0:00:16.439,0:00:18.678 Anytime you want to understand something... 0:00:19.278,0:00:21.024 Why is such and such happening? 0:00:21.255,0:00:23.358 Why is there a bio-diversity crisis? 0:00:23.512,0:00:27.278 Why are we drilling for more oil, 0:00:27.278,0:00:29.894 when it's polluting the atmosphere 0:00:29.894,0:00:31.509 and causing oil spills? Why? 0:00:31.509,0:00:33.509 And you ask why!? 0:00:33.509,0:00:36.663 And down a couple levels of why, you always get to money. 0:00:40.040,0:00:42.530 I talk a lot about the story of self, that every culture has, 0:00:44.066,0:00:46.080 that answers the question - What are you? 0:00:46.557,0:00:47.953 What is it to be human? 0:00:49.953,0:00:52.006 It says that you're this separate being, 0:00:52.006,0:00:53.583 among other separate beings, 0:00:53.583,0:00:56.683 in a universe that is separate from yourself as well. 0:00:57.439,0:01:00.044 You are not me, that plant is not me, 0:01:00.044,0:01:01.895 that's something separate. 0:01:02.141,0:01:06.238 And this story of self really creates our world. 0:01:07.454,0:01:08.865 If you're a separate self 0:01:08.865,0:01:10.480 and there's other separate selves out there, 0:01:10.480,0:01:12.042 other species out there, 0:01:12.042,0:01:16.315 the universe is fundamentally indifferent to you 0:01:16.315,0:01:21.957 or even hostile, then you definitely want to control. 0:01:22.972,0:01:26.638 You want to be able to have power over other beings and over 0:01:26.638,0:01:30.154 these whimsical, arbitrary forces of nature 0:01:30.154,0:01:33.433 that could extinguish you any time. 0:01:35.849,0:01:38.577 This story is becoming obsolete, 0:01:38.577,0:01:41.085 it's becoming no longer true. 0:01:41.624,0:01:44.009 We don't resonate with it any more. 0:01:44.809,0:01:47.953 It's actually generating crises that are insoluble 0:01:47.953,0:01:50.590 from the methods of control. 0:01:51.621,0:01:55.017 That's what's clearing the space for us 0:01:55.017,0:01:59.207 to step into a new story of self and a new story of the people. 0:02:12.299,0:02:23.248 (wind chimes) 0:02:23.755,0:02:25.520 Money is an agreement. 0:02:25.812,0:02:27.993 It doesn't have value all by itself. 0:02:28.578,0:02:32.374 It has value because people agree that it has value. 0:02:32.667,0:02:35.140 Economists will tell you what money does. 0:02:36.525,0:02:38.952 That it facilitates exchange. 0:02:39.444,0:02:42.652 You use it to count things and keep track of things. 0:02:42.652,0:02:44.245 You write some numbers 0:02:44.245,0:02:47.468 on a magical piece of paper called a check, 0:02:47.468,0:02:51.538 and you can cause all kinds of abundant goods 0:02:51.538,0:02:53.131 to come to your house. 0:02:53.716,0:02:56.801 You can even cause misery for thousands of people 0:02:56.801,0:03:02.067 if you are one of the highest initiates of the magic of money. 0:03:04.159,0:03:06.323 Scarcity is built into the money system, 0:03:06.323,0:03:08.657 on a most obvious level. 0:03:08.657,0:03:10.638 It's because of the way money is created, 0:03:10.638,0:03:12.398 as interest-bearing debt. 0:03:12.567,0:03:15.112 Any time a bank lends money into existence, 0:03:15.112,0:03:17.496 or the Federal Reserve creates money, 0:03:17.496,0:03:21.480 the money comes along with a corresponding amount of debt, 0:03:21.480,0:03:23.972 and the debt, because of interest on it, 0:03:23.972,0:03:25.922 is always greater than the amount of money. 0:03:26.168,0:03:28.671 It essentially throws people into competition with each other 0:03:28.671,0:03:30.030 for never enough money. 0:03:30.860,0:03:33.511 Growth is another thing that's built into our money system. 0:03:33.757,0:03:35.765 If you're a bank, you're going to lend it to the person 0:03:35.765,0:03:38.020 who's going to create new goods and services, 0:03:38.020,0:03:40.696 so they can profit and they can pay you back. 0:03:41.035,0:03:42.316 You're not going to lend to somebody 0:03:42.316,0:03:44.142 who doesn't create goods and services. 0:03:44.142,0:03:47.121 So money goes toward those who will create even more of it. 0:03:47.721,0:03:49.649 But basically economic growth means 0:03:49.649,0:03:52.147 that you have to find something that 0:03:52.147,0:03:55.849 was once nature and make it into a good, 0:03:55.849,0:03:57.523 or was once a gift relationship 0:03:57.523,0:03:59.098 and make it into a service. 0:03:59.098,0:04:01.674 You have to find something that people once got for free 0:04:01.674,0:04:04.218 or did for themselves or for each other 0:04:04.218,0:04:08.134 and then take it away and sell it back to them, somehow. 