Desert Creek House
My published books: The solution is simple ...but demanding
A Vision and Strategy for a Meaningful Life in a Fracturing World

802 Desert Creek Road,
Numbugga via Bega NSW 2550
Phone: 6492 8498
Email: desertcreek(at)skymesh.com.au                         Back to Home Page

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1) My last published book: The solution is simple ...but demanding - by Yves de Morsier

If you want to know how to order the book, click here to go directly here below or read on and you'll come there...

This is not a publicity. It is the result of many years (about 45-50?) of work and commitment I want to share with my friends and people who are interested and concerned by the present time of crisis we go through. First I hope this book will be a rich contribution and will bring new insights for you. And I need also your help and support to make it known; I believe it concerns many decisive issues that will define our immediate future. I started to write this book in 2018, just after the fires raged through our land in Numbugga. It is a kind of general assessment or summary of what I have learned through five decades of research, personal commitment, experiment and practice, aiming at finding simple harmonious ways of living. It is about climate change, growing gap between haves and have-nots, democracy, and also about our search for meaning and the sacred dimension of life. But it is essentially about our priorities and the way we live. This book proposes a very different approach of these issues. The present trend consists in planning new forms of energy and technologies. But I do not believe in technical solutions; they are only small parts of the solution, only as accessories. The root of the solution is for me of ethical or spiritual nature. It is about our values in life. The core of the present crisis (climate, justice, democracy) demonstrates our (lack of) awareness and the urgency for us, as people and local communities, to make new radical choices concerning what matters most for ourselves, our children, our families, friends and neighbours, in our personal or collective lives. The problem is not about CO2, the decay of biodiversity, the extreme poverty of half of humanity, etc. These are of course essential issues, but these are “only” the visible signs of something much deeper and much more central; these are the symptoms of what goes wrong in our priorities and beliefs concerning the way we share what is given to us by nature and society. The great challenge we are facing consists in daring to question what we accept almost unconditionally: to ask why we let market and technology and artificial intelligence guide our present and define our future. We all well know that our comfort and wealth are based on a lot of injustice, that our fashions and trends are based on illusions and speculations, that our short term aims of growth on a limited planet defy any purpose and common sense. We know that overproduction and overconsumption wreck our planet for the benefice and indulgence of hardly 10% of its inhabitants (us), who live on 84% of world total wealth; while more than half of its population (the others) live on only 2% of it. We know the problems and we know also the solutions. But there is a double question we never ask: Why do we adapt and surrender to ways of living that trigger injustice and destruction and do not even bring true happiness to us? Why don’t we start, now and here, living the kind of life that is based on the values we cherish most among others: compassion, equity, respect, diversity and complementarity? Why don’t we start here and now? This is in our power to find the solution and to act here and now. As ordinary people, citizens, workers, consumers, we are the only actors who can start the move towards change. There are indeed no other actors than us. Nobody will do it for us: no leaders, no specialists, no institutions, no corporations, no wise elders either. Why then do we wait and what for? I feel the burning need to answer these questions; to try to find the meaning of what can help us to break our resignation and start immediately a real move towards change. I need to ask many questions about the meaning of life and how we may find the path of liberation. Questions more than answers! It is why I had to write this book. Here, it is at your disposal. It is almost yours. I hope it will help us to overcome our inbuilt resistance and bring us a big step further: where life can be lived to the full, here and now. It is now our choice.

Download the table of contents or summary of the book - 14p (76 kb)

The Solution is simple ...but demanding

• This book presents a fundamentally new and different approach to the problem: climate change, the growing gap between rich and poor, the slow decay of our democracy, etc. … these are symptoms of a deeper crisis - one which cannot be fixed by technical measures.
  It is all about life and the meaning of life. We cannot wait for our leaders to act. Nobody else will do it for us! As ordinary people, citizens, workers, consumers, we have to empower ourselves; we are the main and only agents who can truly initiate the move towards change.
  
  
• The solution is simple: it is in our hands. In our daily lives we have all the necessary means to create, locally, the basic conditions for ourselves to thrive - and to put pressure on our leaders to follow us and implement structural change.
  
• But it is also demanding: we have to learn to think differently and invent and practise new ways to work, exchange, share and live together; we have to discover a new practice of freedom, inclusiveness and solidarity-mutuality.
  
  
• This book reinvents practical ways of living. It proposes a concrete strategy for change, in 40 points, how to do this here and now.
  
• It is also a guide to the search for meaning, because the change of mentality that is urgently needed can only arise from a better and deeper understanding of the meaning of life and of the laws of the universe.
  
