This diary is about our search for a cohesive vision and set of principles to underpin our future. It is about the efforts of progressives around the world to inculcate a paradigm for the world that counters the nihilistic, fascist force of the Right, and lays the foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable future.
It’s about how there is one you probably don’t even know about, and it’s time you did. It’s called the Earth Charter.
PREAMBLE
We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognise that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny. We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. Towards this end, it is imperative that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life, and to future generations.
I want to introduce Bootribbers to the greatest consensus and (I think) most remarkable document the world has ever seen, the Earth Charter. Above is the beginning of its short preamble, and below is the document (almost) in full. Go grab a drink, sit down and give yourself proper time to read it; I guarantee you won’t regret it.
But before the rest of the Charter, a bit more about it.
The vision for the world that grew while we were distracted
Originating from the 1992 Rio Summit, the Earth Charter was formed through a global consensus and participatory process that lasted nearly a decade. The views and experience of thousands of people and organisations have informed the final Earth Charter, and as such it reaches across all racial, cultural and spiritual differences to speak to the common humanity of us all.
There is probably no other document in human history that can claim such an open and inclusive evolution. Because so many have added their voice to it, the Charter can claim like no other document, that it speaks to and for all human beings, encapsulating all we stand for and the challenges we face together. The Earth Charter is the people’s document, and sets forth the hopes and aspirations of a global civil society, setting out the principles we need for creating a better world.
Here is the rest of the preamble: –
Earth, Our Home
Humanity is part of a vast evolving universe. Earth, our home, is alive with a unique community of life. The forces of nature make existence a demanding and uncertain adventure, but Earth has provided the conditions essential to life’s evolution. The resilience of the community of life and the well-being of humanity depend upon preserving a healthy biosphere with all its ecological systems, a rich variety of plants and animals, fertile soils, pure waters, and clean air. The global environment with its finite resources is a common concern of all peoples. The protection of Earth’s vitality, diversity, and beauty is a sacred trust.
The Global Situation
The dominant patterns of production and consumption are causing environmental devastation, the depletion of resources, and a massive extinction of species. Communities are being undermined. The benefits of development are not shared equitably and the gap between rich and poor is widening. Injustice, poverty, ignorance, and violent conflict are widespread and the cause of great suffering. An unprecedented rise in human population has overburdened ecological and social systems. The foundations of global security are threatened. These trends are perilous–but not inevitable.
The Challenges Ahead
The choice is ours: form a global partnership to care for Earth and one another, or risk the destruction of ourselves and the diversity of life. Fundamental changes are needed in our values, institutions, and ways of living. We must realise that when basic needs have been met, human development is primarily about being more, not having more. We have the knowledge and technology to provide for all and to reduce our impacts on the environment. The emergence of a global civil society is creating new opportunities to build a democratic and humane world. Our environmental, economic, political, social, and spiritual challenges are interconnected, and together we can forge inclusive solutions.
Universal Responsibility
To realise these aspirations, we must decide to live with a sense of universal responsibility, identifying ourselves with the whole Earth community as well as our local communities. We are at once citizens of different nations and of one world in which the local and global are linked. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future well-being of the human family and the larger living world. The spirit of human solidarity and kinship with all life is strengthened when we live with reverence for the mystery of being, gratitude for the gift of life, and humility regarding the human place in nature.
We urgently need a shared vision of basic values to provide an ethical foundation for the emerging world community. Therefore, together in hope we affirm the following interdependent principles for a sustainable way of life as a common standard by which the conduct of all individuals, organizations, businesses, governments, and transnational institutions is to be guided and assessed.
Is there anyone on Boo who would disagree that this sounds like one of the most sane, grounded and hopeful things you have read in a long while? Can you believe that it was written for the people, by the people? It profoundly speaks to me, and many others. Does it speak to you?
The core of the Earth Charter is a set of 16 principles, under which there are a short series of explanatory points. You can read the full document here – I have reproduced the 16 principles, and here they are:
PRINCIPLES
I. RESPECT AND CARE FOR THE COMMUNITY OF LIFE
- Respect Earth and life in all its diversity.
- Care for the community of life with understanding, compassion, and love.
- Build democratic societies that are just, participatory, sustainable, and peaceful.