0:04:09.488,0:04:12.231 By turning things into commodities, 0:04:12.231,0:04:14.573 we get cut off from nature 0:04:14.573,0:04:17.406 in the same ways we're cut off from community. 0:04:17.421,0:04:21.161 We look at nature with eyes, well, it's just a bunch of stuff. 0:04:21.191,0:04:23.471 And that leaves us very lonely 0:04:23.471,0:04:28.505 and leaves us with many basic human needs that go unmet. 0:04:28.520,0:04:30.623 And if you have money, 0:04:30.623,0:04:34.792 you might try to fulfill this hunger through purchasing, 0:04:34.792,0:04:38.923 through buying things, or through accumulating money itself. 0:04:38.923,0:04:42.649 Of course, now we're nearing the end of growth. 0:04:42.649,0:04:46.791 Our planet can't sustain much more growth. 0:04:46.791,0:04:50.758 That's why the crisis that we have today won't go away. 0:04:59.264,0:05:01.117 One of the things I talk about is the sense 0:05:01.117,0:05:03.202 of wrongness that I had as a child. 0:05:03.202,0:05:05.323 I think most kids have some sense of it, 0:05:05.323,0:05:07.452 that it's not supposed to be this way. 0:05:07.452,0:05:10.461 For example, that you're not supposed to actually hate Monday, 0:05:10.461,0:05:14.700 and be happy when you don't have to go to school. 0:05:14.700,0:05:16.701 School should be something that you love. 0:05:16.701,0:05:19.089 Life should be something that you love. 0:05:19.089,0:05:22.841 We didn't earn any of the things that really 0:05:22.841,0:05:26.555 keep us alive or that make life good. 0:05:26.555,0:05:30.807 We didn't earn air. We didn't earn being born. 0:05:30.807,0:05:32.867 We didn't earn our conception. 0:05:32.867,0:05:34.702 We didn't earn being able to breathe. 0:05:34.702,0:05:38.202 We didn't earn having a planet that can provide food. 0:05:38.202,0:05:40.652 We didn't earn the Sun. 0:05:40.652,0:05:46.518 So, I think that on some level, people have this inborn gratitude. 0:05:46.518,0:05:49.787 Because on some level we know that we didn't earn any of this. 0:05:49.787,0:05:52.852 We know that life is a gift. 0:05:52.852,0:05:54.830 Well, if you know that you've received a gift, 0:05:54.830,0:05:57.001 then the natural response is gratitude, 0:05:57.001,0:05:59.683 the desire to give in turn. 0:05:59.683,0:06:05.717 In a gift economy, it's not true, the way it is in our money economy, 0:06:05.717,0:06:09.434 that everybody's in competition with everybody else. 0:06:09.434,0:06:11.976 In a gift society, if you have more than you need, 0:06:11.976,0:06:15.268 you give it to somebody who needs it. 0:06:15.268,0:06:18.935 That's how you get status. 0:06:18.935,0:06:21.350 And that's even where security comes from. 0:06:21.350,0:06:23.518 Because if you build up all that gratitude, 0:06:23.518,0:06:25.934 then people are going to take care of you, too. 0:06:25.934,0:06:29.002 And if there are no gifts, then there's no community. 0:06:29.002,0:06:32.452 And we can see as society has become more monetized, 0:06:32.452,0:06:34.836 that community has disappeared. 0:06:34.836,0:06:37.626 People long for it, but you can't just have community 0:06:37.626,0:06:40.628 as an add-on to a monetized life. 0:06:40.628,0:06:43.379 You have to actually need each other. 0:06:43.379,0:06:47.885 People desire to enact their gifts, 0:06:47.885,0:06:51.017 and if they were free from money, they would do it. 0:06:51.017,0:06:53.142 But money is so often a barrier. 0:06:53.142,0:07:00.101 People think - Oh, I would love to do this, but can I afford to do it? Is it practical? 0:07:00.101,0:07:05.602 Money stops them. What beautiful thing would I do? What am I called to do? 0:07:05.602,0:07:08.768 Would it be to set up big gardens for homeless people 0:07:08.768,0:07:11.574 to take care of, and reconnect them to nature? 0:07:11.574,0:07:15.267 Would it be to clean up a toxic waste site? 0:07:15.267,0:07:16.329 What would you do? 0:07:16.329,0:07:17.958 What beautiful thing would you do? 0:07:17.958,0:07:20.208 And why isn't it practical to do these things? 0:07:20.208,0:07:23.384 Why isn't there money in those things? 0:07:30.929,0:07:34.393 An economy that embodies the principles of the gift 0:07:34.393,0:07:38.268 is an economy that is simply grounded in the truth. 0:07:38.268,0:07:41.318 The task before us is to align money 0:07:41.318,0:07:45.020 with the true expression of our gifts. 0:07:45.020,0:07:48.104 It requires a very different mechanism 0:07:48.104,0:07:51.104 for the creation of money and the circulation of money. 0:07:51.104,0:07:54.354 They include things like negative interest, 0:07:54.354,0:07:56.955 which reverses the effects of usury. 