• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Charles Eisenstein

  • About
  • Essays
  • Videos
  • Podcasts
    • Charles Eisenstein Random
    • New and Ancient Story Podcast
  • Courses
    • Climate — Inside and Out
    • Conversations with Orland Bishop, Course One
    • Conversations with Orland Bishop, Course Two
    • Conversations with Orland Bishop, Course Three
    • Dietary Transformation from the Inside Out
    • Living in the Gift
    • Masculinity: A New Story
    • Metaphysics & Mystery
    • Space Between Stories
    • Unlearning: For Change Agents
  • Books
    • The Coronation
    • Climate — A New Story
    • The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible
    • The Ascent of Humanity
    • Sacred Economics
    • The Yoga of Eating
  • Events
  • Donate

The Humbler Realms, Part 2

July 10, 2015 by Charles Eisenstein 6 Comments

July 2015


Picture

My last post about the contributions of humble people seems to have struck a chord. People are writing to tell me about the “Charlie’s” in their lives, the people who unostentatiously contribute to their places and communities. One woman wrote,“He is a man much like Charlie. He takes in the stray cats and loves them like family, brings his neighbors fruits and vegetables from his garden, makes homemade pickles and dried apples and sends them to his grandchildren, much to their delight. He visits loved ones in the hospital regularly and knows everyone in his very small town by name. He always offer a big hello and smile to everyone and, if they’re willing to lend and ear, he’ll tell a story or a clean joke or two. This is why, when you go about his day with him, everyone waves and smiles at him and knows his name, Colonel Wylie, or just Ed.”

Another woman, Laurie, who cares for her special-needs son, said,

“I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed by the bigness of so many of the conversations that go on in your realm, and around you. Not because I can’t grasp them or don’t think they’re important, but because there are pressing needs in my day-to-day life that are very basic right now. I’m not in a position to engage in large scale activism or extended discussions online, so I see most things through the lens of healing on the personal level…. thank you for writing this. It honors the small and humble work that so many of my friends with struggling kids do every day.”

Someone else, a municipal employee, wrote, “It seems that daily I struggle with wanting to be ‘important’ and accomplish great things, yet have a very local and humble existence.”

Inevitably, most of us are in this boat. Not everyone can do something that is “bigger” than what most other people are doing. If we are to validate the contributions of the vast majority of people, the Charlie’s and Ed’s of the world, we must let go of the metrics of bigness and importance we have inherited. This is especially true if we want to validate the kind of work traditionally done by women – the up-close-and-personal caring and nurturing of others.

My friend Bayo Akomolafe replied to my post as follows:

 “It’s hard not to define importance by how many people pay attention, but maybe if we did away with the idea that the world is inert and dormant until animated by an observer (the media, a large audience, an authority figure, God), we would be released to more fantastic realms of intra-service…we might find that things get more important, more real, more authentic, when they get smaller.”

A few days before the Greek referendum I interviewed a woman from Athens who said that the people who intend to vote “yes” are generally doing so out of fear. They fear the unknown and are susceptible to scare tactics about what might happen if they vote “no”. The same was the case in the Scottish referendum for independence. From what (admittedly, pro-independence) Scots have told me, the anti-independence narrative was almost entirely fear-based, and the most significant fear, underlying all the “what-ifs,” was simply the fear of defying authority. For that matter, one might say that American foreign policy (not to mention economic policy, prison policy, immigration policy, etc.) is also driven by fear, obsessed as it is with security, surveillance, border protection, and “America’s adversaries.” Globally, it is fear that keeps the system running (some might say it is greed, but greed is actually a symptom of fear too, the fear of not being in control and not having enough). Fear keeps the elites running the whole game according to their rules, and fear keeps the oppressed from challenging them.

That is why I am sure that people like Ed, Charlie, and Laurie are doing important political work. First, they are reducing the level of ambient fear and alienation that is the engine of the world-destroying machine. The idea of an uncaring world full of scary people seems a little less compelling when I’m in the presence of a truly kind person. Secondly, the people of these humble realms are the ones that provide emotional, spiritual, and material nourishment for those whose calling does take them to the public realm. While there may be lone heroes who valiantly resist oppression without support, such heroism often takes a perverse turn when it is disconnected from a web of compassionate, intimate relationships. Many of the most violent people on earth consider themselves heroes: Dylann Roof, Anders Breivik, Islamic State executioners, Predator drone operators, and so on. The image comes to mind of the hard, ascetic revolutionary, steeling himself to override his humanity for the sake of the cause – for the greater good, as the evil wizard Grindelwald put it in Harry Potter.

