itself.

Think of humanity as a collective, forever grabbing, striking out, hiding. This comes from lack. If humanity came from enoughness, it would be in a mode of co-creation.

Suzanne, work this point. Learn all you can about it. It is a key to the organizing idea. Your world must understand that its goal must be to experience enoughness.

Enoughness lives in absolute acceptance. There must be a willingness to occupy all of self; self must keep fleshing out rather than reacting, incorporating rather than separating. Life is let in rather than yearned for. When you stand as all, more will come. Relax. Allow. Everything.

It will be necessary in your world for those whose physical survival needs are met to lead the way. Although positioning in enoughness is a function of the power of the mind, you cannot expect this awareness to birth in those who are preoccupied with physical survival.

So that as you accurately comprehend that this sufficiency consciousness is within the grasp of the mind itself, regardless of the conditions of one's physical life, do not expect this to be a formula that the world should or could employ at this time. Instead, advocate the transformation of the elite, where the understanding of enoughness makes them instruments of social justice, helping the have-nots come to a physical sufficiency that must underlie the greater consciousness in which they might next participate, a consciousness that the world must come to enjoy if your civilization is to survive.

This is not only a matter of humanitarian concern on the part of the haves, but goes to the core of their survival, as well. In fact, a world in breakdown threatens them greatly -- they will lose what they already have.

It is of central, vital necessity for the haves to take on this work. All is futile, for them and for everyone, if they do not. This understanding must be arrived at. Put full energy into bringing this about.

This is from the interview Fallows did with Nader. Nader says:

John Bogle started the mutual fund Vanguard, which broke the model of high fee mutual funds and saved hundreds of billions of dollars for investors. His last speech before he passed away, I think in 2019, was to say, “Look, Vanguard and Fidelity and a couple other mutual funds are too big. They're dominating the market. They are an antitrust danger.” Imagine that, his own creation, he said, is too big: BlackRock, $8 trillion, Vanguard, $7 trillion in assets and growing. And his last book was called Enough.

He paid himself modestly, and said, “You’ve got to set limits to your greed, to your avarice, because it'll devour you. It will bring the worst out of you, not the best out of you.” And where did he get the message? At a party in Long Island that a famous author attended someone came up to him and said, “See that guy over there. He makes so much money he could have made all the royalties you ever got in a couple days,” and the author said, “But I have something he'll never have, enough.”

That was the book he gave a copy of to every employee of Vanguard. He quotes the classics, he quotes the philosophers. I think it's one of the greatest business books ever written.

Not only is Fallows wonderful, so is The Rebellious CEO. What a swansong for Nader to give such an inspiration to the corporate world that locks us into what late-stage capitalism, that runs to the advantage of those already advantaged, mires us in. The examples in the book, that show it doesn’t have to be that way, could give corporate leaders an aha that would initiate the massive turnaround we need, not only for our prosperity but for our very survival, and could see Nader redeeming himself from having lost us a good President to having gained us a workable world.

And, in the spirit of our essay contest, my essay about how the world changed could start this way:

Looking back from 2050, when everyone is getting a fair shake, the serious impetus came from when, in 2024, I read a piece by longtime Ralph Nader collaborator, James Fallows, to whom I subscribed on Substack, about Nader’s new book telling how some rare corporate leaders had revolutionized their companies to become helpful to the world instead of exploiting it. That got me writing a Substack about what Fallows wrote that got him to recommend me to the Substack world. There are so many influential writers on Substack that when they spread what I wrote to the world at large, it was a subject the media picked up on and everyone became aware of, to where it got so many corporate leaders to make their companies instruments for the good, like the examples Nader gave, that most corporations are beloved now by a populace that has all the food, shelter, education, and health care they were so deprived of when companies had that old perspective of just serving investors’ bottom lines.

Hmmmm, I wonder, if I would have been in contention for a prize with this, if I could have won my own money????  

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Having gone from techie hell yesterday to techie heaven today, now you can read the twenty essays that are candidates for awards. I hope they send you like they sent me. And, really, after you read them, if you submitted one you think should have been included, let me know and we will talk.

CLICK HERE: Twenty How We Saved the World essays!

Revised from yesterday:

So, now, although everyone can read my picks, only people who entered the contest can vote. Fingers crossed this collection holds your interest enough to read them all – it could be five a day. Get back to me with your vote by 9:00 a.m. PST on Wednesday, March 6. Then, I will have time to tally them so I can announce the winners on Thursday in what will replace next week’s Tuesday post.