  The author: YVES DE MORSIER
• Architect by training, proposes here a very practical approach that draws from about 50 years of experience in forms of gentle development that aim at a fair share of common resources. He lives on the South Coast of New South Wales (Australia) where, with his wife Ursula, he has built an off-grid solar-powered rammed earth house, facing a national park, where they experiment with new ways of sharing and facilitate times of meditation and workshops.
  HOW TO ORDER THE BOOK:
• The best way: You can order the book from your next local bookshop (it is much recommended to support local businesses and their quality service - as it is one of the themes of the book!)
• You can also order it online (Bookdepository, Booktopia, Amazon, etc...), but it does not support the valuable and personal quality service local shops offer and even slowly destroys our local livelihood.
  Here are yet the links to these providers, in order of my "preferences":
  At Bookdepository
  At Booktopia
  At Walmart
  At Amazon (the most pernicious!)
  
  
• You can also download the Epub version for free.

  FREE: download the Epub version (720 kb) Copyright for the Epub: it can be copied if quoting the source; it cannot be modified or sold

• You can also download the pdf version for free.

  FREE: download the pdf version (2413 kb) Copyright for the pdf version: it can be copied if quoting the source; it cannot be modified or sold

  
  
• Complete reference of the book:
  Yves de Morsier: The solution is simple ...but demanding. Desert Creek House Publishing, Dec. 2021.
  ISBN 978 192 272 2713 - Paperback - 374p -
  You can buy (order) the book in each local bookshop ...or online (Bookdepository, Booktopia, etc.)
  Print the presentation and reference (title and ISBN): The solution is simple ...but demanding

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2) The Tipping Point Alliance

A Vision and Strategy for a meaningful Life in a fracturing World

My book "The solution is simple ...but demanding" (presented here above) collects more or less the following documents that are here still at a rather primitive stage. They are better elaborated in the book and the book presents much more material and depth at a more mature stage. But this may give you a rough idea of what the book presents and is about. The Tipping Point Alliance is only a accessory part of the strategy that the book describes. It is only an side aspect as a tool in its form of Alliance: what matters most remains the process, and not the form. The process of change can indeed take many shapes! To you the challenge of inventing them!!

We live in a time of urgency: the environment (climate change) calls for an urgent and radical change of ways of life in harmony with the cycles of the universe and of nature; the economy is controlled by a few powerful interests and our humanity is reduced to provide the necessary cogs for a system that has lost its purpose and meaning; social coherence and solidarity have degenerated into a violent competition where anything seems acceptable.

We live also in a time when truth seems to be so flexible that anything goes. It is then essential to dare to affirm what is central in our lives. We have tried to do this exercise (which is not simple at all). Out of this attempt a text has taken shape.

You can download here the main documents:

BEWARE: THEY ARE ONLY DRAFTS (WORK IN PROGRESS!
ANY COMMENTS ARE WELCOME AND WILL BE VERY HELPFUL!

Many of the following documents have been written at different stages of the research; they may present some minor repetitions, contradictions or omissions.

• First a summary:
  Our approach how to fight climate change.
  It describes the main approach:
  A) A call for a change of way of living.
  B) We are the main actors who have to initiate the change.
  C) A fundamental change of mentality is needed.
  D) We will recreate a local economy and society to be sustainable.
  Climate change: the whole strategy in 40 topics - 10p
  
  
• Secondly a general comment:
  The real challenges of climate change: 5 arguments and 7 twists.
  It describes the real challenges of climate change: choosing between 1) money vs relationships, 2) technology vs meaning, 3) domination vs adaptation, 4) wealth accumulation vs needs satisfaction, 5) individualism vs the Commons, 6) virtuality vs reality, 7) passivity vs empowerment.
  The real challenges of climate change: 5 arguments and 7 twists - 5p.
  
  
• Then the main and central document:
  The Vision itself is an affirmation of the central values and qualities that define a creative attitude about today's urgent challenges. The Strategy shows how to do that in practical terms.
  It is accompanied by a basic Strategy of 10 Options that proposes a way to translate the spirit of the Vision into everyday action.
  This is what unites us. The WHY:
  The Tipping Point Alliance: the Vision and the Strategy - 21p
  
  
• There is a short version that describes the core idea in 1 page
  The short version of the Tipping Point Alliance - 1p.
  