- Secure Earth’s bounty and beauty for present and future generations.
In order to fulfill these four broad commitments, it is necessary to:
II. ECOLOGICAL INTEGRITY
- Protect and restore the integrity of Earth’s ecological systems, with special concern for biological diversity and the natural processes that sustain life.
- Prevent harm as the best method of environmental protection and, when knowledge is limited, apply a precautionary approach.
- Adopt patterns of production, consumption, and reproduction that safeguard Earth’s regenerative capacities, human rights, and community well-being.
- Advance the study of ecological sustainability and promote the open exchange and wide application of the knowledge acquired.
III. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE
- Eradicate poverty as an ethical, social, and environmental imperative.
- Ensure that economic activities and institutions at all levels promote human development in an equitable and sustainable manner.
- Affirm gender equality and equity as prerequisites to sustainable development and ensure universal access to education, health care, and economic opportunity.
- Uphold the right of all, without discrimination, to a natural and social environment supportive of human dignity, bodily health, and spiritual well-being, with special attention to the rights of indigenous peoples and minorities.
IV. DEMOCRACY, NONVIOLENCE, AND PEACE
13. Strengthen democratic institutions at all levels, and provide transparency and
accountability in governance, inclusive participation in decision making, and access to justice.
- Integrate into formal education and life-long learning the knowledge, values, and skills needed for a sustainable way of life.
- Treat all living beings with respect and consideration.
- Promote a culture of tolerance, nonviolence, and peace.
The greatest strength of the Earth Charter is laid bare in these 16 points; succinctly and profoundly, the Earth Charter delineates the fundamental links between ecological sustainability, economic and social human well-being, and the organisation of human society. In just 16 short, direct principles, it sums up the best and most hopeful aspects of our world, and our society. It lays out what could be not just for some of us, but what should be for all of us, and how wonderful and right it is.
I think – and this will probably be more controversial on this site – that the Earth Charter also successfully navigates a path between national sovereignty, respect for cultural diversity, and the driving need for international cooperation. The essence of this is encapsulated in the final passages of the Charter:
THE WAY FORWARD
As never before in history, common destiny beckons us to seek a new beginning. Such renewal is the promise of these Earth Charter principles. To fulfill this promise, we must commit ourselves to adopt and promote the values and objectives of the Charter.
This requires a change of mind and heart. It requires a new sense of global interdependence and universal responsibility. We must imaginatively develop and apply the vision of a sustainable way of life locally, nationally, regionally, and globally. Our cultural diversity is a precious heritage and different cultures will find their own distinctive ways to realize the vision. We must deepen and expand the global dialogue that generated the Earth Charter, for we have much to learn from the ongoing collaborative search for truth and wisdom.
Life often involves tensions between important values. This can mean difficult choices. However, we must find ways to harmonise diversity with unity, the exercise of freedom with the common good, short-term objectives with long-term goals. Every individual, family, organisation, and community has a vital role to play. The arts, sciences, religions, educational institutions, media, businesses, nongovernmental organisations, and governments are all called to offer creative leadership. The partnership of government, civil society, and business
is essential for effective governance.
In order to build a sustainable global community, the nations of the world must renew their commitment to the United Nations, fulfil their obligations under existing international agreements, and support the implementation of Earth Charter principles with an international legally binding instrument on environment and development.
Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life.
The Earth Charter as a living document
After the long process to create it, the Earth Charter was finally launched five years ago. As a document and a movement that aims to lay the foundations for an ethical global civil society, the Charter is not something that was ever going to be taken up and enacted overnight. But the process of creating it has in turn created a global movement to disseminate the Charter and encourage its adoption at all levels of society, and its one that is merrily growing and succeeding.
The work of raising the profile and increasing the adoption of the Earth Charter is principally responsibility of the Earth Charter Secretariat located in Venezuela; and the work also taken on by the many national Earth Charter societies around the world. You can get a feel for how successful they have been, and the many diverse and at times surprising adoption and uses made of the Charter from their very readable 2004 annual report.
I wanted to expose the Earth Charter to Bootribbers to see how you react. I want to see if it inspires in you the same motivation to make it a living paradigm, not just words on paper, as it does for me.
