Integritus Prime

I’ve studied and practiced biomimicry (the science of emulating nature), for several years now, including how to apply it to leadership, business, meditation, engagement, and wellness. Recently, like you, I’ve been thinking a lot about the children who have been separated from their parents. I’ve been pondering the moral corruption, and logical senselessness of racism, sexism, and a host of other “isms” that are clearly visible in our society, even now, in 2018. While this is cause for shame, it brings to light the stark wisdom of nature’s approach to resilience. We can learn a lot from nature about what makes a community or a network of relationships strong and resilient.

Resilience, in biomimicry or ecology, is the ability to recover well from disturbances. The greater the diversity of organisms in an ecological community or ecosystem, the more resilient that system becomes. This is because the chances of some organisms having the capacity to bounce back from the disturbance is greater, when the pool of diversity is larger. The more of us there are and the more differences between us, the better.

So, what makes us resilient as a society? The answer is the same.

In a word: diversity. We need different and diverse perspectives, ways of knowing, skills, cultures, and worldviews in order to face and recover well from challenges like disasters, epidemics, and other problems that will only worsen with climate change. Instead, we are being asked by “leaders” to dwell on and act on basic differences between people that provide diversity, and build resilience.

In a time where we need to integrate human consciousness with the Earth’s needs, so that we become nature, we are fighting among ourselves, while the Earth, our life support system, is dying. Social resilience comes from differences between us.

Consider this example: what if we idiotically kick out immigrants, then discover that their worldview contains the wisdom we need to solve critical challenges?

I’ll let you consider this example and this topic, and join me in moving forward in the spirit of celebrating, not punishing, diversity – it’s the source of our social, ecological, and planetary resilience. Let me know what you think about this post.

The biomimetic case for social resilience says increase and embrace diversity instead of pushing away people who are different from us. Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash.