![\"Image](\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-HjCchL50FUA\/UBx9fsnYcpI\/AAAAAAAAAw0\/C6cOuGGovII\/s1600\/dandelion+two.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
During the perspectives contemplative practice, I was shocked by the extent to which each perspective changed my emotions and physical sensations. \u00a0The \u201cwe have no hope\u201d perspective paralyzed me. The \u201cworld is getting better\u201d perspective made me feel relaxed and relieved my sense of responsibility.<\/span><\/p>\n The \u201cthings are what they are\u201d perspective, however, was both the hardest perspective to take and the most effective. \u00a0I found it very difficult to remove myself to a place where I felt like an objective observer watching human activity through a giant glass window. This meditation reminded me of the feeling of a favorite melancholy book from childhood, <\/span>The Dandelion Seed<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0The book deals with the pain of leaving home and facing the challenges of one\u2019s life. \u00a0In one scene, the dandelion whispers to the seed, \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid\u2026 the wind and the sun and the rain will take care of you. \u00a0Let go and you will see\u201d (Anthony). \u00a0During the meditation, I felt fearful of letting go and relinquishing control.<\/span><\/p>\n When I finally allowed myself to take the \u201cthings are what they are\u201d perspective, however, I found I felt strangely free because I was no longer a participant; I was an outside observer of human activity. I felt relieved to see human existence as if it were a movie separate from me. \u00a0A series of images flew through my mind: I saw balding mountains with giant swaths of clear-cut forest; I saw murky, polluted rivers with no signs of life; I saw grocery store aisles filled with ripe fruit imported from around the world and imagined a billowing cloud of CO2 trailing from each perfect fruit like ugly black smoke. \u00a0Then, I saw cars crawling like head lice over Earth\u2019s skin and sparse green hair. Yet, instead of feeling sad or angry or paralyzed, I felt calm and curious. \u00a0Why us? How can we be powerful enough to take over the Earth, and yet not powerful enough to take control of climate change and our own future? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In Empathic Civilization, Rifkin explains that to be authentic, we must rely on imagination and creativity and have faith in ourselves. \u00a0\u00a0We must first face climate change objectively with the \u201cit is what it is\u201d perspective so we can then strive for authenticity and tackle the problem.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" During the perspectives contemplative practice, I was shocked by the extent to which each perspective changed my emotions and physical sensations. \u00a0The \u201cwe have no hope\u201d perspective paralyzed me. The \u201cworld is getting better\u201d perspective made me feel relaxed and relieved my sense of responsibility. The \u201cthings are what they are\u201d perspective, however, was both the hardest perspective to take… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemplative-practices","category-week-7-contemplative-practices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/honr392a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/honr392a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/honr392a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/honr392a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/honr392a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/honr392a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":634,"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/honr392a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions\/634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/honr392a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/honr392a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/honr392a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}