Today we will continue our journey of the 11 basic theological virtues that every citizen on earth must practice in our daily lives, regardless if you are Christocentric of any denomination (Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Adventist, Assembly of God, Jews for Jesus, etc), or if you are Muslim, or Buddhist, or whatever. The magic of the ethical virtues is “these are universal”. In consequence, to study the beatitudes is so essential. If political, economic and social leaders hold the ethical virtues into ethical codes for each project, enterprise, multinational corporation or government, then there is a common ground of attitudes, thoughts, behavior and actions between all the stakeholders of the endeavor. Train trajectories need fixed rail roads which allow each train to go from A to B. If before starting a project, or a city, or a program, all the stakeholders or the movers and shakers implement the effort to define an ethical code for that specific project; then whenever issues arise, during the trajectory of the project, the ethic code is and will be the valuable “guideline” to keep things on “ethical route”. Government plans without ethical codes are disasters, because the team members end up losing the rail-road of the project, and magnificent mistakes happen.

Comparing our art with reality. If you see the following image (the comparison of the cats), you can compare the differences between the painting that I tried to replicate and the photo reference (Source image: Mercola Healthy pets). I tried to draw the little cat as identical to the photo, but still needs some adjustments. So the same happens with ethical virtues. We as humans can try to emulate how to practice the virtues in our life, our families, projects, companies or governments. We can only “try” to practice the virtues of humbleness, meekness, mourning, hunger for righteousness, mercy, purity of heart, courage under suffering, love, faith and hope. But we won´t be perfect, we will never be able to replicate the perfection of the real image. Each endeavor will give us a door to practice our ethical codes in decision making and execution closer to perfection. With time we will be better, as in painting. Only practice and time (which brings experience) will help us to develop ethical virtues in automatic mode, and that is why decision makers at the top of any entity must be well trained in ethics, ethical codes and how to move their teams to procure ethical virtues in action.

We have visited only 11 virtues on this journey, but of course there are plenty more ethical virtues for you to use. Nevertheless I believe these 11 are essential to any road-map in order to exercise morality in action. The last virtue (still pending) that we will cover is “integrity”, which will be offered to you next week.

Connecting the dots between the virtues and ecological societies. To create ecological communities is not easy. Why? Because, first, we must breath that we are ecological people from inside out. It starts with the citizens, with each of us. We, then, elect leaders that are ecological, who can represent us in democratic elections. So the transformation must start with each of us. The ethical virtues that are crucial to reinvent ourselves into ecological communities have been shown in this saga. Still I have not landed to define ecological communities with all its ramifications and particularities, which I will start to do in some days. The context of the Covid19 pandemic has shaken our reality: our societies are heading to an inhuman disaster, a denaturalized techie NAIQI society based on Nanotechnologies, Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Supremacy and the Internet. If the world is going this way, we need to counteract with some weight in the opposite direction, by betting and procuring on the environment protection, including every industry that is at risk to perish by the excessive NAIQI technologies, like our hand-made artistic expressions, lively traditional kids games in the nature, educational traditional models, culture, traditions, etc.

Pause-Repair-Proceed with Caution. When I say that we need the ecological perspective in our lives, I do not mean to barren and destroy the NAIQIs, but to pause-repair-proceed with caution with them. It signifies to go on a techie slow motion, or a marathon, instead than a sprint. It means that the tech sector leaders need to restrain themselves, be extremely selective with tech inventions, and demand more regulation from the governments (which are way behind the tech speed), in order to build business models with equilibrium… Again if the governments are not able to impose regulation at the same speed than the tech global sector is inventing things, then the same tech companies have to dismiss those technologies that may harm us as a global society. We can´t continue with the NAIQIs road, as our ancestors did with the nuclear road or the plastics road.

By loving the nature and the planet earth, and by building our own sources of food in our gardens, we are being wise into our own sustainability. COVID19 could be so mild in comparison to a global Ebola pest, where no Amazon.com or Apple or Microsoft or Google will help us to survive with the basic needs? We must be ready for that time of life, and teach our children of the new generations how to bear those type of situations. The COVID19 pandemic is not the first one, neither the last one of the pests that we will afford. If we are not cautious, genetic engineering may create future imbalanced disorders to our food or insects or organisms that will mutate and may harm us… So better we stop or pause our own “disruption technologies” disbalanced journey in advance, or the legacy that Generation X, Millennials and Generation Z will leave in this world will be not disgusting, but extremely dangerous.

