Learning to live simply is learning the art of letting go. There's irony here--to live simply, simply let go--it sounds easy until you try it. You quickly realize it's not such a simple thing at all. Not when our culture is prompting us constantly to accumulate and hoard, to fill our lives with stuff, information, and endless activity. And not when so much of our identities are wrapped up in those external things. Letting go, which should be the simplest of all tasks, can seem unbearably difficult.
What got me started on my journey towards simplicity was the inkling four or five years ago that I needed to give up the newspaper. Until then it had been a daily ritual dating back to my elementary years, and something I had never questioned. It's good to be informed, right? So, that's all there was to it. Good citizens are informed citizens. I'll never be sure why the urge to give it up awakened in me. I was wasting a full hour every morning reading the thing so maybe that's where the first hint of dissatisfaction crept in.
I remember when the urge first appeared, I experienced such a strong feeling of resistance to it. Not just resistance--when I took a good hard look I had to admit it was fear. Fear? How could I fear something so ridiculously inconsequential?
But I did. I feared it so much that I actually didn't cancel the paper, not then anyway. Only later, a year or two down the road, was I was finally ready. It had to incubate that long, the idea. I had to learn how to let go. When I was finally ready, it was absolutely painless but it wouldn't have been if I had forced the issue too soon.
I've found this to be true with everything I've subsequently surrendered. Always the fear and resistance initially, followed by a period of not taking action, just letting the idea incubate, followed finally by a very graceful act of letting go--painlessly.
I think what it boils down to gets back to my post about ego and materialism. These things that I give up aren't me, but I've so identified with them that my egoic self believes they are me. To give up these external things is very threatening to a self that believes they define its very essence. To lose the newspaper wasn't just about losing a thing, it was about losing the "informed citizen" part of my persona. And--ouch--that hurts. Or it did until the idea had gestated long enough for me to understand--informed citizen, no I'm not that.
Embracing simplicity is such a zen thing. Bit by bit you discover--no, I'm not this, no I'm not that. Eventually you let go of all the external things you've identified with and all the labels you've given yourself and guess what?--there you still are. You haven't been diminished. You aren't reduced to nothing. There you are. If anything a fuller embodiment of what it is to be human. Not identified with ego anymore. Swept clean of all that clutter. Like an empty vessel, but filled and overflowing with infinite nonstuff--the very finest stuff of all.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
Awakening to the Power of Place
My awakening to the power of place has taken many years. When I was a child I was held and formed by the power of my home territory
--the woods and fields, the rolling hills, the creek and the tiny streams that fed into it, the pond, the barns and farmyards. But I wasn't aware of it. Totally immersed in it, I had no perspective. I was the youngest of five kids and the only one to be born after my parents moved to Soap Hollow, so I was fortunate to spend my entire childhood blissfully fused with that particular landscape.
It was only once I left home that I began to get some perspective and realize how profoundly that terrain had influenced me. The first hint came when I would bring boyfriends home from college. They'd complain of this extreme sleepiness--it was almost a stupor they'd fall into. And it clicked that home always made me sleepy too. A hypnotic peaceful sleepiness. At first I tried to rationalize it. In the summers the buzzing drone of cicadas in the tulip tree weaved a hypnotic spell. And for years there was an old mine shaft up the back road on the opposing hill, whose huge fan was always humming in the background. I thought maybe its white noise was the culprit. But eventually the mine shut down and the fan was turned off, yet still the hypnotic energy of our place in the hollow remained.
I began noticing other things too when I went home. Not only sleepiness, but vivid dreams. And if I stayed more than a day or two, I'd fall into this deeply contemplative state. Always armed with a stack of books (some things never change) I'd delve into deep philosophical subjects and fill my journals with profound reflections. I'd take long strolls up the back road, into the woods, to all of my old haunts. I felt monk-ish--very spiritual, deeply contemplative, fused with nature. Intuitive too. And always there was a feeling of timelessness.
All of my life I've had what I tentatively label "past life" memories. I don't ultimately know what they are, and it doesn't really matter. But whenever I went home those memories would drift to the surface, fleetingly, but with much greater frequency than when I was anywhere else. They'd come to me, brief images, like a slide show set just a little too fast. I could just grasp the mood, the feeling sense, more than anything. The whole constellation of a different time, a different place, a different persona. A familiar feeling-sense--familiar yet different. Exactly like memory. And always an aching sadness, the feeling of loss and beauty. Blissful, but it hurt too.
As a child, I was a dreamer--in daylight and in sleeping hours. As a teenager, when I was obsessed with the works of Jung, I kept a dream journal for several years. Some mornings I would wake up recalling as many as seventeen dreams. A frequent dream motif was the black bear. Usually these were very pleasant dreams, but occasionally there was an ounce of healthy fear.
It occurred to me that the black bear is a perfect symbol for the energy of the landscape of my childhood. Sleepy, contemplative, dreamy, fused with the natural world. When I moved to Colorado the black bear dreams stopped, but they've been replaced by occasional mountain lion dreams. I can remember the exact night this change occurred.
It was when I had been living in Colorado for a year. I had just weaned my son and decided to go off into the mountains for my first weekend alone since his birth. The first night I was camping I was brought bolt upright in the tent twice with dreams of incredible realism. In the first dream, a black bear and her cub simply walked through my campsite and moved on. In the second dream, a mountain lion silently padded into camp on magnificent huge paws and flopped down. It seemed like something was trying to get my attention with these dreams--I can't remember another time I was brought bolt upright by a dream, let alone two in one night. I think all the dreams were saying was that the mountain lion somehow reflected my new life in the West, whereas the black bear had represented my life (and the energy of the land) back in Pennsylvania.
Today, though, I'm still a dreamy, contemplative person. Would I be who I am had I grown up immersed in a different sort of energy? I think not. The energy of this new place is certainly shaping me, but that specific terrain in Pennsylvania that held me for my first seventeen-and-a-half years really created me and defined me, and defines me still.
--the woods and fields, the rolling hills, the creek and the tiny streams that fed into it, the pond, the barns and farmyards. But I wasn't aware of it. Totally immersed in it, I had no perspective. I was the youngest of five kids and the only one to be born after my parents moved to Soap Hollow, so I was fortunate to spend my entire childhood blissfully fused with that particular landscape.
It was only once I left home that I began to get some perspective and realize how profoundly that terrain had influenced me. The first hint came when I would bring boyfriends home from college. They'd complain of this extreme sleepiness--it was almost a stupor they'd fall into. And it clicked that home always made me sleepy too. A hypnotic peaceful sleepiness. At first I tried to rationalize it. In the summers the buzzing drone of cicadas in the tulip tree weaved a hypnotic spell. And for years there was an old mine shaft up the back road on the opposing hill, whose huge fan was always humming in the background. I thought maybe its white noise was the culprit. But eventually the mine shut down and the fan was turned off, yet still the hypnotic energy of our place in the hollow remained.
I began noticing other things too when I went home. Not only sleepiness, but vivid dreams. And if I stayed more than a day or two, I'd fall into this deeply contemplative state. Always armed with a stack of books (some things never change) I'd delve into deep philosophical subjects and fill my journals with profound reflections. I'd take long strolls up the back road, into the woods, to all of my old haunts. I felt monk-ish--very spiritual, deeply contemplative, fused with nature. Intuitive too. And always there was a feeling of timelessness.
All of my life I've had what I tentatively label "past life" memories. I don't ultimately know what they are, and it doesn't really matter. But whenever I went home those memories would drift to the surface, fleetingly, but with much greater frequency than when I was anywhere else. They'd come to me, brief images, like a slide show set just a little too fast. I could just grasp the mood, the feeling sense, more than anything. The whole constellation of a different time, a different place, a different persona. A familiar feeling-sense--familiar yet different. Exactly like memory. And always an aching sadness, the feeling of loss and beauty. Blissful, but it hurt too.
As a child, I was a dreamer--in daylight and in sleeping hours. As a teenager, when I was obsessed with the works of Jung, I kept a dream journal for several years. Some mornings I would wake up recalling as many as seventeen dreams. A frequent dream motif was the black bear. Usually these were very pleasant dreams, but occasionally there was an ounce of healthy fear.
It occurred to me that the black bear is a perfect symbol for the energy of the landscape of my childhood. Sleepy, contemplative, dreamy, fused with the natural world. When I moved to Colorado the black bear dreams stopped, but they've been replaced by occasional mountain lion dreams. I can remember the exact night this change occurred.
It was when I had been living in Colorado for a year. I had just weaned my son and decided to go off into the mountains for my first weekend alone since his birth. The first night I was camping I was brought bolt upright in the tent twice with dreams of incredible realism. In the first dream, a black bear and her cub simply walked through my campsite and moved on. In the second dream, a mountain lion silently padded into camp on magnificent huge paws and flopped down. It seemed like something was trying to get my attention with these dreams--I can't remember another time I was brought bolt upright by a dream, let alone two in one night. I think all the dreams were saying was that the mountain lion somehow reflected my new life in the West, whereas the black bear had represented my life (and the energy of the land) back in Pennsylvania.