Positive change does not originate in the most visible heroes. As the more honest of them acknowledge, they are the channels or embodiments of a much greater collectivity. All contributions to this collectivity are necessary. You may not know how your hours of caring for that child, stretching your patience nearly to breaking, uncelebrated and invisible, are contributing to the healing of our world, but they are.


Previous: The Humbler Realms
Next: Der Teufelskreis des Terrors

Filed Under: Self & Psyche, Short Reflection Tagged With: activism, self-doubt, Short Reflection, story

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Marian Van Eyk McCain says

    July 10, 2015 at 9:07 am

    A nice post, and as usual I totally agree with your sentiments but your ‘errant apostrophes’ made me wince (the Charlies and Eds of this world are plurals, not possessives).

    Reply
    • SueJ says

      July 13, 2015 at 10:26 am

      I absolutely LOVE that it is not ME correcting someone’s punctuation for a pleasant change of pace! 🙂 I have to add that periods and commas ALWAYS belong INSIDE the quotes: They fear the unknown and are susceptible to scare tactics about what might happen if they vote “no”.
      The content of The New and Ancient Story is obviously much more important than the grammar or punctuation, BUT…everything is getting sloppier and sloppier since the advent of the web and texting, and it often detracts from credibility when form is so blatantly disregarded.
      Love,
      SueJ
      PS…Had breakfast with you, Charles, when you had the flu and could barely speak in Jamaica Plain, MA, a couple of years ago. A genuine pleasure to meet you! 🙂

      Reply
  2. Pam says

    July 10, 2015 at 9:58 am

    Thank you so much for this. Thank you to the mother of the special needs child speaking my heart. I have, as well, mothered a special needs “child” for 46 years. I have felt for decades that I stood behind a window looking out unable to help those that I knew were in need, always because of a “previous commitment” and feeling like I will never get to do something that mattered except to one child. I know that sounds foolish as I know that whatever anyone of us does is part of the collective. However, what we “know” in our hearts and Souls does not always translate to the moment to moment struggle of the lonely, isolated existence of living an anonymous life.

    Reply
  3. Howard Switzer says

    July 10, 2015 at 12:05 pm

    Yes, the schools too teach our children fear of defying authority and that you are being watched to enforce obedience and conformity designed by those fearful of what might happen if people were allowed to be unhampered and creative. This kind of heroic work may tend to allay some of those fears but we may need more public expressions of it.

    Reply
  4. Morgan Rich says

    July 16, 2015 at 7:05 am

    Many years ago the Intelligent Optimist magazine published an article about 25 change agents in the world. There were many impressive people doing big things in the world, but I noticed (and wrote to the editor about it) a lack of simple things and people doing small things every day that make a huge difference.
    Like raising kids in a thoughtful way. Doing work and then being home for dinner. Having time to call friends and people you care about.
    There is a significance about making big, noticeable efforts, but there is also a significance in treating each moment and each interaction with the dignity and respect it deserves.
    I appreciate the article and reminder (and noticing) of the small moments that are huge.

    Reply
  5. kamir bouchareb st says

    June 1, 2020 at 10:02 am

    thanks for this

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

All Essays

Peace-building

Time to Push

The Rehearsal is Over

Some Stuff I’m Reading

Beyond Industrial Medicine

A Temple of this Earth

The Sacrificial King

Words to a Young Man

How It Is Going to Be

What I’m doing here

Charles Eisenstein, Antisemite

Mob Morality and the Unvaxxed

Fascism and the Antifestival

The Death of the Festival

Source Temple and the Great Reset

To Reason with a Madman

From QAnon’s Dark Mirror, Hope

World on Fire

We Can Do Better Than This

The Banquet of Whiteness

The Cure of the Earth

Numb

The Conspiracy Myth

The Coronation

Extinction and the Revolution of Love

The Amazon: How do we heal a burning heart?