0:07:56.955,0:07:59.420 They include things like the internalization of costs, 0:07:59.420,0:08:01.169 so you can no longer pollute 0:08:01.169,0:08:04.296 and have somebody else or future generations pay the costs. 0:08:04.296,0:08:06.008 They include a social dividend: 0:08:06.008,0:08:10.354 sharing in the wealth that comes from what should be the commons 0:08:10.354,0:08:13.555 -- the land, the aquifers, our cultural heritage. 0:08:13.555,0:08:17.852 They include a relocalization of a lot of economic functions. 0:08:17.852,0:08:22.484 They include all kinds of peer-to-peer financing 0:08:22.484,0:08:25.318 and the peer-to-peer revolution. 0:08:25.318,0:08:29.489 What will it take to shift away from the current money system? 0:08:29.489,0:08:33.769 The current money system just works less and less well. 0:08:33.769,0:08:37.249 Growth can only be maintained at a higher and higher cost. 0:08:37.249,0:08:39.958 Even our best efforts can't keep the economy growing 0:08:39.958,0:08:43.711 as fast as it needs to for the system to work 0:08:43.711,0:08:45.928 -- and that creates further misery. 0:08:45.928,0:08:48.382 People just can't take it anymore. 0:08:49.455,0:08:51.964 Even the people on top, even the winners 0:08:51.964,0:08:54.409 of this artificially induced competition, 0:08:54.409,0:08:55.717 they're not happy either. 0:08:55.717,0:08:58.722 It's not working for them either. 0:08:58.722,0:09:02.807 So I think that we're going to see a series of crisis moments, 0:09:02.807,0:09:05.309 each one more severe than the last. 0:09:05.309,0:09:07.325 And at each crisis moment 0:09:07.325,0:09:09.409 we'll have a collective choice: 0:09:09.409,0:09:14.194 do we give up the game and join the people? 0:09:14.194,0:09:16.862 Or do we hold on even tighter? 0:09:16.862,0:09:21.999 It's really up to us to determine 0:09:21.999,0:09:25.382 at what point this wake up point will happen. 0:09:31.668,0:09:33.418 Was this all a big mistake? 0:09:33.418,0:09:37.644 That's a good question, and it sure seems like it was sometimes. 0:09:37.644,0:09:40.585 When you look around at just the horrors 0:09:40.585,0:09:42.067 that have taken place on this Earth 0:09:42.067,0:09:44.110 and that are ongoing right now. 0:09:44.110,0:09:47.196 And some people think: I just don't want any part of this, 0:09:47.196,0:09:50.197 civilization was a huge mistake. 0:09:50.197,0:09:54.745 I came to see this whole journey of separation 0:09:54.745,0:09:58.248 not as a mistake, but as part of a larger process. 0:09:58.248,0:10:01.877 It started, I think, with the environmental movement in the 1960s, 0:10:01.877,0:10:05.841 that was its first awakening into mass consciousness. 0:10:05.841,0:10:07.978 And the astronauts went up 0:10:07.978,0:10:11.929 and experienced the pinnacle of separation. 0:10:11.929,0:10:14.181 And the photos that got beamed down, 0:10:14.181,0:10:18.227 even today it still evokes love in us. 0:10:18.227,0:10:20.188 So, we're falling in love with Earth. 0:10:20.188,0:10:23.144 That's one part of our transition into adulthood. 0:10:23.144,0:10:28.112 The other part is the coming of age ordeal, 0:10:28.112,0:10:31.144 when the old world falls apart, 0:10:31.144,0:10:35.240 and a new world is born. 0:10:36.316,0:10:38.217 You know, a child plays 0:10:38.217,0:10:41.664 a child plays and develops his or her gifts, 0:10:41.664,0:10:45.370 but doesn't apply them toward their true purpose yet. 0:10:45.370,0:10:46.671 And that's what humanity's been doing. 0:10:46.671,0:10:48.870 We've been messing around, 0:10:48.870,0:10:53.177 playing with our gifts of technology and culture, 0:10:53.177,0:10:55.871 and developing these gifts. 0:10:55.871,0:10:58.891 Now we're coming into adulthood and it's time 0:10:58.891,0:11:02.121 to apply them to our true purpose. 0:11:02.121,0:11:04.480 At the beginning, I think that'll be simply to heal 0:11:04.480,0:11:06.064 the damage that's been done. 0:11:06.064,0:11:08.037 And there's a lot of healing that needs to be done, 0:11:08.037,0:11:12.371 and it's almost impossible actually. 0:11:12.857,0:11:15.236 You could say that really we're in the business 0:11:15.236,0:11:19.055 of creating a miracle here on Earth. 0:11:21.240,0:11:24.537 I'm saying it's something that is impossible 0:11:24.537,0:11:27.708 from an old understanding of reality, 0:11:27.708,0:11:30.075 but possible from a new one. 0:11:30.075,0:11:31.755 And, in fact, it's necessary. 0:11:31.755,0:11:34.800 And, in fact, anything less than that isn't even worth trying.