Today, though, I'm still a dreamy, contemplative person. Would I be who I am had I grown up immersed in a different sort of energy? I think not. The energy of this new place is certainly shaping me, but that specific terrain in Pennsylvania that held me for my first seventeen-and-a-half years really created me and defined me, and defines me still.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
The Money Suicides
I run the risk of sounding extremely flippant by posting this, but I'm having a hard time remaining silent. It's these "money suicides" I keep hearing about, an almost weekly occurrence. They're driving me crazy.
If I could just catch these guys by the lapels before they do the final deed, I'd have a few things to say (and by guys I do mean guys, as I haven't heard any women mentioned in the news reports yet--not that they aren't just as capable, I'm sure).
"Oh you silly little boy! You thought that money mattered? You thought that this game of yours was real? You thought your red hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place mattered? My dear child, let's fold up the board, there's a good boy, put on the lid, and let's take a little walk outside. Come with me, that's right, come along.
"Here, take off your shoes. Feel the grass beneath your feet, see the robin pulling worms, the grasshopper leaping from your path. Little boy, see the clouds moving in, roiling on the horizon and promising more rain.
"Crouch down on your knees here. Yes, get dirty. Here is where a mole has burrowed just below the surface and here is the hole where the cat tried to uncover him. Take hold of this earth in your hands. Scoop it up. Feel the heat and the warm moist breath of that soil on your skin, so sensuous!
"Roll on your back now and be held by this ground beneath you. Look to the skies above you. You are immersed in creation--yes! this living breathing conscious creation. It's below you, above you, inside of you, in your breath and your bones. The universe creates itself through you--can you feel it? What a miracle!
"Think of all the magnificent ways creation could revel in its aliveness, just through you, little one! What fun. How delicious. And not just through you, but through everyone and everything else. Can you see it all around you?
"This, now this, is the truly fun game. So. Let's forget about your little tantrum back in the house. Do those plastic hotels and that silly paper money matter so much now? See, isn't this much better?"
Now, I want to be clear, I don't mean to make light of suicide--but in these situations I do feel it's an extreme form of childishness. To end your life in a tantrum about stuff--stuff! Stuff isn't real. The people left behind to pick up the pieces are real.
Our materialistic culture is a very childish culture, and I mean that in every sense of the word. As a whole, our culture hasn't evolved beyond a very childlike way of expressing itself. Here and there we have a few adults, but barely a few.
My hope is that people will see the financial crisis for what it is--an opportunity to mature beyond materialism. To become the first adults.
If I could just catch these guys by the lapels before they do the final deed, I'd have a few things to say (and by guys I do mean guys, as I haven't heard any women mentioned in the news reports yet--not that they aren't just as capable, I'm sure).
"Oh you silly little boy! You thought that money mattered? You thought that this game of yours was real? You thought your red hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place mattered? My dear child, let's fold up the board, there's a good boy, put on the lid, and let's take a little walk outside. Come with me, that's right, come along.
"Here, take off your shoes. Feel the grass beneath your feet, see the robin pulling worms, the grasshopper leaping from your path. Little boy, see the clouds moving in, roiling on the horizon and promising more rain.
"Crouch down on your knees here. Yes, get dirty. Here is where a mole has burrowed just below the surface and here is the hole where the cat tried to uncover him. Take hold of this earth in your hands. Scoop it up. Feel the heat and the warm moist breath of that soil on your skin, so sensuous!
"Roll on your back now and be held by this ground beneath you. Look to the skies above you. You are immersed in creation--yes! this living breathing conscious creation. It's below you, above you, inside of you, in your breath and your bones. The universe creates itself through you--can you feel it? What a miracle!
"Think of all the magnificent ways creation could revel in its aliveness, just through you, little one! What fun. How delicious. And not just through you, but through everyone and everything else. Can you see it all around you?
"This, now this, is the truly fun game. So. Let's forget about your little tantrum back in the house. Do those plastic hotels and that silly paper money matter so much now? See, isn't this much better?"
Now, I want to be clear, I don't mean to make light of suicide--but in these situations I do feel it's an extreme form of childishness. To end your life in a tantrum about stuff--stuff! Stuff isn't real. The people left behind to pick up the pieces are real.
Our materialistic culture is a very childish culture, and I mean that in every sense of the word. As a whole, our culture hasn't evolved beyond a very childlike way of expressing itself. Here and there we have a few adults, but barely a few.
My hope is that people will see the financial crisis for what it is--an opportunity to mature beyond materialism. To become the first adults.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Evaluating What Belongs
I'm starting to acquire an intuitive sense of what belongs. Paring down my life to what matters most, and eliminating clutter, has opened up space for me to start recognizing what wants to manifest and what fits in here. I still have a long way to go in streamlining my physical surroundings, but I've also come an incredible distance already.
At times, I find myself slipping into that different set of eyes--the one that sees nuance and layers. It's when I look out of those eyes that it becomes glaringly obvious what doesn't fit. Recently it was the realization (I know how goofy and trivial this will sound) that my black bag--what I use to carry my books and notebooks and whatever else I need whenever I go out--just doesn't fit. It feels all wrong somehow--I can't explain. I could get all rational and come up with all sorts of explanations for why it might not be a good fit, but really all that matters is I know it doesn't fit. Not that I have anything to replace it with at present, but now at least I recognize that it ultimately doesn't belong.
This all presents a fascinating new approach. Imagine having this kind of radar on all of the time. Being able to feel the pull of objects that want to belong in my space and sensing when the energy is all wrong. Imagine if everyone had this radar--what kind of "consumers" would we become? Consumers of beauty and harmony, maybe?
I've noticed though, too, that even when I'm totally immersed in the perfection of my surroundings--even when everything belongs--there's always a sort of tension present. I might describe it as a yearning, or even a dissatisfaction. Here is utter perfection--how I revel in its bliss! And yet simultaneously there's this tension or yearning. What is that?
I think maybe it's just the pulse of creation. This blissful perfection of the moment is static, whereas life is ever-changing. The yearning, I think, is the universe pulsing through me, seeking the next moment, the next now. Reinventing and re-experiencing itself in each new now. The static present rubbing up against the forever-malleable future means there will always be a dynamic tension existing in even the most harmonious of nows.
When I experience bliss, and can't just be still with it--wanting to know what to do with it--that's the pulsing of creation. That's the dynamic tension of a conscious universe creating itself.
At times, I find myself slipping into that different set of eyes--the one that sees nuance and layers. It's when I look out of those eyes that it becomes glaringly obvious what doesn't fit. Recently it was the realization (I know how goofy and trivial this will sound) that my black bag--what I use to carry my books and notebooks and whatever else I need whenever I go out--just doesn't fit. It feels all wrong somehow--I can't explain. I could get all rational and come up with all sorts of explanations for why it might not be a good fit, but really all that matters is I know it doesn't fit. Not that I have anything to replace it with at present, but now at least I recognize that it ultimately doesn't belong.
This all presents a fascinating new approach. Imagine having this kind of radar on all of the time. Being able to feel the pull of objects that want to belong in my space and sensing when the energy is all wrong. Imagine if everyone had this radar--what kind of "consumers" would we become? Consumers of beauty and harmony, maybe?
I've noticed though, too, that even when I'm totally immersed in the perfection of my surroundings--even when everything belongs--there's always a sort of tension present. I might describe it as a yearning, or even a dissatisfaction. Here is utter perfection--how I revel in its bliss! And yet simultaneously there's this tension or yearning. What is that?
I think maybe it's just the pulse of creation. This blissful perfection of the moment is static, whereas life is ever-changing. The yearning, I think, is the universe pulsing through me, seeking the next moment, the next now. Reinventing and re-experiencing itself in each new now. The static present rubbing up against the forever-malleable future means there will always be a dynamic tension existing in even the most harmonious of nows.
When I experience bliss, and can't just be still with it--wanting to know what to do with it--that's the pulsing of creation. That's the dynamic tension of a conscious universe creating itself.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Simple Living Goals
With the new year spreading out before me, I want to reflect a little on where I've been and where I intend to go from here.
This past year marked an incredible deepening of my experience with voluntary simplicity. I've felt the old paradigm finally cracking and falling off like the seed-coat on a sprout. I'm seeing with new eyes. More and more I'm convinced you can't go halfway with simplicity or any other sort of emptiness practice. Halfway gets you to individual discrete changes, good in and of themselves, of course--but only a full immersion in emptiness can shatter the old way of seeing.
So, what constitutes my emptiness practice--what does my "full immersion" look like? For one thing, I've tried to minimize outside distractions. This has been an ongoing project for several years, which continues to broaden. It means no newspaper or periodical subscriptions, no catalogs (except seed catalogs for now), no watches, no cell phone, no GPS or other techno-gadgets except the computer, and no television. For certain spells I've also avoided the Internet and telephone, although never entirely, and I'm still trying to figure out where these two things fit into my life.
