Editor’s note: Duane Elgin’s book, Choosing Earth projects a half-century Into the Future to Explore Our World in a Time

through luxuries to reveal the essentials. Shifting from a culture of “wants” to one of “needs” represents a penetrating and important change. Consumer societies like the US will be asked to cut consumption of resources by a factor of roughly 75%. Although this challenge is enormous, the pay-off could be even greater. The material side of life can grow lighter, less burdensome, and more easeful at the same time that the non-material side of life becomes more awake, alive, and expressive. To compensate for material limitations, people will cultivate more meaningful friendships, share simple meals, spend more time in nature, make music, do art, develop our inner life, and more.

I often hear people say either that technology will save us or it will enslave us. Technology is not inherently bad, it’s a tool. The question is whether these tools are enough to save us from our overconsumption of the Earth? Stated differently: if the challenge for humanity’s future is to grow up and move into our early adulthood as a species, then will more tools be the key for enabling that to happen? Will material tools be an effective substitute for greater psychological and spiritual maturity? It seems to me that we need to combine our tools with a higher level of consciousness and maturity. Technology alone won’t save us. It is the human heart and consciousness that also needs to grow. A big part of the problem is the assumption that, because technologies have gotten us this far, they will take us into the far future. Yet, the rite of passage that we’re going through now recognizes we’re here to grow our consciousness and experience of aliveness — and that’s largely an “inside job.” Technology cannot substitute for this learning. That is not to deny the importance of technologies; rather, it’s to see the vital importance of integrating our material powers with higher levels of love, wisdom and purpose.

Kosmos | I think there is something to be said for putting our active intelligence into some of these technologies before it’s too late to reshape what we want from them.

Duane Elgin | I’ve been writing and speaking about the decade of the 2020s since 1978. For over 40 years, I’ve been saying the decade of 2020s will be pivotal — that this is when we’re going to hit an evolutionary wall. In other words, we will not simply run into an “ecological wall” and material limits to growth. We will run into an “evolutionary wall” where we encounter ourselves as humans and are confronted with foundational questions: What kind of universe do we live within? Is it dead or alive? Who are we? Are biological beings only or are we also beings of cosmic dimension and participation? Where are we going? Is material evolution the measure of our development or are there invisible dimensions to life that will unfold as well?

“Choosing Earth” is not a prediction for the future; instead, it’s an opportunity for collective social imagination. We have a choice. If we can recognize the future we are creating — enacting it in our social imagination — we can choose an alternative pathway forward. We can move toward a great transition, not waiting for collapse. We can begin to plant the seeds of that future now, working back from a positive future we see in our collective imagination. Mobilizing our collective awareness is part of our maturing. Our freedom to creatively envision the future and then freshly choose is being called forth. To choose Earth and to choose life.

Kosmos | Yes. It’s heartening to see that so many are already building the future without waiting for permission, without waiting for the collapse. Those who are building eco-villages and regenerative economies, the Transition Town movement, the millions of small initiatives everywhere — from community gardens to whole cities like Auroville in India; efforts to preserve and protect forests, animals and indigenous culture. There are so many initiatives right now that are powerful models for what we might do in the future.

Duane Elgin | The human family is being called to a higher role and responsibility of living on this Earth. If we can awaken our collective imagination, we have a future of promise. If we can imagine it, we can create it. First we have to imagine it. Our times call for both a sense of urgency as well as great patience. I’ve had a short poem posted on the frame of my computer for years. It’s a Zen poem, and it says, “No seed ever sees the flower.” We plant seeds with books, films, business organizations, social movements, and so on, in hopes we will see them flower. The Zen proverb advises us to give up hope that we will see the results of our actions. Accept that we may not see the flowering. The seeds we are planting now may flower long after we move on. Our job now is to be visionary farmers — and to plant seeds of new possibilities without the expectation we will see their flowering.