Peter Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, is an Emmy Award-winning composer, NY Times best-selling author and noted philanthropist. Currently, he is releasing socially-conscious music and touring his "Concert & Conversation" series in support of his book Life Is What You Make It .
 
 

For many thousands of years, most of life was a mystery. Still today it can feel pretty mysterious walking on an unlit country road. We created many (many, many) stories to account for the things we didn’t understand. Unknown places were where the gods and scary things lived.

Season’s cycles were a mystery .... and then we domesticated plants. Animals were a mystery ... and then we domesticated animals. The stars and planets were a mystery ... and then we charted the heavens. Having looked outward, we started looking inward. Anatomy, psychology, quantum mechanics; everything became “understood.” Science was trying to prove that everything was measurable and could be named – or it just wasn’t “real.”

For the past 150 years, change has come more rapidly. It’s often called progress. From electricity, the telephone, and broadcasting, to steam power, the assembly line, and air travel. Throw in refrigeration and advertising and you’ve got a lot of things to adjust to. It’s no wonder that the things on the planet involved in all this got a little off track. No wonder it’s called progress and seemingly everyone wants in on it. It feels pretty damn exciting.

But recent progress has given us something old again: the ability to hear stories from the storyteller. That hasn’t happened in about 500 years. The printing press was the first form of broadcasting; the first time the story was separated from the storyteller. Increasingly, our ability to relate to each other became more fragmented.

The nuclear family?  It’s a myth; part of the problem, actually.

It was brought about through modern convenience ... and home mortgages. At birth, we used to be passed around. Taken care of by people that loved us as we learned to trust, mostly with our eyes. Bonds were formed at the very earliest age through eye contact and touch. Starting about sixty years ago, things started to change. All manner of things allowed the family to become more insular. I certainly remember making myself a TV dinner more than once.

This lessened the ability for most of us—you, and me, and Dick Cheney among others—to create the neural pathways that for millennia helped us understand our fellow man and be confident in safe, loving relationships. It wasn’t perfect, but it was markedly different.

Next week: Can we turn this ship around?

What do you think? Share your story at changeourstory.com . Visit www.peterbuffett.com to learn more and Change Our Story to join the conversation on how we all can become active participants in shaping our future.   

Image courtesy of Hieropenen, licensed under Creative Commons. 

Peter Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, is an Emmy Award-winning composer, NY Times best-selling author and noted philanthropist. Currently, he is releasing socially-conscious music and touring his "Concert & Conversation" series in support of his book Life Is What You Make It .
 

I wrote the song "Poison the River" after watching the documentary film, Last Call At The Oasis. I was asked to write a song for the Chinese release of the film for the singer Sarah Li. This is also the first song recorded in my newly finished studio in upstate New York.  And while I was thinking of all the facts and figures I could research and pull together for this essay, I realized that my own backyard was actually the place to start, as it increasingly is for everyone when there’s talk about water.

Now you may think I’m going to bring up the issue of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.” But if you want to learn more about that, and how you, too, can light your tap water on fire, see the various articles on the subject and the film, Gasland.

No, this is about a simple act of dumping silt and other particulate matter from a reservoir into a creek so that the water is more palatable to drink while the waste creates a huge issue downstream (irrigation for farmers etc..). The creek looks more like a river of chocolate in Willy Wonka than the pristine stream it once was.

So I’m just going to focus on the “upstream,” “downstream” issue. Metaphorically, this is the issue of the day. For millennia, the downstream effects of the upstream behavior were never seen. Whether it’s in social, economic, political or environmental terms, most people went blindly about their business without seeing the full ramifications of what they were doing. This is not to say people didn’t care—although I’m afraid there will always be some of those—but “out of sight, out of mind” has played a huge role in how we’ve gotten into the environmental (among others) mess we’re in now.

I remember as a child hearing someone say, “Finish your dinner. There are children starving in (place name of 'developing' country here)."

As I got older, I wondered why that had to be. There must not be enough to go around. I never considered that something might be broken systemically; that maybe things need to be re-prioritized in some way. Are we putting emphasis on the wrong metrics?

If the engine is growth, return on investment. And if the fuel is efficiency? Productivity. The exhaust is ... whatever gets in the way.

If the driver of this car is rewarded in ways considered valuable in society, a lack of respect develops for anything that isn’t in right relation to the goals of the driver. The driver is trying to make a little more with a little less all the time.

“Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad or an economist.” ― Kenneth E. Boulding 

To me, the behavior sounds like someone that’s afraid. How can I keep getting more so I can feel safe enough or important enough? Or maybe it’s just a survival instinct that we all possess: "Let’s make sure we have enough in case it’s a hard winter" or "I’ll look important so I attract a good partner." 

Whatever the case, and I’m sure there are thousands of them, we don’t live in that world anymore. We can see our brothers and sisters across the globe. We can distribute necessary things far and wide. We are connected in ways that have never happened in history.