I also do without many other comforts of consumer culture. I don't have a microwave, I won't use a dishwasher, and I use a reel mower to mow the lawn. I cut my own hair, brew my own coffee, knead my own bread, and grow at least some of my own food. I don't believe that fingernails or toenails should ever cost money to maintain (beyond the cost of a set of nail clippers), or that straight hair should be curly, or that brown hair should be blond or black or red. I don't exercise in a gym (what a contrivance!)--never have, never will , as long as there's the great outdoors. Therefore, I'm not constantly scooting around from nail salon to gym to beauty shop to coffee shop to bakery to...you name it. Grocery store, yes. Bank. School. Library. Post office, occasionally. Recycling center and landfill every few months. That's usually about it.
Spending. For 2008, my conspicuous consumption, excluding food and household supplies (like toilet paper) can be itemized as follows: a waterbath canner and some more canning jars, one soaker hose, a faucet V thingy, a fan-type sprayer attachment, hose washers, some clay pots, three Pyrex dishes with lids, a five-gallon bucket to hold my homemade laundry detergent, a five-gallon bucket to use this coming year for making compost tea, a deep-socket set which was needed for disassembling something, a coil brush for the fridge, a set of twin sheets, a few items of clothing for my son. All of which amounted to roughly $150 in costs and very little of my time.
I've still been in the process of physically downsizing. This past year I sold off two more big pieces of equipment from my old business, and continued to sell off, recycle, donate or trash things I no longer needed or wanted. The house feels more and more tranquil and supportive the more stuff I manage to clear out.
I rarely have any background noises in my house, except for the hum of the fridge, the computer fans, and the washer and dryer. Well, when I'm alone that is--it's all a bit different when Collin's here! Long stretches of serenity and silence have been crucial for me in my deepening experience with simplicity.
The first hours of the day have always seemed to hold a sacred power. I make sure I'm present and receptive at that time of day. It's when the more profound insights seem to want to play peekaboo--I get glimpses of what is trying to awaken in me. Sometimes I can even catch hold. The evening hours, too, can hold a bit of magic, so when I'm able I set aside some evening time. The middle of the day tends to be mucky for me, energetically-- that's the time for grounding, practical work.
The biggest insight in the past year has been a deepening understanding of the power of place. I will be working hard in the next year to try to convey the new ideas that have evolved. Because I have to do a lot of travelling, I've had a lot of time to explore the power of place. My alone time in the car, experiencing shifting energies as I pass from place to place has been an enormous gift. Without those countless hours behind the wheel (and in spite of my grumbling about them) I would not know what I know now.
In the next year, I will be continuing the process of downsizing. I will be growing even more of my own food, which can only help to firm up my renewed relationship with the land. I will be spending a lot more of my time writing. Beyond that, I will be living in my new paradigm and trying to uncover its possibilities. I will strive to live directly, not vicariously through anyone else, nor vicariously through any machines or gadgets or contrivances. I will seek to have only immediate experiences with what truly IS.
I wish you a very joyful New Year and success with whatever goals you have set for yourself this year.
This past year marked an incredible deepening of my experience with voluntary simplicity. I've felt the old paradigm finally cracking and falling off like the seed-coat on a sprout. I'm seeing with new eyes. More and more I'm convinced you can't go halfway with simplicity or any other sort of emptiness practice. Halfway gets you to individual discrete changes, good in and of themselves, of course--but only a full immersion in emptiness can shatter the old way of seeing.
So, what constitutes my emptiness practice--what does my "full immersion" look like? For one thing, I've tried to minimize outside distractions. This has been an ongoing project for several years, which continues to broaden. It means no newspaper or periodical subscriptions, no catalogs (except seed catalogs for now), no watches, no cell phone, no GPS or other techno-gadgets except the computer, and no television. For certain spells I've also avoided the Internet and telephone, although never entirely, and I'm still trying to figure out where these two things fit into my life.
I also do without many other comforts of consumer culture. I don't have a microwave, I won't use a dishwasher, and I use a reel mower to mow the lawn. I cut my own hair, brew my own coffee, knead my own bread, and grow at least some of my own food. I don't believe that fingernails or toenails should ever cost money to maintain (beyond the cost of a set of nail clippers), or that straight hair should be curly, or that brown hair should be blond or black or red. I don't exercise in a gym (what a contrivance!)--never have, never will , as long as there's the great outdoors. Therefore, I'm not constantly scooting around from nail salon to gym to beauty shop to coffee shop to bakery to...you name it. Grocery store, yes. Bank. School. Library. Post office, occasionally. Recycling center and landfill every few months. That's usually about it.
Spending. For 2008, my conspicuous consumption, excluding food and household supplies (like toilet paper) can be itemized as follows: a waterbath canner and some more canning jars, one soaker hose, a faucet V thingy, a fan-type sprayer attachment, hose washers, some clay pots, three Pyrex dishes with lids, a five-gallon bucket to hold my homemade laundry detergent, a five-gallon bucket to use this coming year for making compost tea, a deep-socket set which was needed for disassembling something, a coil brush for the fridge, a set of twin sheets, a few items of clothing for my son. All of which amounted to roughly $150 in costs and very little of my time.
I've still been in the process of physically downsizing. This past year I sold off two more big pieces of equipment from my old business, and continued to sell off, recycle, donate or trash things I no longer needed or wanted. The house feels more and more tranquil and supportive the more stuff I manage to clear out.
I rarely have any background noises in my house, except for the hum of the fridge, the computer fans, and the washer and dryer. Well, when I'm alone that is--it's all a bit different when Collin's here! Long stretches of serenity and silence have been crucial for me in my deepening experience with simplicity.
The first hours of the day have always seemed to hold a sacred power. I make sure I'm present and receptive at that time of day. It's when the more profound insights seem to want to play peekaboo--I get glimpses of what is trying to awaken in me. Sometimes I can even catch hold. The evening hours, too, can hold a bit of magic, so when I'm able I set aside some evening time. The middle of the day tends to be mucky for me, energetically-- that's the time for grounding, practical work.
The biggest insight in the past year has been a deepening understanding of the power of place. I will be working hard in the next year to try to convey the new ideas that have evolved. Because I have to do a lot of travelling, I've had a lot of time to explore the power of place. My alone time in the car, experiencing shifting energies as I pass from place to place has been an enormous gift. Without those countless hours behind the wheel (and in spite of my grumbling about them) I would not know what I know now.
In the next year, I will be continuing the process of downsizing. I will be growing even more of my own food, which can only help to firm up my renewed relationship with the land. I will be spending a lot more of my time writing. Beyond that, I will be living in my new paradigm and trying to uncover its possibilities. I will strive to live directly, not vicariously through anyone else, nor vicariously through any machines or gadgets or contrivances. I will seek to have only immediate experiences with what truly IS.
I wish you a very joyful New Year and success with whatever goals you have set for yourself this year.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Potential, Evolution and Labelling
It was with a jolt that I realized in recent months that I meet many of the criteria for Asperger's Syndrome, the high-functioning form of autism. I went so far as to take an online test, the result of which said it was "highly likely". Bah!
I did some research online and found that virtually all geniuses and high achievers throughout history are now considered to have suffered from this condition. Doesn't that seem a little odd, a little curious? We want to label these people, who have contributed so much to human society, as somehow deficient??
I started to get really mad, especially when these sites talked about curing Aspergers or at least medicating it into submission. Medicating personality?
Now don't get me wrong, I understand that autism is real and can be extremely debilitating, especially at the lower end of the spectrum. Rates of autism have skyrocketed in recent years and it's a huge problem. We need to find out what's causing it--be it vaccines, environmental toxins, or something else--and fix it.
What I'm griping about is the general attitude towards the high-functioning end of this spectrum, which some people believe is not the same syndrome at all. Some are suggesting it's actually an evolutionary adaption. I tend to agree.
In one of her books, Temple Grandin talked about the differences in brain functioning between autistic people and "normals". There seems to be somewhat less activity in the frontal lobes of autistics. This makes sense as these areas affect such things as speech, socialization and mental flexibility/spontaneity--typical problem areas for autistics. Grandin, a highly accomplished autistic herself, believes that the autistic person is sort of half-animal, half-human in the way in which he or she perceives and responds to the world. And this makes sense too--our frontal lobes pretty much define us as humans. Her descriptions of her fluid, visual way of perceiving the world does seem to express a more primordial, animal orientation.
Here's what I think (bear with me):
Simply because a brain differs in function from the norm, doesn't make it a deficient brain. The brain is a fluid evolving structure, so you would hope there would be changes and adaptations over time.
It's easy to interpret a lessened reliance on the frontal lobes as a regression, and therefore undesirable. But what has occurred to me is that perhaps we're evolving to a more fluid way of being in the world and that new way of being will be much less reliant on the frontal lobes. Maybe in the course of our evolution highly developed frontal lobes were crucial, but once they serve their purpose, they will recede in importance.
