From Resilience to Thrivability

Thrivability is our path out of unsustainable practices toward a world where all people have a high quality of life, a voice, and a nurturing earth supporting them. Using whole systems approach, we evolve our way of being together, of collaborating, so that our collective wisdom and action bring forth a flourishing world and thriving life.

I’ve been on the road and unable to give it the attention it deserves, BUT: Jean Russell launched her site, Thrivable.org and her book Thriveability: A Collaborative Sketch, to which I contributed a (very) short essay on openness.

See:

“This is a collection of essays and images crafting a “topography for thriving.” Beyond ideas of personal hardship and sacrifice, towards a mindset of abundance and caring for our planet and society.

It includes contributions by Lonny Grafman (President of the Appropedia Foundation), myself, plus Michel Bauwens, Clay Shirky, Gil Friend and around 60 other thinkers whose work deserves to be better known. Jean Russell, an inspiring ambassador for the concept of Thrivability, herded and encouraged us in our contributions, and curated the work.”

Here is how Jean describes the project:

“Thank you for viewing this book. It comes alive in your gaze. I want to introduce you to thrivability by answering some of the questions you have. I am guessing that they might be questions like – what is thrivability and who are these people contributing to it?

What is thrivability – a working definition

In the dance between the individual and humanity as a whole, there is an aliveness. In aliveness, there is a yearning for thriving. All living things strive to move beyond survival to truly flourish. Even in the development of this very project, the aspiration for thriving was clear — the enthusiasm of a very diverse circle of people focused on a simple idea: that the goal of evolving our behavior should be to thrive. And it gives rise….to this book.

Thrivability is our path out of unsustainable practices toward a world where all people have a high quality of life, a voice, and a nurturing earth supporting them. Using whole systems approach, we evolve our way of being together, of collaborating, so that our collective wisdom and action bring forth a flourishing world and thriving life.

Why these words and phrases?

There is no single recipe or discrete list of requirements for thrivability. However, I created several groups of words and phrases that relate to it in some powerful way. Perhaps they reframe a perspective or engage in a critical role. The contributors of this book refined and evolved the title words and phrases. It is an exploration they have joined me in, and I hope you will join us too.

A bit about our contributors

Our contributors are from widely different fields – from social entrepreneurship to philanthropy, from deep tech space to community activism, from neuroscience to labor and economic history, from social network analysis to storytelling. I expect that you, the viewers and participants, are a wide range of people too. Like you, the contributors are from a vast array of places in the world from Stockholm, Brussels, and London to Thailand, Australia, and Uganda, and include Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, NYC, Los Angeles, Houston, Cleveland, Chicago, and Boston. From noted academics to get-your-hands-dirty entrepreneurs, from scientists to the tree-climber next door, we connect them together to lay out the general topography of a thrivable world.

Together we sketch our view of thrivability. We may not all agree. However, I think you will find, as I did, that while the field of interest may be different, the core principles, values, and beliefs about thrivability come through consistently, as core words ?re-appear on other pages. Please enjoy this curated collaborative sketch of thrivability.”

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