A wise man told me a story.
A philosopher living in southern India planted trees in his garden and around his village. An ancient story of greening the Earth. One day his enemies burned down all his trees. In a flash, literally, his life-work was destroyed. A friend from the village stopped by the philosopher’s house to commiserate. He offered to help, no doubt thinking they would hire some laborers to clear the wasted land and then start planting once the land recovered. Not to be. The philosopher said, “We must begin today. There is no time to lose: It takes 100 years to create a forest!”
There are many such traditional stories. A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, and it is urgent to take that first step. (Apologies to Lao Tzu.)
It is the urgency of the future calling out to us to take those first steps, to plant the few trees we can today, to create unimaginable possibilities for our future.
I thank Ripin Kalra for this story. It is in sharing our vision that we create those possibilities. It is in planting a few trees that we enroll others as possibility moves from vision to reality.
This is the heart of this thread in Adaptology.info. The painting by Eric Roncerel marks the landscape of adaptation. Find yourself in that landscape, then take those first steps in wayfinding. You’ll find like-hearted people.