I suspect that they were important for the development of ego. Speech helped us to name and label, creating subject and object--no longer a unified world, but us and them, self and other. No longer a fluid state of being, but clunky self-awareness. The need to belong to a group, to protect the isolated dot that you were.
One thing about Aspies (that's what they call themselves)--they have no need to belong. If the world were inhabited only by Aspies there would be no war or conflict, because they're just not concerned with those petty needs of the ego.
As I've said before (in Tracing the The Rise of Ego and Materialism), I think we're evolving from unconscious unity to conscious separateness (and ego) to, eventually, conscious unity. We are one with Gaia and with the cosmos, but we have yet to fully awaken to that. I believe that Aspies are at the cusp of this awakening.
The new human will live fluidly again with the world around him, in a state of unity and egolessness. In a sense he will be more animal-like again, with the only exception being that he will be fully awake--an enlightened, conscious being.
Check out this excerpt from Temple Grandin's book Animals in Translation
:
http://www.grandin.com/inc/animals.in.translation.ch3.html
And this is a very beautiful myth about Aspies--it is a masterpiece:
http://www.aspergianpride.com/blog/aspergian-heritage/
I did some research online and found that virtually all geniuses and high achievers throughout history are now considered to have suffered from this condition. Doesn't that seem a little odd, a little curious? We want to label these people, who have contributed so much to human society, as somehow deficient??
I started to get really mad, especially when these sites talked about curing Aspergers or at least medicating it into submission. Medicating personality?
Now don't get me wrong, I understand that autism is real and can be extremely debilitating, especially at the lower end of the spectrum. Rates of autism have skyrocketed in recent years and it's a huge problem. We need to find out what's causing it--be it vaccines, environmental toxins, or something else--and fix it.
What I'm griping about is the general attitude towards the high-functioning end of this spectrum, which some people believe is not the same syndrome at all. Some are suggesting it's actually an evolutionary adaption. I tend to agree.
In one of her books, Temple Grandin talked about the differences in brain functioning between autistic people and "normals". There seems to be somewhat less activity in the frontal lobes of autistics. This makes sense as these areas affect such things as speech, socialization and mental flexibility/spontaneity--typical problem areas for autistics. Grandin, a highly accomplished autistic herself, believes that the autistic person is sort of half-animal, half-human in the way in which he or she perceives and responds to the world. And this makes sense too--our frontal lobes pretty much define us as humans. Her descriptions of her fluid, visual way of perceiving the world does seem to express a more primordial, animal orientation.
Here's what I think (bear with me):
Simply because a brain differs in function from the norm, doesn't make it a deficient brain. The brain is a fluid evolving structure, so you would hope there would be changes and adaptations over time.
It's easy to interpret a lessened reliance on the frontal lobes as a regression, and therefore undesirable. But what has occurred to me is that perhaps we're evolving to a more fluid way of being in the world and that new way of being will be much less reliant on the frontal lobes. Maybe in the course of our evolution highly developed frontal lobes were crucial, but once they serve their purpose, they will recede in importance.
I suspect that they were important for the development of ego. Speech helped us to name and label, creating subject and object--no longer a unified world, but us and them, self and other. No longer a fluid state of being, but clunky self-awareness. The need to belong to a group, to protect the isolated dot that you were.
One thing about Aspies (that's what they call themselves)--they have no need to belong. If the world were inhabited only by Aspies there would be no war or conflict, because they're just not concerned with those petty needs of the ego.
As I've said before (in Tracing the The Rise of Ego and Materialism), I think we're evolving from unconscious unity to conscious separateness (and ego) to, eventually, conscious unity. We are one with Gaia and with the cosmos, but we have yet to fully awaken to that. I believe that Aspies are at the cusp of this awakening.
The new human will live fluidly again with the world around him, in a state of unity and egolessness. In a sense he will be more animal-like again, with the only exception being that he will be fully awake--an enlightened, conscious being.
Check out this excerpt from Temple Grandin's book Animals in Translation
:http://www.grandin.com/inc/animals.in.translation.ch3.html
And this is a very beautiful myth about Aspies--it is a masterpiece:
http://www.aspergianpride.com/blog/aspergian-heritage/
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Infiltration and Naturalization (Part 1)
In my post titled Putting Down Roots I suggested that in order for us to live sustainably on this planet we must learn anew how to inhabit our ecosystems, becoming full participants again.
But how is that to be done? I surely can't be suggesting we return to hunting and gathering and sleeping in little grass nests like the !Kung once did. We must go forward from where we are, but what exactly does the way forward look like?
I don't pretend to have the answers, but I'd like to share the train of thought I've been following recently. As I've pointed out before, I want to use my practice of voluntary simplicity as a tool for exploring the many issues we face. From the clarity I gain by living without unnecessary distractions, I hope to be able to see things in novel ways. I don't expect to find the right answers, necessarily, but I wish to escape from bland, homogenized groupthink. I want to entertain possibilities.
The one question I've been turning over in my head for awhile is--Just how exactly do we become naturalized to our place in the ecosystem? When we move and enter a new locale--a new country perhaps--how do we become truly naturalized citizens of that place? We don't simply take a multiple choice test and consider ourselves naturalized. There's far more to it than that, of course.
About a year ago I read Amy Chua's very thought-provoking book World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability
. It was about the way in which global free markets have created elite minority groups, what she calls "market-dominant minorities"--those groups (usually outsiders) who come to control the bulk of a country's wealth and natural resources. The Chinese in the Philippines, the Jews of post-communist Russia, whites in Latin America--these are a few examples. Then, if universal suffrage is granted to the citizens of these places, more or less overnight, it creates a situation primed for violence and turmoil. The indigenous people of a country, who have been so poorly treated and who have seen their land around them abused and despoiled by the market-dominant minority, suddenly have power. Not only to elect their own, and thus peacefully oust the interlopers, but also to seize property and assets from those they've ousted. Often things have turned even more dangerous, escalating to violence and genocide.
This post isn't about free-markets and democracy, though--it's just that this book got me thinking about the way in which outsiders can really screw things up (all in the name of progress, of course). An outsider comes in and sees cheap labor, cheap resources, opportunities for exaggerated profits. For them, it's about money, success, business. Extracting and transacting. As a result, culture and environment are decimated, the people left impoverished.
I've decided that market-dominant minorities (and multinational corporations) are like invasive weed seeds. In a healthy ecosystem, plants and animals evolve together over thousands or millions of years. Over time they create defenses to protect themselves from each other. There are checks and balances established that create a healthy balance. But if a foreign weed is introduced into that ecosystem--a totally alien seed that the local flora and fauna have never encountered-- it can grow unchecked. There are no defenses present in the environment to stop it. It can take over, smothering out the native vegetation (as the russian olive tree does around here and the kudzu vine does so well in the southeastern US). Market-dominant minorities and global corporations behave similarly. They ride in with their wads of cash, and what human ecosystem has yet evolved a defense against that? Land can be grabbed with wads of cash, metals, ores, timber can be grabbed, whole industries can be grabbed.
On a smaller scale, when we as individuals move about on this planet we run the risk of acting like evil weed seeds in our new landing places. We arrive unnaturalized to the local conditions. This is a dangerous state to be in. We want to be secure in our new place, so we start doing things to stake our claim. We build a house maybe (is the design in alignment with the local environment, or is it more a reflection of the architecture in the place we left?), we attend town hall meetings, city council meetings (do we try to impose our ideas right away, try to outlaw certain "backward" practices we find here?), attend school board meetings, find a church. All of these are ways we're trying to fit in and become naturalized, yet if we don't take the time to acclimate and to really get a sense of the community and all of its intricacies, we run the risk of introducing damaging practices.
In my community there's been uproar over a new school superintendent who arrived from California with his own ideas of how things should be done. The entire community has been up in arms about his crackpot ideas, which probably worked beautifully for him in his old district. He didn't take the time to acclimate to his new locale and find effective solutions that the community could back.
In Denver recently the city chopped down a beloved willow tree without realizing the importance of it to generations of people in the community.
I've heard of monstrous subdivisions going in on formerly agricultural land and the newcomers trying to outlaw livestock from adjacent farms because they object to the smell.
I could create a list a mile long with other examples and I'm sure you could too, but my point is we must take the time to acclimate to our new surroundings before we act. We have a responsibility to become naturalized citizens of whatever place on earth we happen to inhabit. It takes time to become naturalized--it doesn't happen overnight--so we must be careful in the interim, while we still have weed seed potential, to act with great care in our new environment.
Look for future posts expanding on this topic.
But how is that to be done? I surely can't be suggesting we return to hunting and gathering and sleeping in little grass nests like the !Kung once did. We must go forward from where we are, but what exactly does the way forward look like?