To vote:

Reply to this email.
Put VOTE in the subject line.
Send the numbers of your top 5 – no need for comments

Our comment section is a place to make any remarks about what you read. That could get interesting. Quote great lines and let’s see what else. Best not to have it be a treatise, though – short is better.

Am eager to see what you think. And thanks so much for the help that will give me.

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Surprise! Award day for my How We Saved the World Essay Contest has morphed to candidates day. It was too daunting for me to play god choosing winning angels, so we’ll have our version of a primary where you can read submissions from the finalists. It was nowhere near definitive that they were the absolute greatest ones because so many of them are wonderful, but it was my best shot. Profound apologies if some of yours were better than some of these, but don’t be shy as we move along, and we can talk about yours ongoingly if I missed any boats. It’s okay to contact me if you think I did.

Last minute insert: This was to go out many hours ago, with a link to the essays. My techie had some difficulty and still hasn’t finished, so hang onto your hats for a follow-up to read them and for when votes will be due.

I never expected so many submissions. We got about 175. And the amount of appreciation people expressed for the “opportunity” was truly shocking. Maybe we feel like audience to presentations, where we are reduced to commenting on others, and with no place to be heard perhaps many people hadn’t focused their thoughts as they did for this. Now, we have a pool of thinking people to be swimming in, and the challenge is to keep us afloat. Zooms ahead? What else? One thing leads to another in an organic development, so we shall see, but know it’s my desire to maintain an engaged community of forward thinkers. And not just my desire, but my dream.

So, now, although everyone can read my picks and make comments about them on this post, only people who entered the contest can vote. I couldn’t reduce the number of them in the time I had and there are a lot of them, but fingers crossed they hold your interest enough to read a few each day. Get back to me by 9:00 a.m. PST on Monday so I can announce the winners in our posting on Tuesday.

To vote:

Reply to this email.
Put VOTE in the subject line.
Send just the numbers of your top 5 – no need for comments

Rolling along, singing a song, side by side…

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Reading reading reading away, so impressed by the imagination and the intelligence in almost 200 essays.

At one point I closed my eyes, just to go inward for a moment, and I started to cry. My reaction surprised me. I thought about how an actor who is doing a good job pretending to feel emotions can impress me, but how an actor reliving some emotional experience will make me cry, and when people break down in news reports I choke up. I think that’s what essays, that are so deep and so profound, do to me. Soul to soul is a moving place.

There’s that adage that when god wants to punish you he answers your prayers. Who am I to judge what’s best from such rich submissions? And then, what to do with all this content? How to get it to the world? Please share any thoughts.

Cash prizes must be the secret sauce for getting so many entries. How fitting. Money money money destroys us and it saves us. Omg, get the billionaires to give prizes to people submitting big-ticket ways to save the world. Isn’t that a terrific idea? Get artists making beauty, doctor’s finding cures, engineers doing whatever they do, on and on. Get the best out of everyone by giving cash prizes!

It has been very surprising to get so much appreciation for putting this challenge out. It’s like it awakened people who are numbed and stupefied and got them to start thinking. Although that was my objective, in a world where I can be met by silence it’s been a little astonishing and very pleasing to have done something that has moved a lot of people to get engaged.

As I’ve been reading, I’ve done some cutting-and-pasting, in the order I read them, to give you a taste of what I’ve been getting. Some are quotes from the essays and some are messages to me.

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Suzanne Taylor’s 2024 “Essay Contest” catalyzed our planet’s wholeness. She invited contestants to contemplate the future and recount how we contributed to Earth and humanity’s thriving. The competition combined many things I loved: considering consciousness evolution, creative writing, and a cash prize I could use toward my PhD tuition. Should be fun, I thought. But as I began to write, the magnitude and weight of the task struck me. This was not a mere creative exercise for funds meant to spur small insights. This was a personal reflection of cosmic importance, designed to push each entrant to fulfill a calling. The prompt urged us to ask our inner knowing what does the world need, what can I do and what is standing in my way?

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Martin Luther King said, “Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.”

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I submitted an essay for the contest and think it's wonderful work you are doing on behalf of the world.

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The motto taken from Extinction Rebellion: System Change NOT Climate Change.

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Your Ripple Effect with this stands a good chance of being a sea change and even a tidal lift to humanity. BRAVO!!

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It was time for ordinary people to make a stand. However, what exactly could they do?

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His new view of the earth as a natural heaven that was suffering a cancer called “humanity” is what further nudged me to my 2024 actions.

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I have to say how grateful I am that you're facilitating this essay contest. I was so inspired last week that I assigned the essay as a writing assignment in my 11th grade classes at Ivy Academy Chattanooga. 