So, please read it carefully, have a look `round the website and annual report, and take the poll. Be honest. And of course give me your thoughts.
one person at least doesn’t think I’m insane!
Others?
I don’t think you’re insane, Myriad, but I do think the world has gone mad. As wonderfully visionary and as sane and sound as this plan is…dunno, maybe after 44 years of idealism, cynicism has finally gotten the upper hand on me.
A substantial portion of the human race has apparently decided that collective suicide is their “exit strategy”–and as much as I wish it were not so, I’m afraid they are going to take us all down with them.
(Sorry to be a downer, but am having a hard time ‘visualizing’ anything but gloom and doom these days.)
It’s a beautiful plan. Covers all the bases. Thanks for doing it.
Honestly, I know how you feel. Really. Ask my partner (keres). But I’m 31, and I just can’t face a future of permanent depression for the next 30 odd years. And I’m uppity by nature.
I didn’t ‘do’ the earth charter, but here’s a few things to perhaps to pry a glimmer of light into the gloom (and I say that with no flippancy or disrespect):
– Spain and several other countries have written whole education programs around the Earth Charter – HOW COOL IS THAT?
– Harvard has a course on it (really)
– The World Resources Institute designed an online tool for adapting your local community/organisation etc. to the Earth Charter
– I and others in my Australian Government department are promoting it to regional organisations across the country, and the quasi-fascist current Australian government just ratified it in the Senate (a popular theory is they didn’t know what it was :D) – I’m taking it to conservative farmers, and they think it’s perfectly sane.
It’s hard to find hope in this world of ours all too-often.
I think things like this, are just that -hope; and concrete hope (there’s an image) at that.
Nice try. 😉
I suspect that the majority of people outside this country would consider this charter sane and would sign on to it in seconds flat, but I am realistic about the state of (psychic) affairs in this country (and unfortunately, it is this country that is currently, how shall we say it? “decisive”? in terms of turning the tide). And indeed, any change in the current political configurations of this country will not herald a return of sanity here unless and until these changes are accompanied by the attendant paradigmatic shift in the “American psyche.”
This country has got to get over itself and confront, honestly and critically, the problems it has created and continues to create for itself and for the rest of the world.
I am 44. When I was 31, I had just returned to this country after ten years “in exile” (I left as a direct consequence of Ronald Reagan’s re-election).
When I returned, exactly what I had predicted would happen as a result of the Reagan/Bush41 years had happened. What I hadn’t expected was the “frog in the pot of boiling water” phenomenon: namely, that even my formerly radical friends would have drunk from the golden gallon of gas or the coolaid or whatever the fuck it was that they were drinking. At any rate, when I came back, I found them three sheets to the wind drunk on oblivion, on American exceptionalism, or Starbucks grande-triple-latte or whatever the fuck it was that convinced them that apathy was OK, that democracy and freedom were their “god given rights” with absolutely no responsibilities attached–not even the lousy responsibility to VOTE, much less to cast an INFORMED vote. They were asleep at the wheel.
Still, there was hope. You had Ross Perot running around ranting about corruption in politics, and the need for participation, you had Al Gore promoting environmental issues, Clinton was elected….then came the blue dress and since then….I dunno.
The rest of the world seems ready and willing to change. The rest of the world has been wide awake and vigilant for many years, and has been screaming at the top of its lungs to these people over here across the pond. And now, now that the effects of global warming (as just one example) are de facto wiping American cities and towns off the map, yeah, Americans are waking up. But it’s hard for me to believe that it’s not too fucking LATE, because even though these sleepers are finally waking up, they still seem to be standing there clueless as to what to do. So they do nothing. Paralysis has set in.
It really is like one of those frightening moments where you do fall asleep at the wheel driving home late one night–you wake up just in time to realize that you are about to crash headlong into a concrete pylon, and there’s little you can do to avoid the crash. Now, if we were a nation of Nascar drivers, I suppose there’d be some hope. But, based on 10yrs’ experience driving in Germany, I must conclude that most Americans, even when they are awake, aren’t very good drivers: hell, most of them don’t even know how to park their SUVs without taking up the space of six.