I don't pretend to have the answers, but I'd like to share the train of thought I've been following recently. As I've pointed out before, I want to use my practice of voluntary simplicity as a tool for exploring the many issues we face. From the clarity I gain by living without unnecessary distractions, I hope to be able to see things in novel ways. I don't expect to find the right answers, necessarily, but I wish to escape from bland, homogenized groupthink. I want to entertain possibilities.
The one question I've been turning over in my head for awhile is--Just how exactly do we become naturalized to our place in the ecosystem? When we move and enter a new locale--a new country perhaps--how do we become truly naturalized citizens of that place? We don't simply take a multiple choice test and consider ourselves naturalized. There's far more to it than that, of course.
About a year ago I read Amy Chua's very thought-provoking book World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability
. It was about the way in which global free markets have created elite minority groups, what she calls "market-dominant minorities"--those groups (usually outsiders) who come to control the bulk of a country's wealth and natural resources. The Chinese in the Philippines, the Jews of post-communist Russia, whites in Latin America--these are a few examples. Then, if universal suffrage is granted to the citizens of these places, more or less overnight, it creates a situation primed for violence and turmoil. The indigenous people of a country, who have been so poorly treated and who have seen their land around them abused and despoiled by the market-dominant minority, suddenly have power. Not only to elect their own, and thus peacefully oust the interlopers, but also to seize property and assets from those they've ousted. Often things have turned even more dangerous, escalating to violence and genocide.This post isn't about free-markets and democracy, though--it's just that this book got me thinking about the way in which outsiders can really screw things up (all in the name of progress, of course). An outsider comes in and sees cheap labor, cheap resources, opportunities for exaggerated profits. For them, it's about money, success, business. Extracting and transacting. As a result, culture and environment are decimated, the people left impoverished.
I've decided that market-dominant minorities (and multinational corporations) are like invasive weed seeds. In a healthy ecosystem, plants and animals evolve together over thousands or millions of years. Over time they create defenses to protect themselves from each other. There are checks and balances established that create a healthy balance. But if a foreign weed is introduced into that ecosystem--a totally alien seed that the local flora and fauna have never encountered-- it can grow unchecked. There are no defenses present in the environment to stop it. It can take over, smothering out the native vegetation (as the russian olive tree does around here and the kudzu vine does so well in the southeastern US). Market-dominant minorities and global corporations behave similarly. They ride in with their wads of cash, and what human ecosystem has yet evolved a defense against that? Land can be grabbed with wads of cash, metals, ores, timber can be grabbed, whole industries can be grabbed.
On a smaller scale, when we as individuals move about on this planet we run the risk of acting like evil weed seeds in our new landing places. We arrive unnaturalized to the local conditions. This is a dangerous state to be in. We want to be secure in our new place, so we start doing things to stake our claim. We build a house maybe (is the design in alignment with the local environment, or is it more a reflection of the architecture in the place we left?), we attend town hall meetings, city council meetings (do we try to impose our ideas right away, try to outlaw certain "backward" practices we find here?), attend school board meetings, find a church. All of these are ways we're trying to fit in and become naturalized, yet if we don't take the time to acclimate and to really get a sense of the community and all of its intricacies, we run the risk of introducing damaging practices.
In my community there's been uproar over a new school superintendent who arrived from California with his own ideas of how things should be done. The entire community has been up in arms about his crackpot ideas, which probably worked beautifully for him in his old district. He didn't take the time to acclimate to his new locale and find effective solutions that the community could back.
In Denver recently the city chopped down a beloved willow tree without realizing the importance of it to generations of people in the community.
I've heard of monstrous subdivisions going in on formerly agricultural land and the newcomers trying to outlaw livestock from adjacent farms because they object to the smell.
I could create a list a mile long with other examples and I'm sure you could too, but my point is we must take the time to acclimate to our new surroundings before we act. We have a responsibility to become naturalized citizens of whatever place on earth we happen to inhabit. It takes time to become naturalized--it doesn't happen overnight--so we must be careful in the interim, while we still have weed seed potential, to act with great care in our new environment.
Look for future posts expanding on this topic.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
The Folly of the Growth Economy
Is it reasonable to expect our economy to have continual growth? What does economic growth really mean, anyway, and how is it tied to our well-being? Are there better models of well-being we should be using instead?
To begin to explore this, let's first look at the word "economy". It comes from the Greek word oikonomia, which means household management. Oikonomia is related to the word oikos, which we translate as "ecology" but which originally meant house or dwelling place. So oikonomia is, fundamentally, how we manage the place where we live, whether it be our home, our community, or the whole earth. In it's basic definition, it is not concerned with money at all. It is concerned with managing resources, however.
To illustrate this, I'm going to tell the tale of two different "oikonomias". And to keep it simple, these two "oikonomias" are going to be small farms. I'll call it:
The Parable of the Two Farms
The first farm is self-sufficient. It reinvests its resources back into the land by various methods of sound stewardship. Kitchen and yard waste, as well as animal manures, are composted and spread on the fields; crops are rotated; cover crops are used in the off-seasons to protect and amend the soils; beneficial insects are encouraged and symbiotic relationships form among plants and animals, enhancing the well-being of flora, fauna, and soils alike; diversity is a priority. The soil is seen as the ground from which all life springs, so it is treated with great reverence. Care is taken to preserve topsoil and good tilth. Sound land management protects against unnatural erosion and any unnecessary disturbance of the soil structure. Water resources are used judiciously.
This complex and diverse oikos provides everything needed for the survival and health of its inhabitants. And, in most years, enough of a surplus exists to allow for bartering with other places for more "exotic" goods.
The second farm is a little different. It espouses a strange philosophy which it calls oikonomic growth. The goal is not health or well-being. Instead, the goal is to be manically busy and focused on producing more and more stuff. This requires each year to be more productive than the last. They must be able to export more each year. Numbers have to go up, always.
They plant every tillable acre and harvest all of the mature timber. The next year, in order for their oikonomia to show growth, they need to increase their yields. So, they spread chemical fertilizers on the fields and pesticides to limit insect damage. They begin to clearcut their remaining stands of timber. They move their livestock into pens and feed them grain instead of grass, for the sake of efficiency. The soil begins to erode in the clearcuts, the fields demand more and more chemical inputs just to maintain their current yields. Concentrated animal wastes from the pens seep down into the water table and the well.
Eventually, the farm's assets are depleted. The topsoil is gone. The land is sterile. The water is poisoned. The inhabitants are sick. The farm is no longer able to produce.
So how did these two farms fare in managing their households? Which of the two had a sound oikonomia? Is it the one that showed growth for a number of years? Or could it be the one that never showed any growth?
Leaving the parable behind, I'll end with one more question. Can there be such a thing as a steady-state economy--one based on sustainability instead of robbing from the future?
Read what others are saying about the concept of the steady-state economy:
http://www.meander.ca/?p=112
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3941
http://sinkinglifeboat.blogspot.com/2008/10/facts-are-in-folks-we-dont-need-growth.html
http://robertkyriakides.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/economic-growth-and-a-steady-state-
for-the-planet/
http://www.culturequake.org/Home/Blog/Entries/2008/9/21_Call_for_a_Steady-State_Economy.html
http://tipggita32.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/herman-daly-on-the-credit-crisis-financial-assets-and-real-wealth/
http://sunhomedesign.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/adam-smith-and-a-steady-state-economy/
http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/the-conversation-we-should-be-having/
http://www.steadystate.org/
To begin to explore this, let's first look at the word "economy". It comes from the Greek word oikonomia, which means household management. Oikonomia is related to the word oikos, which we translate as "ecology" but which originally meant house or dwelling place. So oikonomia is, fundamentally, how we manage the place where we live, whether it be our home, our community, or the whole earth. In it's basic definition, it is not concerned with money at all. It is concerned with managing resources, however.
To illustrate this, I'm going to tell the tale of two different "oikonomias". And to keep it simple, these two "oikonomias" are going to be small farms. I'll call it:
The Parable of the Two Farms
The first farm is self-sufficient. It reinvests its resources back into the land by various methods of sound stewardship. Kitchen and yard waste, as well as animal manures, are composted and spread on the fields; crops are rotated; cover crops are used in the off-seasons to protect and amend the soils; beneficial insects are encouraged and symbiotic relationships form among plants and animals, enhancing the well-being of flora, fauna, and soils alike; diversity is a priority. The soil is seen as the ground from which all life springs, so it is treated with great reverence. Care is taken to preserve topsoil and good tilth. Sound land management protects against unnatural erosion and any unnecessary disturbance of the soil structure. Water resources are used judiciously.
This complex and diverse oikos provides everything needed for the survival and health of its inhabitants. And, in most years, enough of a surplus exists to allow for bartering with other places for more "exotic" goods.
The second farm is a little different. It espouses a strange philosophy which it calls oikonomic growth. The goal is not health or well-being. Instead, the goal is to be manically busy and focused on producing more and more stuff. This requires each year to be more productive than the last. They must be able to export more each year. Numbers have to go up, always.