Building a Peace Narrative

Xylella: Supervillain or Symptom

Making the Universe Great Again

Every Act a Ceremony

The Polarization Trap

Living in the Gift

A Little Heartbreak

Initiation into a Living Planet

Why I am Afraid of Global Cooling

Olive Trees and the Cry of the Land

Our New, Happy Life? The Ideology of Development

Opposition to GMOs is Neither Unscientific nor Immoral

The Age of We Need Each Other

Institutes for Technologies of Reunion

Brushes with the Mainstream

Standing Rock: A Change of Heart

Transcription: Fertile Ground of Bewilderment Podcast

The Election: Of Hate, Grief, and a New Story

This Is How War Begins

The Lid is Off

Of Horseshoe Crabs and Empathy

Scaling Down

The Fertile Ground of Bewilderment

By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them

Psychedelics and Systems Change

Mutiny of the Soul Revisited

Why I Don’t Do Internet Marketing

Zika and the Mentality of Control

In a Rhino, Everything

Grief and Carbon Reductionism

The Revolution is Love

Kind is the New Cool

What We Do to Nature, We Do to Ourselves

From Nonviolence to Service

An Experiment in Gift Economics

Misogyny and the Healing of the Masculine

Sustainable Development: Something New or More of the Same?

The Need for Venture Science

The EcoSexual Awakening

“Don’t Owe. Won’t Pay.”

Harder to Hide

Reflections on Damanhur

On Immigration

The Humbler Realms

A Shift in Values Everywhere

Letter to my Younger Self

Aluna: A Message to Little Brother

Raising My Children in Trust

Qualitative Dimensions of Collective Intelligence: Subjectivity, Consciousness, and Soul

The Woman Who Chose to Plant Corn

The Oceans are Not Worth $24 trillion

The Baby in the Playpen

What Are We Greedy For?

We Need Regenerative Farming, Not Geoengineering

The Cynic and the Boatbuilder, Revisited

Activism in the New Story

What is Action?

Wasting Time

The Space Between Stories

Breakdown, Chaos, and Emergence

At This Moment, I Feel Held

A Roundabout Endorsement

Imagine a 3-D World

Presentation to Uplift Festival, 12.14.2014

Shadow, Ritual, and Relationship in the Gift

A Neat Inversion

The Waters of Heterodoxy

Employment in Gift Culture

Localization Beyond Economics

Discipline on the Bus

We Don’t Know: Reflections on the New Story Summit

A Miracle in Scientific American

More Talk?

Why Another Conference?

A Truncated Interview on Racism

A Beautiful World of Abundance

How to Bore the Children

Post-Capitalism

The Malware

The End of War

The Birds are Sad

A Slice of Humble Pie

Bending Reality: But who is the Bender?

The Mysterious Paths by Which Intentions Bear Fruit

The Little Things that Get Under My Skin

A Restorative Response to MH17

Climate Change: The Bigger Picture

Development in the Ecological Age

The campaign against Drax aims to reveal the perverse effects of biofuels

Gateway drug, to what?

Concern about Overpopulation is a Red Herring; Consumption’s the Problem

Imperialism and Ceremony in Bali

Let’s be Honest: Real Sustainability may not make Business Sense

Vivienne Westwood is Right: We Need a Law against Ecocide

2013: Hope or Despair?

2013: A Year that Pierced Me

Synchronicity, Myth, and the New World Order

Fear of a Living Planet

Pyramid Schemes and the Monetization of Everything

The Next Step for Digital Currency

The Cycle of Terror

TED: A Choice Point

The Cynic and the Boatbuilder

Latent Healing

2013: The Space between Stories

We Are Unlimited Potential: A Talk with Joseph Chilton Pearce

Why Occupy’s plan to cancel consumer debts is money well spent

Genetically Modifying and Patenting Seeds isn’t the Answer

The Lovely Lady from Nestle

An Alien at the Tech Conference

We Can’t Grow Ourselves out of Debt

Money and the Divine Masculine

Naivete, and the Light in their Eyes

The Healing of Congo

Why Rio +20 Failed

Permaculture and the Myth of Scarcity

For Facebook, A Modest Proposal

A Coal Pile in the Ballroom

A Review of Graeber’s Debt: The First 5000 Years

Gift Economics Resurgent

The Way up is Down

Sacred Economics: Money, the Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition

