s u s t a i n a b i l i t y the nested box
I've been thinking about my grandparents a lot lately. Not just who they were, but the way they did things. We've allowed ourselves to lose track of some really valuable perspective by rushing to adopt new paradigms without really considering that there may be a critical point of diminishing returns over which we are crossing. We rarely look back. The Point of Diminishing Returns, along with the Lowest Common Denominator are recurring themes with me.
Our grandparents did things with a certain dedication to maximums and minimums. The most economical way, even if it took more time. The shortest distance, even if the road was a little rougher. The way that made the most sense in the pocketbook or in the communities they called home. Those ways, distilled into a sound bite and redirected to the context of the 21st century could be as good a working definition of sustainability as any I've heard proposed from ivory towers, mindless machines or executive entities.
Natural social and economic sustainability was an evolved process with America’s greatest generation, finely honed during depression and war and established as a way of life, rural and urban. Innovative thinking that resolved itself into reality and eventually the status quo.
Innovation eventually ate itself as the pendulous mechanics of what we now call thinking "outside the box" swung farther and farther toward the abstract. The fundamental ethic of locality began to erode as the manufacturing age matured and sourcing evolved from a commonsense practice to a science and finally to a 900 pound gorilla that must be appeased.
The act of acquiring raw material to produce something of value has transformed into a geopolitical machine composed of the most senseless components, usually involving political philosophy, favored nations, and ridiculous shipping distances with the most important portion of the formula (labor) experiencing a rapid spiral of declining value not incomparable with the devaluation of monetary currency during hyperinflation.
Enough big buzzy words. To get right to it, we need to get back to the simple maximums and minimums that guided the everyday lives of our grandparents. There is a natural hierarchy of thinking strategy when it comes to innovation, and we have demonstrated that the benefits of thinking outside the box are mitigated by failing to bind it at or near the point of maximum balanced benefit. To simplify, we have to think our way to outside the box, beginning with inside the smallest box and working our way outward through the series of nested boxes representing our homes, then our neighborhoods, then our communities, our states, our regions, our national boundaries, our continent, and then on to the globe.
The key to balance and success is to know where to stop. 