They plant every tillable acre and harvest all of the mature timber. The next year, in order for their oikonomia to show growth, they need to increase their yields. So, they spread chemical fertilizers on the fields and pesticides to limit insect damage. They begin to clearcut their remaining stands of timber. They move their livestock into pens and feed them grain instead of grass, for the sake of efficiency. The soil begins to erode in the clearcuts, the fields demand more and more chemical inputs just to maintain their current yields. Concentrated animal wastes from the pens seep down into the water table and the well.
Eventually, the farm's assets are depleted. The topsoil is gone. The land is sterile. The water is poisoned. The inhabitants are sick. The farm is no longer able to produce.
So how did these two farms fare in managing their households? Which of the two had a sound oikonomia? Is it the one that showed growth for a number of years? Or could it be the one that never showed any growth?
Leaving the parable behind, I'll end with one more question. Can there be such a thing as a steady-state economy--one based on sustainability instead of robbing from the future?
Read what others are saying about the concept of the steady-state economy:
http://www.meander.ca/?p=112
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3941
http://sinkinglifeboat.blogspot.com/2008/10/facts-are-in-folks-we-dont-need-growth.html
http://robertkyriakides.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/economic-growth-and-a-steady-state-
for-the-planet/
http://www.culturequake.org/Home/Blog/Entries/2008/9/21_Call_for_a_Steady-State_Economy.html
http://tipggita32.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/herman-daly-on-the-credit-crisis-financial-assets-and-real-wealth/
http://sunhomedesign.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/adam-smith-and-a-steady-state-economy/
http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/the-conversation-we-should-be-having/
http://www.steadystate.org/
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Meditations on Peace: One Heart's Lament
"Meditations on Peace" will be a recurring feature here.
Today it is the impassioned cry of an American soldier in Iraq. Please read his post here on iPeace and hold him in your heart today. Hold all those who are suffering the ravages of war in your heart.
Today it is the impassioned cry of an American soldier in Iraq. Please read his post here on iPeace and hold him in your heart today. Hold all those who are suffering the ravages of war in your heart.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Forget the Global Economy
Let's step out of the mainstream for a minute and let go of some cherished notions. I'm about to propose a radical economic plan for the little guy. Hold onto your hats.
Here it is, in summary:
Live like your great-grandparents--or maybe better still, your great-great-grandparents.
But say no to indentured servitude. Some of our ancestors found their way here on a wish. It went by the name of indentured servitude and it robbed them of the very thing they most desired--their freedom. Today, we've wished our way into many things: houses, cars, cell phones, plasma t.v.'s. Those wishes are called mortgages, loans, lines of credit and service contracts. All forms of indentured servitude.
In a news article I read today, an economics professor referred to credit as nothing more than trust and faith. Trust and faith from the perspective of the issuer of the credit. Merely a wish from the perspective of the borrower.
It's a wish for future prosperity. Or a wish that things will continue to go as they have. Certainly it's a wish that things won't get worse.
In a lot of cases it's a wish to make yourself look bigger than you really are (see my post The Rise of Ego and Materialism). To live grandly in the moment, instead of sustainably over a lifetime. To look big now and maintain the wish that you will always be able to look big.
But we know you can't. As little children we're taught to recognize and respect limits, but as adults there seems to be absolutely no honoring of limits. The earth is finite. We can't all have more and more and more. That should be obvious.
If we lived like our ancestors and only bought what we could afford now, if we didn't borrow from the future and didn't take from the earth more than could easily be replenished, we could have economic security. We would recession- and depression- proof ourselves.
I know what you're thinking: our ancestors had credit, they had mortgages. Yes, you're right. They had credit at the general store. They had loans from the local bank. But they went to church with the store owner and the banker, they grew up together, they helped bring in each other's crops, often they were even related. In other words, they had trust and faith in each other. They depended on each other. These were real people having face-to-face interactions with each other on a daily basis.
Note that I didn't say they had transactions on a daily basis. There's a huge difference between interacting and transacting. Transacting is a fallen state, an abstraction--it's what we do now and what has gotten us into so much trouble.
Interacting is what we need to return to. It implies true human relationship, honoring each other and honoring the limits of the immediate situation. If there were still local banks where you personally knew the banker and he or she personally knew you and the bank's money came from and was invested in the immediate community, you wouldn't go in asking for a $700,000 mortgage. You'd be laughed out of town.
Instead, you'd ask for a loan that both you and your community could support. You'd build a house only big enough to meet your needs, without taking any more physical resources from the community than necessary.
My economic plan involves, as largely as possible, stepping out of the global economy and returning to a local one. The lesson from all of this recent madness is that we don't deal with abstraction very well. We can be responsible citizens on a small local scale, but it all falls apart when we increase the magnitude. In the global economy, we can't see the results of our actions anymore--they're spread so widely--so we lose accountability. When we participate in the global economy we inevitably cause suffering and damage.
We need to see the results of our actions. We need to live with the results of our actions. That's why our actions need to be on a local scale.
Here it is, in summary:
Live like your great-grandparents--or maybe better still, your great-great-grandparents.
But say no to indentured servitude. Some of our ancestors found their way here on a wish. It went by the name of indentured servitude and it robbed them of the very thing they most desired--their freedom. Today, we've wished our way into many things: houses, cars, cell phones, plasma t.v.'s. Those wishes are called mortgages, loans, lines of credit and service contracts. All forms of indentured servitude.
In a news article I read today, an economics professor referred to credit as nothing more than trust and faith. Trust and faith from the perspective of the issuer of the credit. Merely a wish from the perspective of the borrower.
It's a wish for future prosperity. Or a wish that things will continue to go as they have. Certainly it's a wish that things won't get worse.
In a lot of cases it's a wish to make yourself look bigger than you really are (see my post The Rise of Ego and Materialism). To live grandly in the moment, instead of sustainably over a lifetime. To look big now and maintain the wish that you will always be able to look big.
But we know you can't. As little children we're taught to recognize and respect limits, but as adults there seems to be absolutely no honoring of limits. The earth is finite. We can't all have more and more and more. That should be obvious.
If we lived like our ancestors and only bought what we could afford now, if we didn't borrow from the future and didn't take from the earth more than could easily be replenished, we could have economic security. We would recession- and depression- proof ourselves.
I know what you're thinking: our ancestors had credit, they had mortgages. Yes, you're right. They had credit at the general store. They had loans from the local bank. But they went to church with the store owner and the banker, they grew up together, they helped bring in each other's crops, often they were even related. In other words, they had trust and faith in each other. They depended on each other. These were real people having face-to-face interactions with each other on a daily basis.
Note that I didn't say they had transactions on a daily basis. There's a huge difference between interacting and transacting. Transacting is a fallen state, an abstraction--it's what we do now and what has gotten us into so much trouble.
Interacting is what we need to return to. It implies true human relationship, honoring each other and honoring the limits of the immediate situation. If there were still local banks where you personally knew the banker and he or she personally knew you and the bank's money came from and was invested in the immediate community, you wouldn't go in asking for a $700,000 mortgage. You'd be laughed out of town.
Instead, you'd ask for a loan that both you and your community could support. You'd build a house only big enough to meet your needs, without taking any more physical resources from the community than necessary.
My economic plan involves, as largely as possible, stepping out of the global economy and returning to a local one. The lesson from all of this recent madness is that we don't deal with abstraction very well. We can be responsible citizens on a small local scale, but it all falls apart when we increase the magnitude. In the global economy, we can't see the results of our actions anymore--they're spread so widely--so we lose accountability. When we participate in the global economy we inevitably cause suffering and damage.
We need to see the results of our actions. We need to live with the results of our actions. That's why our actions need to be on a local scale.
Friday, October 3, 2008
The Next Great Depression: When, Not If
Is anyone letting out a big sigh of relief now that the $700 billion bailout has passed?
I didn't think so.
And why should we be relieved? Has anything actually been accomplished? Debt has been shifted around but it's still there. The underlying issues that created the problem in the first place haven't been resolved. We're still operating from within the same totally dysfunctional paradigm.
The goal of the bailout, they're saying, is to free up credit. That is the last thing we need. To go back to business as usual? Come on.
I would much rather have our day of reckoning right now, for believe me it's coming. I would almost wish a depression on us, if it weren't for the magnitude of suffering that will inevitably result. A depression would be nothing more than a true reckoning of our situation. The fact is we are a debtor nation. The greatest debtor nation in the world. Americans now owe more on their mortgages than their houses are worth. We don't own so much as our own front doors. We have nothing. Why can't we face that now and begin to build true wealth?
I believe this bailout solves absolutely nothing. As individuals and families we need to prepare for the absolute worst. The dollar is going to fail. We are going to suffer from hyper-inflation. Savings, retirement accounts will be totally wiped out. Just forget that you even have them.
Focus on the real, tangible things. Your house, your land, your local community, your food supply, your water supply, how to stay warm, how to stay healthy, how to get along with people. The only capital that matters is our human and environmental capital. You know, the real stuff. Credit isn't real. Mortgages aren't real. Money isn't even real--we just use it symbolically to create the life we want.