The hope to live in ecological communities. We do not mean to go back to the paleolithic times either. We don´t mean to force you to get out of packed high-density cities as New York, LA, London, Hong Kong, Tokyo or Beijing. If you are a citizen person, no one can oblige you to change your life-style, it is up to you. But if we are conscious enough to understand that our life is in disequilibrium and danger, have faith that in less than 100 years another horrible pandemic worst than Ebola, maybe created in a Swiss Basel lab that may play wrongly with genetics in Europe. Our globalization and mobility will spread this powerful disease in less than 3 months everywhere, and no techie Amazon delivery company will be there to save from famine.

The faith in ecological communities. The concept of ecological communities is basically to do everything we can (in our personal, economic and social life) to protect and help the natural resources to flourish, but to keep balanced ecosystems for our own sustainability. It is beyond our food gardens with good nutrients, but to promote the caring of the planet. You can be a high-tech specialist with your heart and HQ job placed in Silicon Valley, but you still can “choose to live” in 1/2 acre land, located in Monterey County (near Templeton), which is 6 hours driving from Palo Alto. And you can work only 3 days of the week at your farm, WFH with your family; and commute when is needed to Palo Alto. In your piece of rural land you will have your own nourritures garden, your own cow, 5 goats, your hens and chickens, and your family will be “safe” living under ecological sustainable terms.  The closer you are to the land, the easiest will be for your brain to provide balanced solutions in your tip top tech Silicon Valley company. Your mind will be in equilibrium. Anyone who treasures the beauty of the nature, is able to be “integral” in thinking and actions. Even if an earthquake destroys California, you and your family will be located in rural areas, where you can survive.

What I am trying to do is to bring the concept of ecological societies on your table. It means a new organization of societies.  If your salary doesn’t give you enough to buy an acre of land, you can decide to live in modest ecological neighborhoods, in which a whole community will share the same life-style of a modern farm, without losing your link to the developed world. You can share your nourritures garden with others, and this will help you to survive in the case of a famine crisis.

The more in touch you are with the nature and its production blessings, the more you are close to God. God told us in Genesis to care for the planet and to be auto-sustainable. Any career discipline or job or entrepreneurship path, whenever you reach the top, if you are in touch with the nature, you will face decision making for new products and services, and you will be considerate with the environment.

Ecological societies are balanced. Business models and companies have been, are and will always arise with new stuff, but if we breath with an ecological spirit, and we practice ethical virtues in tune for the caring of natural resources, we will be much more ready for any scenery in which our mobility or sustainability may be affected in the future. By choosing an ecological perspective, any expert of any discipline that you can imagine, may and will continue doing their own, but they won´t be disconnected of the richness of living in the nature… the same nature will fill their balanced mental frameworks, the same nature will help them in applying ethical codes (with virtues) in all what they do. And by role modeling that life-style the ecological concept will self-propell from generation to generation.

COVID19 has shown us that the world is imbalanced. Our beautiful planet is moving towards the wrong direction, and that is putting in danger everything. When we are watching such imbalance, all “balanced experts”, all who know this truth and “educate the new generations” have to act. It is the moment to act with faith and hope for a balanced future. To use our brains to contrarrest the coming disasters. Please remember, there is always a middle ground. And humans need to stay in the middle for their own survival not in the extremes, in the political and economic issues, in the scientific, arts, architecture design and social domains. When experts or specialists hold balanced brains, they are the first ones to perceive what we are talking about.

Next week we will continue with the virtue of Integrity. Until then, thank you for reading to me. Have a rested weekend.

Disclaimer: Illustrations in Watercolor are painted by Eleonora Escalante. Other types of illustrations or videos (which are not mine) are used for educational purposes ONLY.  Nevertheless, the majority of the pictures, images, or videos shown on this blog are not mine.  I do not own any of the lovely photos or images posted unless otherwise stated.

Published by eleonoraescalantestrategy

Corporate Strategy Artist, San Salvador, El Salvador View all posts by eleonoraescalantestrategy