So, I don’t know. Maybe hope goes in cycles. Maybe I’m just passing the torch of hope to you and yours, and maybe 15 years down the road, you’ll be burned out and bummed, and by then something will have happened to have reawakened my hope and you can pass the torch back to me.
At any rate, carry on. Maybe, maybe, someday sanity will prevail. I guess as long as there is a glimmer, there is the potential for bright light.
Anyway, thanks for letting me rant. Maybe I’ll come home tonight and discover that my neighbors have been considerate enough to park their fucking cars so that there’s room for mine, and that alone will spark another glimmer of hope. (see what I’m getting at: even on these little trivial behaviors, the problem with the American psyche is evident. Go to any American megastore — grocery or otherwise — and observe the behavior of people trying to bully their way to the front of the line, and you’ll see what I mean).
Growl.
You growl well, and you can rant on a diary of mine anytime.
There were a lot of people from the USA involved in the Earth Charter, and there is a US national Earth Charter Secretariat.
But besides that, you know, you’re starting to sound all exceptional – “Americans are an exceptionally bad and irredeemable case”. Nah. Actually most of the western world and bits of the non-west suffer from similar problems. Consumer capitalism, it turns out, is toxic to all ethnicities, religions and creeds (and you didn’t even invent it on your own, you just got the biggest dose by dent of population size).
I also happen to think that the growth of lefty US blogs alone is plenty of sign that the koolaid just ain’t working anymore.
I went away for two years, and came back to find my country had embraced a vicious and entirely unnecessary racism, and had “leapfrogged” wholeheartedly into selfish consumer-driven individualism. All the promises of my childhood gone, pretty much. But there not really, because when I talk to people, there are many who remember, and/or who are angry with the current situation, and even better, want to change it. Just like the USA.
I guess my excessively lengthy point is that real adversity confronts all of us – the Earth Charter is not about denying that. The whole point of the Earth Charter for me is that it beautifully articulates both a means and an end out of this fucking mess. Believe me, I need that as much as the next agressively depressed liberal. 😉
aggressively depressed: I like that. I think I’ll try to get that introduced to the DSM next time around!
As much as I do take some heart in the advent of the lefty blogs, I must honestly admit that they too depress me to distraction (literally): because they are littered with the same ego-driven, individualistic, ethnocentric, “bully” and “bitch-slap” business of Big-Cheezy bullshit you see at the grocery store and, 9 times out of 10, if you dare (as I so often do) to point it out, you get troll-rated to oblivion with charges of “belligerence” ! (No, not here. You know exactly where I’m talking about, over on all the big-assed blogs where the Bluebeard alpha-males in sheep’s clothing run with the she-wolves and heaven forbid one of the she-wolves should ever dare to growl, snarl or snap!)
Whoof, whoof (must be the dogs in the dog blog bleeding in here!).
the ferocious focus on content has meant that process that mirrors the principles we espouse has been (I hope temporarily) forgotten.
One of the things I like about the Australian Greens is that decisions are made by consensus as much as possible. The party is now at the size where this is becoming truly unweidly for some situations, but at least the majority of active members understand the importance of it as a principle, and why we must design a new process that holds onto those principles.
I’m hoping to get ’round to doing a diary on the Australian Green’s National Conference last weekend, and them as a party in general. Promises promises. 😉
Anyways, I feel like we have a lot in common. 🙂
Keep it up, Myriad, before you know it, we may be neighbors!
…a lot of people ask me: hey, if you left the country cause of Reagan, why didn’t you leave again in 2000? and the question is valid. Answer: where the fuck you gonna go? These assholes and their bullshit ideology are spreading like wildfire to cover the earth faster than you can say “sherman williams”…..but Australia’s looking pretty attractive bout now, and not just because of the weather! )
You may or may not be insane, but you have an unclosed italics tag somewhere in your story.
It looks ok to me now – ie there are large chunks in italics, and then normal text. Same for you?
Nope. You have unclosed <i>s before: PREAMBLE, Earth, Our Home, PRINCIPLES, and THE WAY FORWARD
That climate change, and the truly enormous conseuqnces and profound change it will bring about, is rapidly becoming a reality to people.
There are a million things we can do, right now to make the transition easier, and more just. And one thing we must do is capitalise on climate change as something that is inexorably bringing us all together, making the world smaller if you like. It affects us all. It affects everything we all love, not just a few.