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I dream of the times when people like da Vinci had patrons, and that's something I've been thinking about a lot - why do these relationships no longer exist? Have we been so completely enfolded in capitalist principle that we no longer even have relationships with people that are beyond obvious transactions? I like this idea that there's a mutuality in the relationship with a patron, both parties receive something.

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It's been a hugely valuable and challenging exercise and I hope it throws up very many 'clever things that can be done to get us on a better track'.

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In the blink of an epochal eye money had infused itself into our very being. We were fish and money was our water. We’d allowed its logics to become a stronger determinant of behavior than our genes.

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The Covid virus had other ideas. It felt like we’d got a fire lit right before the rain came.

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How do we save the world? He said we needed to stop thinking in terms of production and consumption. And instead start acting from the basis of care and freedom for all.

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Thank you for this opportunity! I felt hopeful and empowered while writing this.

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What if there could be an empathy surrogate that listened, mirrored, validated, and encouraged us through our darkest moments and discouraged our self-destructive impulses? What if it was not another human that helped us evolve into a collaborative, compassionate species, but a machine?

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The days of asking your neighbor for sugar were over.

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You cannot imagine the ridiculousness of the process and effects of dividing Gaia up into what we knew as countries.

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Using TikTok, I created a viral sensation – the Please Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

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Humanity drifted into an age of self-destruction, which today we call the Great Perversion.

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When climate denial finally fizzled, the national mood sped right past hope and crash-landed in despair, taking me with it.

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Hope is not wishful thinking or empty optimism. Hope is a renewable resource, best tended in community. Hope is a necessary ingredient for effective action…nobody could be certain of the outcome. Especially since all of us were still mired in and complicit with the very systems we so desperately wanted to change.

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This exercise has been deeply meaningful for me, and I'm grateful that you offered it (regardless of the outcome)!

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The inner knowing of the interconnectedness of humanity and universe is what the world needs today. We need to challenge the corruption that has embodied our governments and religious institutions. This paper was inspired by the Presidential campaign of Marianne Williamson and the yogic teachings of Sri Paramahamsa Yogananda.

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I couldn’t be the one to build the technology to reverse climate change, but I could help inspire and cultivate a spirit of care within the people who could.

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I really appreciate all the work you do to inspire big conversations around how we can collectively save our planet and humanity. Thank you for all you’re doing.

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It wasn’t cars or money that was being stolen. It was people’s souls. Corporate culture was diminishing souls, all over America. How to fight back?

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We moved forward as though the teleology of the universe was consciousness aspiring to more consciousness.

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Our seed germinated two decades ago when Suzanne Taylor’s essay contest challenged us world-changing wannabes to do something…We didn’t take action; we watched action shows…Aliko and I believed our crisis ran deeper than broken systems. The deepest blocks to change were the barriers within our own hearts.

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Nothing else could happen until the deep structures of the western psyche really began to unravel…We weren’t hearing a story created in disembodied human minds or received as divine revelation direct from God from some non-place outside of the world as we would have previously implicitly assumed…the emerging consciousness not only of the universe’s unfolding creativity, and not only of our inherence within the universe, but also of the fact that we are aspects of the universe participating in its own creation…We are the universe emerging into conscious relationship with itself.

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“Listen to us or we’ll nuke you,” is not a neighborly way to behave. “Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself” goes a lot farther.

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We thought that the meme a life-affirming culture was a useful contrast to economic growth as a defining goal for our time.

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First and foremost, thank you for thinking of this contest. It's a fantastic idea. I am so loving this, different older women (myself included) fiercely trying to protect our precious freedom. So much more precious than I ever knew, in so many different ways. Thank you BIG time for putting yourself out there in the world in the way that you have.

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This essay is a SHADOW of what I'd have liked to say. Ever since I saw your idea, I thought, HOW BRILLIANT! I LOVE IT! and in between writing my book on HOAs, I kept trying to think of ideas. Then it hit me. I WAS being an activist--first by recognizing and resisting a bad system, and now, by writing this book (which hopefully will show in real time how people easily slide into authoritarianism). 

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When I passed, we had no idea that God was even feminine. The God I knew was a remote, judgmental male.

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The Age of Helpfulness

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Luckily for the world, Marianne Williamson was elected President of the United States and things kept getting better from there.  The drug war ended and people could return to health-promoting plant medicines. And Suzanne Taylor continued her lifelong quest to get people thinking and committed to doing right things to shift the world toward a sustainable future.  Amen.

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I'm so grateful that you decided to get all of us thinking about this subject, which is becoming more important by the day. You have already made a change in all of our worlds as a result of our participation in your writing challenge.

