Introduction

Most of us have at some time or other sat down and wondered about how our working lives should be. At times, we feel so occupied with hectic work schedules and family activities that we just move on mechanically with our lives. We feel something was taken from us, and yet we are not so sure what it is. We all know we have to make money; we get so engrossed in the rat race that we do not seem fully satisfied. Cost of living keeps rising, and financing an education (in all parts of the world) costs a small fortune. Without two people working, we feel there is no way one can make ends meet. We worry about our children’s education, our health care, and old age.

At the same time, we want to have some relief from life’s everyday chores and to have some fun as well. We read all kinds of magazines, listen to news on the television, stay connected with the Internet, and make sure we are constantly aware of what is going on in this world. But sometimes we still feel empty. We want to articulate our thoughts in public, and social media make it easier than ever to do so. But it is risky to talk about things like ecology, our spiritual selves, or other issues so personal to our lives. Environmental problems are an everyday occurrence that we have come to accept. When did we stop asking, “how can we as individuals make any difference?” I believe the answer lies in these personal aspects that, when related to our social, cultural, and physical environments, can have the most impact on our lives.

We often ignore the obvious economic and environmental problems that afflict society and, instead, through the manipulative aspects of science, economics, politics, and sociology we are fixated on solutions. We create products, systems, and services that emphasize fixing individual parts of the system, ignoring their impact on the whole system. We pursue the more obscure phenomena of matter and nature because we tend to believe that an emphasis on reductionism and top-down solutions will cure society’s problems.

We all know that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but we continue to manipulate the parts and thus adversely impact the whole. A holistic understanding of the whole and the interrelationship it has with its parts may need more attention for creating a well-balanced economy. A well-balanced economy needs to address the triad of sustainable development, ie, economy, equality, and ecology, in a holistic manner.

What I discuss in the book is obvious: A focus on the whole. Finding solutions to the obvious can make the most meaningful impact on our lives. This approach can be more significant than dwelling solely on the obscure or the individual parts that impact any system. There is merit in placing emphasis on both the whole and the parts. However, in focusing on the parts without looking at the whole, we distort the emphasis, intention, and results of our endeavors.

I am simply talking ecological issues and sustainable living within the framework of ecological issues. These are the obvious issues in any society, and ecosystems, by their very definition, embrace all parts of the earthly household. I choose to convey this message through poetry interlaced with storytelling. I also embellish storytelling with nonfiction examples and facts to entertain you in matters such as ecology, environment, and economics. I hope after reading this book you will walk away with the feeling that you learned something; perhaps with some thoughts on becoming a nature entrepreneur or an eco-entrepreneur.

I’m not sure why I ventured to write this book. Maybe it was one of those creative endeavors where I wanted to capture and share my thoughts and feelings on our state of affairs. In my own way, wanted to take stock of what I had done for the world or the country that gave birth to me. So, in a simple poetic story I decided to share this feeling. I attribute any insights in my poetry to the wonderful force that feeds our minds and nourishes our thoughts. We sometimes wonder whether this force is generated within us or outside of us, or if it simply develops from the knowledge we gather over time. Perhaps it is a combination of all these. Anything that people consider offensive, I attribute to my own foibles that may have tainted my thinking. We all lead the lives with an amalgam of thoughts that are good, bad, and simply ignorant.

We are always constantly battling within ourselves to balance our thoughts with appropriate actions. We desire our thoughts to produce actions that are meaningful to both society and nature. But how much are we trained to undertake such tasks? Even in this book, I sometimes struggled to accomplish the same. It is a delicate act to write book that is both good for the society and nature. But this is the true challenge for all individuals – to do not just what is good for society but also to do what is good for the whole and for nature. I made an attempt to balance constructive criticism with hope and not despair. I tried to refl ect my own mental struggles with life, perhaps in an attempt to draw the reader in a collective pursuit where we all can face the vicissitudes of life in a simple manner. I made a simple attempt at this. None of us will ever be able to change our world overnight. But we certainly can make a slow and a steady progress in our everyday actions. Our actions will determine our quality of our lives for our children and the future generations. This is what the book is about – living in a sustainable manner within the context of our culture. When people live in a sustainable manner, they transform economics within the context of any culture. For example, a consumer economy could be transformed to a cultural economy. I address several benefits of such a transformation in this book. While the book is written in the context of the Indian economy, most of the concepts may have a universal appeal and applicability in the West as well as the East.

I don’t know why I chose a hybrid of poetry, storytelling, and nonfiction prose to convey these feelings. I may have chosen poetry because I could not say it in any better manner. Diane Ackerman, a poet, essayist, and a naturalist, in her book, Deep Play, describes poetry in this way: “A poem is where an emotional or metaphysical truce takes place. A poem knows about illusion and magic, how to glorify what is not glorious, how to bankrupt what is. It displays, in its alchemy of mind, the transmuting of the commonplace into golden saliences. A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically. It knows about spunk, zealousness, obstinacy, and deliverance.”

Therefore, I chose poetry to glorify the things that seem to have become meaningless in society, issues such as our environment and ecology. Poetry was used to theorize the subject matter of cultural economy and sustainable living, while storytelling was used to embellish the meaning that was created in the poems.

Storytelling, in four parts, is spread across four different chapters. The setting of the story is in a fictional city called Zindabad in India. The plot is interlaced with nonfiction messages to convey a reflection on our state of affairs. The art of sustainable living is created in this story to demonstrate the benefits of living and creating a cultural economy. The momentum and the drama of the story capture real-life situations in a fictional format. The action takes place in the midst of bustling city life. This is the thesis of the book – to convey a personal opinion and offer the solution of a people-initiated economic plan (as opposed to a government-initiated economic plan) for India conveyed through poetry and storytelling.