But we can create good, meaningful, balanced lives without Wall Street.
That's the good thing that could potentially come out of all of this. Once people get over the shock of it all, and begin to let go of their idea that money ever meant anything in the first place, we might evolve into a whole new way of thinking and being.
We will return to living locally. Resources for the most part will remain within our communities and our communities will once more be strong vibrant places. We will no longer exploit the environment because it will be our environment--what we can see with our own two eyes. We will have to care because our well-being will depend on it. We will no longer have the luxury of robbing from future generations to finance our excesses. We will learn to live within our means and the means of this planet.
I know I sound like some doomsday extremist, but these are very extreme times. You have to know our economy can't continue growing indefinitely. This world has limits and we are already rubbing up against many of them. Sooner or later this system will fail. My prediction is that the time is nearly at hand. So, maybe the bailout buys us a little time. My advice--use that time very wisely.
I didn't think so.
And why should we be relieved? Has anything actually been accomplished? Debt has been shifted around but it's still there. The underlying issues that created the problem in the first place haven't been resolved. We're still operating from within the same totally dysfunctional paradigm.
The goal of the bailout, they're saying, is to free up credit. That is the last thing we need. To go back to business as usual? Come on.
I would much rather have our day of reckoning right now, for believe me it's coming. I would almost wish a depression on us, if it weren't for the magnitude of suffering that will inevitably result. A depression would be nothing more than a true reckoning of our situation. The fact is we are a debtor nation. The greatest debtor nation in the world. Americans now owe more on their mortgages than their houses are worth. We don't own so much as our own front doors. We have nothing. Why can't we face that now and begin to build true wealth?
I believe this bailout solves absolutely nothing. As individuals and families we need to prepare for the absolute worst. The dollar is going to fail. We are going to suffer from hyper-inflation. Savings, retirement accounts will be totally wiped out. Just forget that you even have them.
Focus on the real, tangible things. Your house, your land, your local community, your food supply, your water supply, how to stay warm, how to stay healthy, how to get along with people. The only capital that matters is our human and environmental capital. You know, the real stuff. Credit isn't real. Mortgages aren't real. Money isn't even real--we just use it symbolically to create the life we want.
But we can create good, meaningful, balanced lives without Wall Street.
That's the good thing that could potentially come out of all of this. Once people get over the shock of it all, and begin to let go of their idea that money ever meant anything in the first place, we might evolve into a whole new way of thinking and being.
We will return to living locally. Resources for the most part will remain within our communities and our communities will once more be strong vibrant places. We will no longer exploit the environment because it will be our environment--what we can see with our own two eyes. We will have to care because our well-being will depend on it. We will no longer have the luxury of robbing from future generations to finance our excesses. We will learn to live within our means and the means of this planet.
I know I sound like some doomsday extremist, but these are very extreme times. You have to know our economy can't continue growing indefinitely. This world has limits and we are already rubbing up against many of them. Sooner or later this system will fail. My prediction is that the time is nearly at hand. So, maybe the bailout buys us a little time. My advice--use that time very wisely.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
iPeace: New International Peace Initiative Gaining Momentum
On Monday the new international web portal, iPeace, officially launched. It aims to become the world's largest peace portal and has set the goal of reaching a membership of 1 million people by the end of the year. Built like other social networking sites, iPeace seeks to unite people around the world who are committed to working for peace.
Just to look at the beautiful faces of iPeace members from countries all over the world gave me goosebumps. All of these people are seeking true change. All of these people wish to create a better world. And the internet allows us to dialogue with them, to exchange ideas, to create allies for change, to initiate far-reaching programs and know that we will have support. We do have the power to create positive change and groups like this may go a very long way in helping us get there.
I encourage you to visit the site, become a member, and tell your friends about it. Think what might be possible if this global movement is able to reach critical mass. The power to change the world belongs to us. Let's grab this opportunity.
Just to look at the beautiful faces of iPeace members from countries all over the world gave me goosebumps. All of these people are seeking true change. All of these people wish to create a better world. And the internet allows us to dialogue with them, to exchange ideas, to create allies for change, to initiate far-reaching programs and know that we will have support. We do have the power to create positive change and groups like this may go a very long way in helping us get there.
I encourage you to visit the site, become a member, and tell your friends about it. Think what might be possible if this global movement is able to reach critical mass. The power to change the world belongs to us. Let's grab this opportunity.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
The "100 Things" Guy
I keep seeing references on the internet to David Michael Bruno, the man who is trying to pare his belongings down to just 100 things. His blog, guynameddave, is some good reading and it got me thinking.
Owning just one hundred things--what an elegantly simple solution. What a clean, structured way to break free of our hoarding fetish. What an awesome tool for gaining clarity and breaking free of the consumer paradigm.
I've often thought that when my son is grown I'd like to live in a little hermit hut with just the essentials for survival. So I have to ask myself, if I were totally self-sufficient, i.e. off the grid and growing and raising my own food, would it be possible to do so with just one hundred things?
What do humans really need?
Here's what I would need. A shack for shelter, mattress and bedding, chair, table, woodstove, sink, toilet or outhouse, tub or shower (maybe), lights (solar, kerosene, candles...), pots, pans, jars, silverware and utensils, plates, bowls, mugs, canning equipment, grain mill, meat grinder (maybe), fridge (maybe), clothing, soap, hairbrush, t.p., and tools...lots and lots of tools.
Garden tools: shovels, spades, hoe, wheelbarrow, buckets, pots, hoses, watering can, rakes, trowels, pruners, scythe, and shears to name a few.
General homesteading tools and supplies: Post hole digger, ladders, fencing pliers, saws, a chainsaw (maybe), a mower (probably just my handy-dandy reel mower), handtools (now that could be a very long list!), clothesline, wash tubs and washboard, soap molds, brooms, scrub brushes, an ax, fencing, chicken wire, lumber, paint, watering troughs, feed bins, animal shelter, bee hives, root cellar, shelving, drying racks, barrels.
Luxury items: Writing desk, paper, pens, books.
So, that would all easily exceed one hundred things. But would it be excessive? I don't think so. Granted, hunter-gatherer societies have survived for aeons with just a few belongings, so I know we don't ultimately need much. We are animals afterall, and animals are innately geared to surviving in their environments without gadgets. But of course we have so degraded and distorted our environment, survival for us today is a more challenging affair.
A back-to-the-basics lifestyle, such as I dream of with my hermit hut, would for me represent a balanced lifestyle. Just enough, but not too much. A little impact on the environment, but a fair impact. And being free of excessive clutter would help me to blend in with my environment and become again a participant in my ecosystem, rather than something alien plunked down on top of it.
I have been in the process of paring down my life for several years and will continue to do so even after I'm in my hermit hut, I'm sure. But David Bruno has given me an interesting goal to shoot for. Apparently a lot of other people are taking up his challenge as well. There is now a group on FriendFeed for people who want to join the 100 Thing Challenge.
Owning just one hundred things--what an elegantly simple solution. What a clean, structured way to break free of our hoarding fetish. What an awesome tool for gaining clarity and breaking free of the consumer paradigm.
I've often thought that when my son is grown I'd like to live in a little hermit hut with just the essentials for survival. So I have to ask myself, if I were totally self-sufficient, i.e. off the grid and growing and raising my own food, would it be possible to do so with just one hundred things?
What do humans really need?
Here's what I would need. A shack for shelter, mattress and bedding, chair, table, woodstove, sink, toilet or outhouse, tub or shower (maybe), lights (solar, kerosene, candles...), pots, pans, jars, silverware and utensils, plates, bowls, mugs, canning equipment, grain mill, meat grinder (maybe), fridge (maybe), clothing, soap, hairbrush, t.p., and tools...lots and lots of tools.
Garden tools: shovels, spades, hoe, wheelbarrow, buckets, pots, hoses, watering can, rakes, trowels, pruners, scythe, and shears to name a few.
General homesteading tools and supplies: Post hole digger, ladders, fencing pliers, saws, a chainsaw (maybe), a mower (probably just my handy-dandy reel mower), handtools (now that could be a very long list!), clothesline, wash tubs and washboard, soap molds, brooms, scrub brushes, an ax, fencing, chicken wire, lumber, paint, watering troughs, feed bins, animal shelter, bee hives, root cellar, shelving, drying racks, barrels.
Luxury items: Writing desk, paper, pens, books.
So, that would all easily exceed one hundred things. But would it be excessive? I don't think so. Granted, hunter-gatherer societies have survived for aeons with just a few belongings, so I know we don't ultimately need much. We are animals afterall, and animals are innately geared to surviving in their environments without gadgets. But of course we have so degraded and distorted our environment, survival for us today is a more challenging affair.
A back-to-the-basics lifestyle, such as I dream of with my hermit hut, would for me represent a balanced lifestyle. Just enough, but not too much. A little impact on the environment, but a fair impact. And being free of excessive clutter would help me to blend in with my environment and become again a participant in my ecosystem, rather than something alien plunked down on top of it.