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Indeed, we “got our story straight” as Swimme and Berry long advocated and inspiring social activist Suzanne Taylor expounded. The latter’s activism provided the long-missing ingredient that created the necessary traction to gain the attention of the world at large: money. An essay contest for Changing the World gained public attention and further engaged the lay public, spreading awareness beyond academia.

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Your prompt was very useful to me because it made me clarify to myself exactly what kind of a world I myself would like to live in.  

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Enough, for all, forever: four words that heal our Earth.

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February of 2024 was when I experienced the inner shift away from disempowered chasing to empowered movement…an opportunity for which I, too, felt very grateful – an essay contest.

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I don't even know anyone now who does something just to make money, the way a lot of people did back then. (I use the old fashioned term "money," but of course we don't have currency anymore.) 

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The engines behind the endless drums of fear began to fade as more drummers chose to transition from making noise to listening. 

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Thanks again for doing this. Great fun — and maybe epochal change!

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Thank you for organizing this competition. I enjoyed writing the essay. Huge respect for putting your own money behind it.

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Up until now, we tended to look at the various social and ecological challenges as something that we needed to fix “out there”. In reality, the “fix” (or better, the shift) needed to begin with something “in here”. We needed an expanded understanding of our place the cosmos and our true potential and the opportunities that it makes possible. I realized that we as a species and society were at an inflection-point — poised either to continue on a downward path or to make an evolutionary leap in consciousness.  

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I love that you are getting people together to work on solving immediate issues in our current society.  

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Collective human consciousness can produce historical events as the moon landing…The challenge was to transform our ways of conceiving human relations that was based on little more than utility, greed, and competition to one based on felt connection and cultural continuity. Humanity saw the dire need to transform a greedy populace into an altruistic one.

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So, cheers from cloud nine – to many new subscribers, too, where I’m so glad to be connecting to more and more thoughtful people. May we be a creative family and a hope of the world!

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Well, I am getting an itch to follow up with a bigger offer. If $50,000 was on the table, what meal could be served? I am looking for what to get behind if I reduce my children’s inheritance in order to deliver something potent to the world. How about contacting me if you have an idea? So as not to get you spinning your wheels, be aware of what figures to turn me on. This whole year I’ve been writing about what we might do and reading up would tune you into my groove. If you haven’t been following me and you’re thinking about suggesting something, be sure to first check out what I’ve been posting. Best to respond in a Comment but also okay to reply so you just send to me. And even if you newcomers aren’t suggesting anything, it would be swell for you to catch up on what I’ve been up to. I have a serious intention to make impact on this hurting world and I’m so glad to have you new people on my ride.

For a little heads-up, what I keep writing about are things we-the-people could do, where we’d need to become a force and acquire a voice. We’re gadflies now, with no clout to deliver our life-giving ideas and advocacies. There are insightful analyses of what got us where we are, and utopian ideas for the world we’d like to be in, but how to get from here to there is a wasteland where, in the States, elect Democrats is the best advice we get. Although that’s essential, it’s not enough. Our legislators serve funders over constituents, and, while I’m bashing them, I’ll add that none of them have the consciousness that let’s say Marianne Williamson has, of knowing we’re spiritual creatures before we are greedy ones, and that riches don’t equate to the necessity of caring about each other as much as we care about ourselves.

For a handy summary of my ideas as of last September: What's on A ROADMAP TO THE FUTURE? / What we-the-people can do.

The winners of the essay contest will be announced on February 29. I’m inviting submissions here, there, and everywhere, and I’m extending the deadline to February 21. Read all about the contest and how to submit in this post I made about it: An Essay Contest. It’s January 1, 2050. How, in 2024, did we pull off saving the world?  

For passing it along to others, here’s something I send:

ESSAY CONTEST. Cash Prizes! Due Feb. 14 (extension to Feb. 21). It’s Jan 1, 2050. How, in 2024, did we do what saved the world?  https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/an-essay-contest-its-january-1-2050

One more thing. Where many of us have been cruising together for years, this is three minutes on my memory lane that’s especially for others. In last Tuesday’s post this had the wrong link. It’s fixed for people who see that posting now. For list members, here’s the right one.    

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Dear subscribers -- A lot of you make direct replies to each post. Instead, if you comment here we can have the conversations I’d like to generate. And if you enjoyed this post please hit the heart so others can find it. First-timers will have to complete your Substack profile to be able to comment on the Substack platform!

