I suppose some would call me naive. I do, after all, believe that we can change the world… one village at a time. I hear, and maybe it’s just in my own head, “Nate, how are you going to provide for a family? Why are you not making much money? Are you saving anything? When are you going to get a real job?” Get practical. Budget (hey! I do that!).
I think there is part of me, festering there from traditional, commercialistic societal messages, saying I can’t really make money building community and connecting people. Maybe there isn’t a place in our current economic world for visionaries. It seems that the message we often hear is that it’s ok to think outside the box for a while, but eventually we need to grow up and get real. Better to build the bank account and make decisions from practicality rather than from a place of principle, values, and vision.
There is a Proverb that says,
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
Bill Plotkin writes, in Soulcraft,
Even in Western society, our deepest yearnings go far beyond a vacation or retirement. We long for a vision of our destiny, and, eqully, for a way to carry that vision as a gift to others.
A task without a vision is just a job.
A vision without a task is just a dream.
A vision with a task can change the world.It is sacred work, this “vision with a task,” that we seek, individually and collectively. The rarity of finding sacred work is at the root of our Western despair and sorrow. When not acknowledged and embraced, our grief is acted out through violence, against ourselves, each other, and the environment. Unacknowledged grief also manifests as depression, anxiety, and a growing sense of meaninglessness.
So I would much rather hear what someone is passionate about than what they are making. I would rather hear about the joys they are finding in giving their gifts to the world than hear about the latest “toy” they bought or expensive vacation they just took for themselves. I want to hear about the giveaway, not the take-away.
How are you changing the world? That’s what I want to hear! And if it has a “You are so naive” attached to it… that’s ok with me. Where there is no vision, the people will perish.
What’s your vision?
Nathan Bettger | Oshkosh, WI 
As someone who has covered his work previous, I am writing to see if you would be interested in receiving a review copy of Bill Plotkin’s new book Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche which we will be publishing this April for consideration. If so I would be happy to ask his publicist at New World Library to send you either the PDF or the physical book in March when we get them hot off the press. If this is of interest, please reply to this email with your mailing address, a direct link to your blog, and the format you prefer!
Here’s more information about this ground-breaking book…
What do we need to know and understand to help facilitate lasting positive change in our individual lives and communities? How can we revolutionize our understanding of what it means to be human and revive our abilities to realize our potential and transform our contemporary cultures?
The enclosed advance reading copy of Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche (New World Library, April 15, 2013) by cultural visionary, author, and wilderness guide Bill Plotkin addresses and answers these key questions of our time.
“We’re being summoned by the world itself to make many urgent changes to the human project, but most central is a fundamental re-visioning and reshaping of ourselves, a shift in consciousness,” writes Plotkin. “We must reclaim and embody our original wholeness, our indigenous human nature granted to us by nature itself. And the key to reclaiming our original wholeness is not merely to suppress psychological symptoms, recover from addictions and trauma, manage stress, or refurbish dysfunctional relationships, but rather to fully flesh out our multifaceted, wild psyches, committing ourselves to the largest story we’re capable of living, serving something bigger than ourselves.”
In Wild Mind, Plotkin introduces a map of psychological wholeness that is rooted in nature’s own map of wholeness. The book offers an elaborate field guide to becoming fully human by cultivating the four facets of the Self and discovering both the limitations and gifts of our wounded, fragmented, and shadowed subpersonalities.
I look forward to hearing from you about this possibility! Please don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions.
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