Excerpted from Cathy Fitzgerald:

“One of the things that make happy, however, is self-efficacy.

Doing things, creating things, and thus contributing to a feeling of self-determination in one’s life. Having the feeling that there is some control, a certain power.

And if ecology (and evolution) teaches us one thing, it’s that we don’t need silver-bullet mega-projects riding roughshot over local conditions and alternative ideas, nor even global attitude shifts, anyways.. We don’t need *a* future.

We need a diversity of futures, (be)fitting local ecosystems of people and culture and the natural world, in the hands of people who are learning and resilient and making the ecosystems they live in and co-create resilient, as well. In that, we all have power. Some is just for small and inconsequential choices, but some may also change it all. It is up to us.

Time, then, to re-learn powerfulness – which is to be gained by taking the power, recognizing it, learning and using it.

It’s time for that, all the more, because we can and cannot foresee the future.

We cannot know if and when a collapse will come, if there will be resource wars or a much ‘colder’ decline – or, for that matter, new technologies that (continue to) make things better (or, finally, our creation of something to really call civilization).

We can already see that everything that makes things better also makes for problems.

Food production that keeps up with human population growth may well be among the major factors leading to further population growth, leading to a greater human impact.

Digital technologies de-materialize quite a bit of our economy, but also hide away much of the continuing (and rising) energy and material use, improve living standards but thereby also increase impact. All our solutions will have to be adaptable and adapting, made to actually achieve their goals…

Then again, some things are a middle ground of life, things that have always mattered and will continue to matter as long as there is life, especially human life, on this planet or beyond it – and they aren’t things so much as skillful living.

What we can see and know for sure is that, whether you fear a collapse is coming or foresee a glorious future, you are alive now and probably wouldn’t mind having a good grip on your life.

So, learn, gain skills, make yourself at home in this world, become resilient and make the ecosystems you live in and with (and as) resilient, make ways of living and making a living better, ‘fitted‘ for the world, for yourself, for us.

There is a lot to do, and a lot of power in the doing.”