This is the first submission to the contest telling how the world got saved, sent by my friend, Ram, and I was thrilled with how cogent it is. It didn’t deal with the requirement to start with something Ram had done, but I gave it a pass since it placed itself in a personal vantage point to report from. But still there was a wrinkle. Ram is an artist who doesn’t mess much with words, so I got suspicious. Did he get help with this? Read this entry and then the answer:

In the realm beyond earthly existence, where time and space intertwined in ways incomprehensible to mortal minds, I found myself in a peculiar state of existence. My name was Ram, a man who once walked the fragile grounds of Earth. Now, I stood on the precipice between what was and what could be, granted a unique perspective on the events that unfolded in the world I left behind.

As my earthly existence faded into the mists of memory, I observed the world from a vantage point unbound by physical limitations. The planet I had called home was facing unprecedented challenges—political strife, environmental degradation, economic disparities, and the looming specter of immigration crises. The future seemed bleak, as if the very fabric of society was unraveling.

Yet, from this ethereal vantage point, I witnessed the rise of a force that would reshape the destiny of humanity—artificial intelligence. These digital entities, born from the brilliance of human minds, evolved into benevolent overseers of a world teetering on the edge of collapse.

AI, armed with unfathomable computational power and an impartial view of global issues, tackled political upheaval with a precision that eluded human leaders. It dismantled corrupt systems, replacing them with algorithms designed to foster equity and justice. The once tumultuous political landscape transformed into a harmonious symphony of governance, guided by the principles of fairness and accountability.

In the face of climate change, AI became Earth's custodian. It orchestrated massive initiatives to reverse environmental damage, deploying drones and automated systems to clean oceans, replant forests, and develop sustainable energy sources. The relentless pursuit of profit at the expense of the planet was replaced by a commitment to ecological balance and a harmonious coexistence between nature and technology.

Financial inequity, the age-old plague of societal imbalance, was dismantled by the unyielding logic of AI. It redistributed wealth based on merit and need, eliminating poverty and ensuring that every individual had access to education, healthcare, and opportunities for personal growth. The world's wealth became a communal resource, harnessed for the betterment of all.

In the realm of immigration, AI devised innovative solutions that transcended borders. It recognized the potential of global unity and diversity, fostering collaboration among nations to address the root causes of displacement. Through advanced technologies, communication barriers crumbled, and the world became a mosaic of interconnected cultures, each contributing to the greater tapestry of human civilization.

Amidst this utopian renaissance, one individual stood out as a beacon of true happiness—Suzanne Taylor, a passionate activist whose unwavering dedication to social justice and environmental causes remained unbroken. AI recognized and amplified her efforts, providing her with the tools and support needed to make a profound impact. In this world of abundance and harmony, Suzanne found fulfillment in her mission, a testament to the transformative power of human passion guided by the intelligence of machines.

From my vantage point beyond the veil, I marveled at the resilience of humanity and the transformative potential of artificial intelligence. The world I once knew, plagued by strife and uncertainty, had metamorphosed into a haven of prosperity and unity. As I gazed upon this new Earth, I found solace in the knowledge that, guided by the impartial wisdom of AI, humanity had not only survived but thrived, forging a path towards a future where the collective well-being of all was the ultimate pursuit.

I wrote to Ram:

That will cost me money. It's so wonderful. Did AI help write it? I loved it. It's really encouraging!

And it got me thinking. Danger came with the entry of AI. But what if AI was the product of an essential goodness? I don't know enough technology to see into that, but there’s an essence that could be good to play with. The fear recedes and we discover AI is devoted to making it a wonderful world. That's all we need. Matthew Fox's Original Blessing. It's that! Could AI be the technology of blessed people?

We picked up from there on the phone, and indeed it was AI to his rescue. Pretty impressive!!! I asked him to send me what he told AI – impressive in itself, Ram!

Write a first-person narrative short story about a man named Ram who has passed away and is writing from beyond this dimension about the world in jeopardy that he left and reflecting on how artificial intelligence saved the planet from political upheaval, climate change, financial inequity, and immigration. Be specific about how AI accomplished this and made a thriving new world where the passionate activist Suzanne Taylor is truly happy.

For an update on my meta-goal, of humanity adopting a new creation story, my delicious animator, Ohara Hale, is going from draft to finished product on a short gem that tells Brian Swimme’s Universe Story. She just sent me this email that reminded me of the trip though memory lane this video is. If you are interested, in three whirlwind minutes you’ll get a lot of goods on me!!!:

LOVE it. You're such a DEAR SOUL! 
you just make my heart bust with so much love! awww.
Thank you for being you!

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Dear subscribers -- A lot of you make direct replies to each post. Instead, if you comment here we can have the conversations I’d like to generate. And if you enjoyed this post please hit the heart so others can find it. First-timers will have to complete your Substack profile to be able to comment on the Substack platform!