Thank you for this eloquent piece. I like the way you relate attitudes about life to sustainability -- unfolding versus growing. I think it takes a certain mindset to embrace unfolding, and not everyone has it. Some people are more ruled by fear than others -- the fear they could lose what they have now. Growth is a way of staying one step ahead of this fear. You double your wealth today (go from 10 to 20) out of fear that you will lose 10 tomorrow. (If you have 20 and you lose 10, then it's a wash. If you have only 10 then when you lose 10 you have zero.)

It might be that every form of life is programmed to maximize its survival, and homo sapiens is the one species that when it follows this programming, ends up destroying the planet. Other species don't threaten the planet despite their growing, because they just don't have the same power over their environment.

In a science experiment, there were two populations of small fish, one population genetically fearful, the other not. And there were two environments, one dangerous due to a predator fish, the other safe. The fearful fish survived in the dangerous environment and died of the stress of fear in the safe environment. The "happy" fish thrived in the safe environment, and were gobbled up in the dangerous environment. The same appears to be true for humans.

If we can in fact create a safe environment, it might only be sustainable if we eliminate the fearful fish, otherwise they will push for growth and eliminate us "happy" fish who would be content with unfolding.