  
• The question of equity - sharing wealth
  One of the principle challenges of climate change is the issue of equity. Wealth worldwide is the cause of huge disparities: 10% consume 84% of resources while 2/3 of world population live on only 2% of world wealth. This is the true cause of climate change: we (the 10%) have caused it by our excessive standard of life; it is now our responsibility to solve the problem by reducing drastically our standard of life, in order to make it compatible with Earth resources. It can easily be done: we just have to decide to do so. We won't miss on anything. It is only about giving up the superfluous. We will even discover a much richer way of life, based on true human values instead of egocentric greed. See the diagram of wealth distribution. Source: Credit Suisse.
  A diagram that illustrates a very shocking disparity (1p)
  
  
• Eight necessary changes (or untwists) of mind.
  A description of eight changes of mind we need to bring through before we can be free of the inversions created by our technology and market society. It describes also the real obstacle which explains (but does not justify) our extreme difficulty to start an action against climate change: our strong addiction to our present way of life.
  Eight changes (or untwists) of mind ...and our fundamental problem of addiction - 11p
  
  
• The catalogue of possible options for the extension of the Strategy.
  The basic Strategy is in principle a list of 10 options; each person may shape their own Strategy by adding some complementary options of their choice, according to their own conditions, priorities and preferences. Here is a catalogue of possible options; they are only examples and you can adapt them; they have evidently to remain conform to the spirit of the Vision. You may of course also modify them or design your own; it is the spirit of the Alliance to be modulated in diversity.
  The catalogue of possible options (examples) for the personal Strategy - 13p
  There is unity in the core of the Vision (the values) and the basic Strategy (10 options). There is diversity in the terms of the personalised Strategy (the complementary engagements each one choses to add to the 10 options of the basic Strategy) because everybody is free to commit to what they want. This is a way to find unity in a few core values and basic options, and yet to invent diverse ways of expression of how we can translate these values into further actions in daily life.
  
  
• Concrete proposals how to make Bega a more sustainable, self-sufficient and resilient community
  These are a few thoughts how to re-organise our local community in prevision of the drought and fire events that await us in the coming years.
  Food for thoughts: concrete proposals for Bega to be implemented immediately - 4p
  
  
• Diverse documents that illustrate the approach on a more specialised topic:
  
  • A diagram that shows how 10% of world population (us) consume more than 84% of world wealth while 2/3 of world population live on only 2% of world wealth
    
  • A description of out-of-river-pumped-hydrostorage
    
  • A description of how to produce light solar cars locally and what it brings
    
  • A few reflections about our election system
    
  • A few reflections about the colonial heritage and how it still defines the way we act democratically (or don't)
    
  • How the measure of our footprint can help us reduce our impact on the environment
    
    
• Market, Technology, Friendship and Community
  Market and technology have ejected us out of society as creative members. We are condemned to be only cogs in a system where we are reduced to be mainly consumers. Friendship is indeed the true way to rebuild our local community, not only having good time together in BBQs but also and especially in being involved in one's another's lives; it means in sharing and caring for one another and for our common present and future.
  Market, Technology, Friendship and Community - 5p in pdf
  
  
• The Platform for Australia or Strategy OZ.
  This is the wider vision for Australia: WHAT FOR.
  Warning: the following text is only a first and temporary draft as starting point for a further discussion between grassroots movements. It should be completely re-written when we meet and come to an agreement. The text below is only a first concrete proposal to help start the process.
  The Plateform for Australia or Strategy OZ - the complete version incl. 1p summary - 12p
  
  
• The Uluru Statement of the Heart
  It is striking how much the Uluru Statement of the Heart expresses the same needs as what we need for mitigating climate change: equity, telling the truth, sharing, listening, adapting to the land, creating a society based on diversity and inclusiveness, etc.
  The Uluru Statement of the Heart (1p)
  
  
• Searching for the meaning of the Land
  The best way to establish a living and reciprocal communication between First Nations people and white Australian would be to share about the meaning of the land for all of us. The Land is the best place where we can join and where Idigenous people can teach white Australian most of what they need to learn.
  Two insights and one proposal
  
  
• A few personal comments around the Vision and the values that guide the Strategy.
  Note that it is a personal approach that engages only its author. Be clear that you can be part of the Alliance, even if you do not agree with these comments:
  It develops the main ideas of the Vision and Strategy in a personal way and illustrates them with examples. The Comments - 50p
  
  
• An annex about the relationship between Spirit and Matter (13p).
  The Annex about the relation between Spirit and Matter
  
  
• An example of a similar manifesto by Canadian grassroots movements (5p).
  Borrowed from leapmanifesto.org: The Leap Manifesto (Canada)

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