Oh, hello! My name is Laurel, welcome to my digital space.
I am a dedicated dreamer hoping to find other creative innovators with a shared vision of a cohesive and just society. I apply systems theory to social change in order to catalyze conversation and collaboration. I want to learn, and I invite you to engage with my ideas, ask questions, and challenge me (kindly, I hope).
This is a place for me to practice sharing things I care about, what I'm working on, and who I am. It is extremely important to me that my actions align with my values, and therefore much of what I explore is a way to grapple with and understand the choices we make and the role of society in shaping those choices. My goal is taking a critical eye to things we may take as a given. I reject the notion that anything is "just the way it is". I want to show that there are more options than what may seem feasible; that there is another way.
My work centers around the belief that we can work toward realizing our highest self and a society which supports that growth, while also ensuring more basic needs like health, economic security, and belonging. In order to interrupt harmful condition of our world, we must first seek to understand the forces at work while taking into account the impact of our own behavior within these systems. I want to dispel the myth that the biggest obstacle between us and the society we hope to see is "the others". The belief that the issue is "out there" holds us back from having the greatest impact we can, wherever we can. As conscious and aware actors within an intelligible societal framework, we have the freedom to leverage our own resources and power to affect change.
"Systems thinking leads to another conclusion, however, waiting, shining, obvious, as soon as we stop being blinded by the illusion of control. It says that there is plenty to do, of a different sort of 'doing'. The future can't be predicted, but it can be envisioned and brought lovingly into being... We can't surge forward with certainty into a world of no surprises, but we can expect surprises and learn from them and even profit from them... We can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone... All those endeavors require one to stay wide awake, pay close attention, participate flat out, and respond to feedback... It requires our full humanity - our rationality, our ability to sort out truth from falsehood, our intuition, out compassion, our vision, and our morality."