Design and Strategy Principles for Local Currency

The Lost Marble

To Bear Witness and to Speak the Truth

Thrive: The Story is Wrong but the Spirit is Right

Occupy Wall Street: No Demand is Big Enough

Elephants: Please Don’t Go

Why the Age of the Guru is Over

Gift Economics and Reunion in the Digital Age

A Circle of Gifts

The Three Seeds

Truth and Magic in the Third Dimension

Rituals for Lover Earth

Money and the Turning of the Age

A Gathering of the Tribe

The Sojourn of Science

Wood, Metal, and the Story of the World

A World-Creating Matrix of Truth

Waiting on the Big One

In the Miracle

Money and the Crisis of Civilization

Reuniting the Self: Autoimmunity, Obesity, and the Ecology of Health

Invisible Paths

Reuniting the Self: Autoimmunity, Obesity, and the Ecology of Health (Part 2)

Mutiny of the Soul

The Age of Water

Money: A New Beginning (Part 2)

Money: A New Beginning (Part 1)

The Original Religion

Pain: A Call for Attention

The Miracle of Self-Creation, Part 2

The Miracle of Self-Creation

The Deschooling Convivium

The Testicular Age

Who Will Collect the Garbage?

The Ubiquitous Matrix of Lies

You’re Bad!

A 28-year Lie: The Wrong Lesson

The Ascent of Humanity

The Stars are Shining for Her

All Hallows’ Eve

Confessions of a Hypocrite

The New Epidemics

From Opinion to Belief to Knowing

Soul Families

For Whom was that Bird Singing?

The Multicellular Metahuman

Grades: A Gun to Your Head

Human Nature Denied

The Great Robbery

Humanity Grows Up

Don’t Should on US

A State of Belief is a State of Being

Ascension

Security and Fate

Old-Fashioned, Healthy, Lacto-Fermented Soft Drinks: The Real “Real Thing”

The Ethics of Eating Meat

Privacy Policy | Contact

Charles Eisenstein

All content on this website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Feel free to copy and share.

Celo: 0x755582C923dB215d9eF7C4Ad3E03D29B2569ABb6

Litecoin: ltc1qqtvtkl3h7mchy7m5jwpvqvt5uzka0yj3nffavu

Bitcoin: bc1q2a2czwhf4sgyx9f9ttf3c4ndt03eyh3uymjgzl

Dogecoin: DT9ECVrg9mPFADhN375WL9ULzcUZo8YEpN

Polkadot: 15s6NSM75Kw6eMLoxm2u8qqbgQFYMnoYhvV1w1SaF9hwVpM4

Polygon: 0xEBF0120A88Ec0058578e2D37C9fFdDc28f3673A6

Zcash: t1PUmhaoYTHJAk1yxmgpfEp27Uk4GHKqRig

Donate & Support

As much as possible I offer my work as a gift. I put it online without a pay wall of any kind. Online course contributions are self-determined at the time you register for each. I also keep the site clean of advertising.

This means I rely on voluntary financial support for my livelihood. You may make a recurring gift or one-time donation using the form below, in whatever amount feels good to you. If your finances are tight at all, please do not give money. Visit our contact page instead for other ways to support this work.

Recurring Donations

Note from the team: Your recurring donation is a resource that allows us to keep Charles doing the work we all want him doing: thinking, speaking, writing, rather than worrying about the business details. Charles and all of us greatly appreciate them!

One-Time Donation

Your gift helps us maintain the site, offer tech support, and run programs and events by donation, with no ads, sales pitches, or pay walls. Just as important, it communicates to us that this work is gratefully received. Thank you!

Cryptocurrency Donation

Hi, here we are in the alternate universe of cryptocurrency. Click the link below for a list of public keys. If your preferred coin isn't listed, write to us through the contact form.

View Keys



What kind of donation are you making?(Required)


Recurring Donation

We are currently accepting monthly recurring donations through PayPal; we use PayPal because it allows you to cancel or modify your recurring donation at any time without needing to contact us.


Choose what feels good, clear, and right.

One-Time Donation

We are currently accepting one-time donations with any major credit card or through PayPal.


Choose what feels good, clear, and right.
Donation Method(Required)

Name(Required)
Email(Required)