I belive that the Earth Charter is the document that demarcates the paradigm shift, and climate change is the catalyst – in the very real sense of the word – that will affect that paradigm shift.
It doesn’t mean there won’t be period of hell and heartache and profound grief for many. It does mean that we must grasp this opportunity to leave a lasting positive legacy once that painful transition is made.
One of the things I love about the Earth Charter is how adaptable it is to any level of society, government, organisation. A local council in Western Australia compared their entire strategic plan against it, and filled in gaps & modified strategies accordingly (for example, the principles on non-violence and peace made them realise they had very poor conflict resolution processes and were alienating parts of the community).
Global NGOs and schools and arms of government and villages and even some countries – have adopted and committed to enacting the Earth Charter. This is a document for all.
Much of the focus of the Earth Charter Institute is on children, as it should be. It’s only common sense. And it is children coming home and talking to their parents, hope shining in their faces, that will make the Earth Charter a reality.
There is also something we could do about it. We could ask progressive blogs to have a permanent front-page link to it, and even better / as well, adopt the charter – have a look at how they run their blogs, consider their own business and online community, and ratify it.
It would be meaningful, and wonderful. It may start something. You never know.
Great Diary, Thanks.
We are at the point where a Vision is essential!
When I read Imagining Argentina by Lawrence Thornton years ago, the main point I got out of it was that for the people of Argentina the imagining of a new vision was a key factor in the eventual fall of the dictatorship in 1983.
Just discovered via google that there’s a movie out Here
John Drear wrote an interesting piece on the importance of imagination for Common Dreams. Being a Jesuit, he does tend to come at it from a somewhat different angle than me — and he simplifies the history some I suspect — but I did find it useful to think around.
you nailed it.
That’s exactly what I’m trying to talk about here – and show bootribbers what a wonderful vision the world has imagined, and see how y’all feel about it.
I wasn’t involved in contributing to the Earth Charter. I’m a jane-come-lately too. But I picked it up and read it, and it was a wonderful moment.
Then I found that my political party, the Greens, based their Charter on it. Even better!
Imagine getting the Dems to adopt it – I think it’s possible, especially if they win the next elections (06 and 08) and i think they are going to.
As you may know, the statement:
is a succinct summary of the position of classic anarchism. The reason why the state could “wither away” was that by educating people to recognize their full mutual need, people would act in accordance with that recognition and thus, there would be no need for laws and government.
Anarchism is the only political philosophy that has ever had any deep appeal to me. Unfortunately, I have never believed that it was actually workable but perhaps by changing the underlying assumptions behind our power structures and the attitudes of the governed, some of anarchism gorgeous optimistic view of humankind might come into being.
But I wasn’t sure how safe it was to bring up classical anarchism on a forum in all honesty – it has earnt a very bad and co-opted name over the last 30 years.
Probably my favourite anarchist is Ursula Le Guin; I happen to agree with her that the Tao Te Ching is in some ways, the anarchist’s text book – although thankfully I think it’s everyone else’s as well.
In terms of that global interdependence and sense of responsibility, this is where I think climate change offers us some hope, or more accurately, an opportunity. If nothing else, it is going to starkly reveal just how much corporate capitalism is “them” and “us” is the rest of the world. And even within that much-maligned (and rightly so) corporate world, there are clear signs that some business leaders are starting to radically alter their view and modus operandi.
It’s never going to be easy, but I think we can get there – to an acceptance of global interdependence & responsibility I mean. Put it this way, if we the people don’t grasp and understand it, it certainly won’t happen. Enter the Earth Charter. 😉
if globalization with its overarching need for central control ended up unintentionally providing the impetus to put anarchic principles into practice.
The more hierarchical the government (or organization) the more subject it is to nonviolent action methods.
Hierarchies have “pillars of support” that they need to function. There are inherent weaknesses in the “pillars” that can be addresses by nonviolent action methods, in the battle to enhance democracy in any country.
See my sig line if you’re curious for more info on the subject.
combative mode and get back into earth mother mode. We had a Human Rights Charter that really made sense but the US didn’t ratify it.
Human Rights Charter
Instead the US has gone willy nilly into the business of breaking treaties and agreements especially since Bush II.
