cthewind's Blog

It’s ok to get smaller—to contract, retreat, rest, grieve, change what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. NOTE: This is not about shrinking or diminishing; if this is your concern, there’ll be a future post on that.

What I mean about getting smaller is deciding not to do things you once did, reining in the expenditure of energy in multiple directions, ending the reckless search for more.

In a speech to world leaders in 2019 Greta Thunberg bore witness to the damage done by “fairy tales of eternal economic growth.” It’s true for the planet. It’s true for institutions. It’s true for you.

Nothing about the human condition is eternal. We share in common with all life forms cycles of growth and decay, birth and death.

Economy is rule or management (nomos) of the household (oikos). Thinking about it only in terms of markets and bottom lines, indulging in “fairy tales of eternal economic growth” is an impoverished view that denies the fullness and frailty of the human condition as well as the essential relation of all life.

Ecology, again home (oikos), this time with underlying system or study of (logos), already opens the conversation about growth and contraction or even decay within a different context. Living systems behave in ways that respond to their environments and strive to build cultures that foster life.

Not everything they choose is life-giving. Sometimes a strategy chosen for survival or adaptation comes at too high a cost to another part of the system. Ongoing health or growth in one part of the system slowly chokes the life of another part of the system.

Is it really worth it to keep growing at such high costs?

At what point are the strategies completely at odds with the environment, delusional about human possibilities, and negligent toward relational connections?

This is a moment to contract, retreat, rest, grieve, change, make room—to get smaller.

Getting smaller does not mean getting less important or less meaningful. In fact, getting smaller often coincides with a sense of grounding and wholeness—integrity of body and soul, much more in touch with one’s own cycles of growth and decay and much better positioned to share life with others.

Reducing damage to the planet, within institutions, and toward human bodies is our call in this moment. Get smaller…and be whole.