The Sustainable Mind
Sustainable is the word of the decade, possibly the adjective for an entire century yet to come—a buzz-word, jargon, lingo of the linguists and necessary part of every top-ten, self-help or planetary-help best seller. Necessary hyphenated headline for the hip, the in, the new-age when that term is already old-age.
Whether the word itself is sustainable is yet to be seen.
Certainly most of the nouns for which it serves as modifier are in what Dick Cheney would describe as their ‘last throes.’ Sustainable agriculture? Good luck. Pick your favorite noun, from art to zen, and ask yourself if it’s sustainable. In an increasingly distracted and throw-away world, we’ve all too often ‘moved on from that.’
If something has been lost, the thing we’ve moved on from is the sustainable mind.
My definition of a sustainable mind is one that is able or trained to reflect upon conditions, keep them in focus long enough to draw a conclusion and then defend that conclusion among various alternative possibil…