The ones who come next are different, growing more slowly in a resource-limited world. Stressful conditions incentivize nurturing relations of cooperation alongside competition.

Enumerating the gifts you’ve received creates a sense of abundance, the knowing that you already have what you need. Recognizing “enoughness” is a radical act in an economy that is always urging us to consume more.

I care for the gift so it can keep on giving.

Ecopsychologists have shown that the practice of gratitude puts brakes on hyperconsumption. The relationships nurtured by gift thinking diminish our sense of scarcity and want. In that climate of sufficiency, our hunger for more abates and we take only what we need, in respect for the generosity of the giver.

But since competition reduces the carrying capacity for all concerned, natural selection favors those who can avoid competition.

Anything and everything in a market is implicitly defined as scarce. With scarcity as the main principle, the mindset that follows is based on commodification of goods and services.

But those colonizing plants find they cannot continue this rate of growth and resource extraction. They start to run out of resources, disease may attack the overdense populations, and competition begins to limit their growth. In fact, their behavior facilitates their own replacement. Their rampant growth captures nutrients and builds the more stab

I imagine if we acknowledged that everything we consume is the gift of Mother Earth, we would take better care of what we are given.

Materials move through ecosystems in a circular economy and are constantly transformed. Abundance is created by recycling, by reciprocity.