Next week, one version of how we got to this point.

What do you think? Share your story at changeourstory.com . Visit www.peterbuffett.com to learn more and Change Our Story to join the conversation on how we all can become active participants in shaping our future.   

Image courtesy of DeltaMike, licensed under Creative Commons. 

Peter Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, is an Emmy Award-winning composer, NY Times best-selling author and noted philanthropist. Currently, he is releasing socially-conscious music and touring his "Concert & Conversation" series in support of his book Life Is What You Make It .

I wrote my latest song, "Room Enough," at the end of the summer, and last week’s blog that accompanied it was written just as I was nearing the end of what I think I’ll call— and try to replicate again—a summer of “being.” There was not a lot of “doing” going on.

It took a little time to get used to. But we are, in fact, human “beings.” So it was interesting to live up to the name. A lot of the experience was optimized by our recent move to the country from New York City. The difference between having your shoes hit the pavement and your feet touch the ground is even more extraordinary than I imagined.

And I always love writing that word—extraordinary—because it suddenly takes on a different meaning: extra ... ordinary. Which is exactly what our feet on the ground should be ... very, very ordinary. In some medical practices, the feet are a window into the whole body.
 

So imagine this: our ancestors walking barefoot, constantly getting a body check and knowing when something was feeling right or wrong and potentially solving the issues through more walking!

But I digress ... my point was that the first blog regarding this new song felt like the tip of the iceberg; another piece of information to the puzzle of why we’re in the incredibly divisive and unequal world we seem to be in.

The latest bit of news I’ve learned is that, according to a recent study by the Tax Justice Network, there is $21 to $31 trillion worth of wealth hidden in tax shelters outside the home countries of the super wealthy.

This number (on the low side) is about the equivalent to the combined economies of the United States and Japan.

The lead author of the report states that, “The hidden offshore sector is large enough to make a significant difference to all or conventional measures of inequality.”

Now I can understand that way back when—when our ancestors were walking barefoot and we learned how to domesticate plants—that maybe we’d hold onto a little bit of this year’s bounty in case we had a bad year next time around. But things have gotten a little out of hand, and hand-to-mouth for far too many.

Why are so few holding on to so much? Why is sharing, spreading, equalizing our wealth so quickly heralded as socialist or beyond without any sense of common humanity? There was a term used by the “founders” of this country: commonwealth. Common Wealth. Sort of like Extra Ordinary. Words to live by. Words that allow us to be.

What do you think? Share your story at changeourstory.com. Visit www.peterbuffett.comto learn more and Change Our Story to join the conversation on how we all can become active participants in shaping our future.  

Image from Wikimedia Commons  

Peter Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, is an Emmy Award-winning composer, NY Times best-selling author and noted philanthropist. Currently, he is releasing socially-conscious music and touring his "Concert & Conversation" series in support of his book Life Is What You Make It . 



This is a song about finding common ground. And the idea that if we start from the inside out, and from our very earliest memories of how we thought the world was put together, we’d probably find such a similarity in feelings that we’d be surprised and saddened at how divisive we’ve become:

“Room Enough” by Peter Buffett  

I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed and found someone posting about Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s speech at the Republican National Convention. Actually, there were a lot of posts about it. But this one was in support of his ideology (I try to have a few contrary “friends” just to keep tabs on all this divisive story telling I seem to write so much about).

I followed the link to a conservative website and was stunned as I read the comments. I’m not saying that this is a conservative only trait, but the vitriol that was leveled at the single commenter that had a dissenting opinion was stunning. At this point I realize I’m probably sounding Pollyannaish to many. I suppose some people may accuse me of that on a weekly basis. But I was truly amazed at the intensity of the attacks.

As we head into the most heated months of the election cycle, I start to question whether there’s any interest at all in a search for common ground. Or any curiosity about what motivates the “other side” in its quest for power. And at the same time, I wonder if, when elected, there would be huge differences between the abilities of one president to get things done over another. If “landmark” legislation were passed how long would it be before it was dismantled?

I will keep writing, singing, saying; it’s about opening our hearts to what we’ve always known, what we were born knowing.

As this month’s song says at the outset:

Nobody can save your soul
And you can’t buy a life with gold
So take another look at what you hold. 

Now I’m going to direct this specifically at the ultra wealthy (and you may find that humorous). Why on earth are people holding onto billions of dollars, or multiple mega-mansions, or any number of massive purchases that sit idle?

Is there enough for everyone if everyone only holds onto just enough? So, what is enough?

What do you think? Share your story at changeourstory.com . Visit www.peterbuffett.com to learn more and Change Our Story to join the conversation on how we all can become active participants in shaping our future.  

Image courtesy of fallingwater123, licensed under Creative Commons.