{"id":2938062,"date":"2015-11-25T01:58:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T01:58:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2023-02-04T01:16:03","modified_gmt":"2023-02-04T01:16:03","slug":"resilience-reflections-with-john-thackara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/stories\/2015-11-25\/resilience-reflections-with-john-thackara\/","title":{"rendered":"Resilience Reflections with John Thackara"},"content":{"rendered":"
NOTE: Images in this archived article have been removed.<\/div>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

In Resilience Reflections we ask some of our contributors what it is that inspires their work, and what keeps them going.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read more Resilience Reflections here including Rob Hopkins and Tara Lohan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For thirty years John Thackara has traveled the world in his search of stories about the practical steps taken by communities to realize a sustainable future. He writes about these stories online, and in books; he uses them in talks for cities, and business; he also organizes festivals and events that bring the subjects of these stories together. John is the author\u00a0of the best-selling In the Bubble: Designing In A Complex World<\/a> (MIT Press) – also translated into nine languages. As director of doorsofperception.com<\/a>, John organizes conferences and festivals in which social innovators share knowledge. He has lectured in more than forty countries. John’s new book – How To Thrive In The Next Economy<\/a> \u2013 has just been published by Thames & Hudson. <\/em><\/p>\n

Who\/what has been your greatest inspiration? And why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rocks. And stones. I\u2019ve always loved stones and rocky places – but it was only when I\u00a0moved to south west France (where I live now) that I realised just how many other people\u00a0are as inspired by rocks as I am – and have been for a long time. Some of the stone megaliths around here date back to well before the Druids. This connection with stones\u00a0and stoniness is not whimsical at all; people around here volunteer to rebuild stone\u00a0terraces – there are thousands of miles of them all over the Cevennes, dating back\u00a0centuries. It\u2019s incredibly hard – but meaningful – work. There\u2019s a connectedness when\u00a0stones are involved that goes beyond words.<\/p>\n

Knowing what you know now about sustainability\u00a0and resilience building, what piece of advice would you give your\u00a0younger self if you were starting out?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That it\u2019s mainly about connection between people and places – and not much about\u00a0concepts or plans. It\u2019s taken me a long time to learn respect for the ways millions of people\u00a0help each other to feed and shelter their families in resourceful ways. I\u2019d also advise him\u00a0(my younger self) to take time every day to commune with a weed in the pavement, a bug,\u00a0or a patch of lichen. Being reminded that life is going busily about its business all around\u00a0us, right now, is a more more powerful reminder of priorities than a talk, or even a book.<\/p>\n

What keeps you awake at night?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The fact that my younger self did not heed the advice of my older one.<\/p>\n

What gets you up in the morning, or keeps you going?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The certain\u00a0knowledge that someone, somewhere, is doing amazing and joyful work that is not yet\u00a0recognised, but deserves to be celebrated and supported. We just need to look. My friend\u00a0Clare Cooper, for example, recently invited me to a workshop in a rural part of Scotland. In\u00a0one small village hall, she gathered together a blacksmith, a digital arts producer, a land\u00a0owner, a raspberry farmer, a soldier turned master mead maker, an expert on the\u00a0ecosystems to be found in dry stone walls, a service designer, an artist who makes outfits\u00a0that disguise you as a rock, the tutor at a forest school, a designer of water cleaning\u00a0systems \u2013 well, you get the picture.<\/p>\n

What has been your biggest setback and how did you recover?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been sacked from a good number of proper paid jobs over the years. My critical\u00a0questions about the way the world works at first enchanted, but later frustrated, a\u00a0succession of employers. Looking back, I truly do not blame them for firing me! On the\u00a0contrary: many significant turning points in my life have been forced departures from\u00a0secure and comfortable jobs. I wrote my first proper book (In the Bubble) after one such\u00a0sacking. I visited India for the first time after another dismissal \u2013 and that connection has\u00a0enriched my life beyond measure over three decades. I also started Doors of Perception\u00a0as an independent company when my then employer said \u201cenough, already.\u201d As to the\u00a0\u2018how\u2019 I recovered: well, the passage of time has been my greatest ally.<\/p>\n

For you resilience is…?<\/strong><\/p>\n

… lacking a critical edge at the moment. Everyone agrees that resilience is a good\u00a0thing – and that makes me suspicious. It\u2019s like peace, or motherhood: nobody is against\u00a0them – but history is filled with unspeakable acts committed by peace and mother-loving\u00a0individuals. I often come back to Andrew Zolli\u2019s definition (in his excellent book) of\u00a0resilience as \u201cthe capacity to take a punch\u201d. Why, I ask myself, did that guy punch you in\u00a0the first place? So long as resilience thinking avoids addressing structural and systemic\u00a0causes, bad consequences will keep on coming.<\/p>\n

What one social\/political\/cultural\/policy change would most assist\u00a0your work\/hopes\/dreams?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When every city places two questions at the top of its\u00a0agenda: \u201cWhere will our next lunch come from?\u201d and, \u201cHow can we make that place\u00a0healthier?\u201d This is one of those \u201cwhat ifs?\u201d that sounds far-fetched but which I have a\u00a0strong intuition is ripe to come true quite soon. Things happen when they are ready to\u00a0happen and that feels like now.<\/p>\n

What gives you hope?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The realisation that ecological empathy is latent in us all.\u00a0It just needs to be released. I had an epiphany last year at one of our Doors of Perception\u00a0summer xskools on an island in Sweden. I asked a group of designers, artists and\u00a0architects to figure out a way to bring the subject of soils to life. Ahead of the event I\u00a0thought soil health would be hard to sell to a resolutely urban and cerebral group of \u00a0designers – but it was like pushing at an open door. Our group designed and staged a Soil\u00a0Tasting Ceremony. They made infusions from ten different berries on the island and\u00a0displayed them next to soil samples taken from each plant\u2019s location; the soils were\u00a0in wine glasses. We were then invited to compare the tastes of the teas and\u00a0soils in silence.<\/p>\n

What book\/film\/other resource has most supported your work?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stephan Harding\u2019s book Animate Earth<\/em> has been an inspiration to this novice Gaian. This\u00a0was one of those rare books that caused many flickering lightbulbs in my head to burn\u00a0brightly all of a sudden. Being reassured that rocks are alive has been a source of\u00a0inspiration and energy.<\/p>\n

More articles by John Thackara.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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