We have to break the hold that cults and corporations have on our government before we can be progressive.
And one of the most powerful ways to do that is to hold up and demand commitment to positive alternatives.
One of the ways you will break that cult is by getting the word out on the Earth Charter. Send it to your reps, send it to your schools, hold meetings, whatever.
The bottom line as I see it is that the cult stays unless we all grasp massive opportunities like this one, that speak directly to all of us, and both demand and start living an alternate paradigm.
Half the left’s problem as I see it, is that we know we want to and must offer an alternative paradigm/vision etc. to the rest of the country/world. But we are spending exhaustive amounts of energy squabbling and searching for it. I think it’s right here. I think it’s about the most focus-group tested document you can find. I do think it will need to be ‘framed’ well to make sense to your average Joe (or Mohammed or Krishna or Jiao etc). That’s true for any vision/alternative paradigm. The language it is created in is rarely the language used to articulate it to “the masses”.
Thanks for bringing this to BMT. I remember the joy I felt when this document first came out; how well it reflected my worldview.
Sometimes it seems like it was all a dream, as we live through these evil days. It’s good to be reminded that for others around the world at least, the dream lives on, even if we are caught in a dark nightmare for now.
It lives on for many Americans too – check out the national pages linked to the main Earth Charter page – and I don’t see any reason why progressive blogs like this one can’t make it their own, or any of us as individuals.
“It’s good to be reminded that for others around the world at least, the dream lives on, even if we are caught in a dark nightmare for now.”
that was my whole point in bringing the Earth Charter here – it can be your dream too. It has no US prejudices. 😉
A broad, visionary document, drafted for a world facing many technology-driven problems in a time of technological revolution. Its sentence that refers to technology:
Yes, a broad, visionary document…that ignores the fast-changing material foundation of global civilization.
Please excuse me for finding this discouraging.
hi there technopolitical,
could you elaborate a little more? I’m not sure I understand your point just yet.
If we look at the last century, there have been waves of technological change that transformed war, economics, and daily life. Mass production was one. Some of its products — cars, televisions, computer networks — were others. It was these changes that made petroleum so important, and so exploitable.
Today, many thinkers look at the future and implicitly assume that changes of this magnitude are over. As a student of technology, I think that the evidence says otherwise. For example, biotechnology is still in the early days of learning to exploit the molecular machinery of life, and with it, the principles of the mechanisms that made petroleum, make our food, make human bodies, and shape global climate. Looking further, the intersection of biotechnology and other sorts of nanotechnology has the potential to bring changes in manufacturing techniques far greater than those brought by mass production. For another example, technological and social trends seem to be carrying the world into an era of universal surveillance, with all that means for social, political, and military affairs.
Each of these developments should be expected to make large and deep changes in our world. Each could turn out better or worse depending on how they emerge and are guided. I have trouble taking seriously studies of the future that ignore the entire realm of technological change. At the very least, authors could point to disruptive possibilities, say “We don’t know much about these”, and (of course) call for further study.
A wonderful, hopeful document, myriad. Thank you for bringing it to our attention here.
I definitely agree with it, and it echoes much of my own thinking… but I’m afraid I’m not all that hopeful about it ;). I imagine many people reading it would find it frankly terrifying that any such thing could ever be implemented.
I used to believe that somehow, somewhere way back when… humanity took a wrong turn, made the wrong decisions and that’s how we wound up where we are now. That’s still possible, of course… but more and more lately, I’ve been that no, maybe the corner just hasn’t been reached yet.
Many religions… from paganism to christianiaty to islam, buddhism and others, seem to have tried some version of this. Also philosophers, thinkers and just everyday people… in every time there have been people standing up for justice, for an end to poverty, a new beginning, a new vision of the world… and everytime it’s even caught a little spark, along have come others to co-opt and pervert and control the message. Effectively stamping it out in the process.
In our globally connected society today, there may be more of a chance for a worldwide, coordinated effort by like minded people… but beyond the the other challenges involved, I think the most difficult to overcome would be the fear. Building a truly just world would take a tremendous leap of faith.
But hey, what do I know… maybe the corner is finally here, and the time has finally come for us to make our turn successfully. I’m ready!