I have been in the process of paring down my life for several years and will continue to do so even after I'm in my hermit hut, I'm sure. But David Bruno has given me an interesting goal to shoot for. Apparently a lot of other people are taking up his challenge as well. There is now a group on FriendFeed for people who want to join the 100 Thing Challenge.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Beyond Materialism
In my last two posts, I discussed some of the practical benefits of downsizing and living a simple life. But I want to point out that the majority of my posts won't be about the practical side of voluntary simplicity.
I want to use simplicity as a jumping-off point to explore the larger issues facing humanity and also to use it as a tool for exploring human potential. I don't think of voluntary simplicity as an end state
--something to be achieved. Rather, I think of it as a door opening up to a larger reality. I want to document my tentative steps into that new reality here, because I suspect that amazing things will begin to happen. Where will this journey take me? Will I come up with any novel insights into the human dilemma? Will I create positive change in the world? I want to document this process mainly because no one else is doing that yet. All the other voluntary simplicity blogs and websites are still talking about the basics, the how-to's. But that's only the very beginning. I think a new paradigm is waiting to emerge and I would like to play a part in birthing that. I hope in the future that other people will begin to share their journeys into the new paradigm as well. We need many different voices showing the way.
For now, I'll leave you with some random questions, which I'll be delving into down the road:
I want to use simplicity as a jumping-off point to explore the larger issues facing humanity and also to use it as a tool for exploring human potential. I don't think of voluntary simplicity as an end state
--something to be achieved. Rather, I think of it as a door opening up to a larger reality. I want to document my tentative steps into that new reality here, because I suspect that amazing things will begin to happen. Where will this journey take me? Will I come up with any novel insights into the human dilemma? Will I create positive change in the world? I want to document this process mainly because no one else is doing that yet. All the other voluntary simplicity blogs and websites are still talking about the basics, the how-to's. But that's only the very beginning. I think a new paradigm is waiting to emerge and I would like to play a part in birthing that. I hope in the future that other people will begin to share their journeys into the new paradigm as well. We need many different voices showing the way.
For now, I'll leave you with some random questions, which I'll be delving into down the road:
- If you step out of the consumer paradigm--what's left?
- How does the land, the Earth, relate to our human potential?
- What if we honored limits, confined our creative expressions within the limits of the local ecosystem? Are those limits annoying constraints, or are they forms of profound guidance held in the land?
- Why is economic growth used as an indicator of well-being? What other models of societal well-being are possible?
- Does the human being only exist to possess and control matter? Where else could life energy be going?
- Why do humans seek novelty?
- What core knowledge, what vital skills, are being lost?
- How do my choices impact future generations, the health of the earth, all living beings, my local community? What's my larger responsibility here?
- How can I help my children develop a more encompassing philosophy toward life than that which the consumer paradigm promotes?
- If it saves me time, does it cost me something else?
- What percentage of my time goes toward spending, earning, consuming, protecting and planning for--THINGS?
- What am I trying to buy with money?
- What percentage of my time goes towards mindless distractions? Where could my time be going?
- When considering purchases (beyond the necessities) what if I asked: "Will this help me become the person I'm meant to be?"
- What opportunities does the practice of voluntary simplicity create for me?
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
My Best Move Ever (Part 2)
In Part 1, I talked about the financial benefits of simplifying my living situation. Today, I'll talk about the other benefits.
Less stuff generally translates into more time. With less clutter, there's less time spent cleaning, rearranging, and searching for stuff. Shopping is streamlined --I know I don't have space for anything but the necessities, so I don't waste time window shopping for things I can't have. I try to do one major shopping trip per month (mainly for groceries) and stay out of the stores as much as possible the rest of the month. I'll still need milk and eggs, cat food and a few other incidentals, but I keep those trips quick and to the point. I also don't waste time with maintenance issues since I rent. There have been very few of those anyway, but at least when they do happen, I'm not the one to waste time arranging for contractors or shopping for parts.
I enjoy a slower pace of life here. It's like I've stepped back in time a generation or two. I love the fact that I can let my son run around and enjoy purely unstructured play time here. And the innocence of play is refreshing. In the past weeks it's been Fun With Vegetables. Most everyone here has a garden, so the kids have been entertaining themselves in creative ways with veggies (and fruits). One night it was eating a watermelon they had just picked in the one yard and making a game of chucking the rinds. Another day they carved a jack-o-lantern. A woman down the street gave them a round melon or winter squash that had split open and they were kicking it around and tossing it. My son created a pulley in the back yard and was hoisting and then smashing over-ripe zucchinis (great fun, let me tell you!) which broke them up into better sizes for composting. He came home with a cute gourd that someone else had given him.... I could go on, just talking about vegetables but you get the point. Families don't seem to be so over-scheduled and harried in my town. There's a lot of just families being families and kids being kids. I love that.
And that reminds me of another benefit. There seems to be more neighborliness here than in the suburbs. When I first moved in, I can't tell you the number of people who stopped by to introduce themselves to me. I had never had anything like that happen anywhere else I've lived. People still wave to you on the roads as they pass, whether they know you or not. Such a civil gesture. In the cities, you're likely to see hand gestures but of a much different variety.
There are fewer distractions and annoying interruptions. I've had two door-to-door sales people since I've been here, maybe five or six brochures (mostly the Schwan's guy, who never stops by when I'm home so I can't put an end to it), and two or three visits from the Jehovah's Witnesses. Not too bad after nearly three-and-a-half years in this place. Since I don't buy much anymore and never order from catalogs, I'm not on any mailing lists either. My mailbox is gloriously empty most of the time (it helps that we only have P.O. boxes here --I don't think bulk mailers send as much junk to them as they do to street addresses).
A smaller house also means a smaller environmental footprint and that feels really good. It takes less carbon to heat and light a smaller house and fewer materials to furnish and maintain it. And the actual footprint (square footage-wise) of the house means that less impermeable surface area has been created, leaving more land to absorb rainfall and replenish the water table instead of running off into storm drains and out to sea.
And finally, a simpler lifestyle has brought me much greater satisfaction. I'm satisfied with what I have and where I am and how I'm living. I have all I need--really far more than I need--and I feel incredibly blessed.
Less stuff generally translates into more time. With less clutter, there's less time spent cleaning, rearranging, and searching for stuff. Shopping is streamlined --I know I don't have space for anything but the necessities, so I don't waste time window shopping for things I can't have. I try to do one major shopping trip per month (mainly for groceries) and stay out of the stores as much as possible the rest of the month. I'll still need milk and eggs, cat food and a few other incidentals, but I keep those trips quick and to the point. I also don't waste time with maintenance issues since I rent. There have been very few of those anyway, but at least when they do happen, I'm not the one to waste time arranging for contractors or shopping for parts.
I enjoy a slower pace of life here. It's like I've stepped back in time a generation or two. I love the fact that I can let my son run around and enjoy purely unstructured play time here. And the innocence of play is refreshing. In the past weeks it's been Fun With Vegetables. Most everyone here has a garden, so the kids have been entertaining themselves in creative ways with veggies (and fruits). One night it was eating a watermelon they had just picked in the one yard and making a game of chucking the rinds. Another day they carved a jack-o-lantern. A woman down the street gave them a round melon or winter squash that had split open and they were kicking it around and tossing it. My son created a pulley in the back yard and was hoisting and then smashing over-ripe zucchinis (great fun, let me tell you!) which broke them up into better sizes for composting. He came home with a cute gourd that someone else had given him.... I could go on, just talking about vegetables but you get the point. Families don't seem to be so over-scheduled and harried in my town. There's a lot of just families being families and kids being kids. I love that.
And that reminds me of another benefit. There seems to be more neighborliness here than in the suburbs. When I first moved in, I can't tell you the number of people who stopped by to introduce themselves to me. I had never had anything like that happen anywhere else I've lived. People still wave to you on the roads as they pass, whether they know you or not. Such a civil gesture. In the cities, you're likely to see hand gestures but of a much different variety.
There are fewer distractions and annoying interruptions. I've had two door-to-door sales people since I've been here, maybe five or six brochures (mostly the Schwan's guy, who never stops by when I'm home so I can't put an end to it), and two or three visits from the Jehovah's Witnesses. Not too bad after nearly three-and-a-half years in this place. Since I don't buy much anymore and never order from catalogs, I'm not on any mailing lists either. My mailbox is gloriously empty most of the time (it helps that we only have P.O. boxes here --I don't think bulk mailers send as much junk to them as they do to street addresses).
A smaller house also means a smaller environmental footprint and that feels really good. It takes less carbon to heat and light a smaller house and fewer materials to furnish and maintain it. And the actual footprint (square footage-wise) of the house means that less impermeable surface area has been created, leaving more land to absorb rainfall and replenish the water table instead of running off into storm drains and out to sea.
And finally, a simpler lifestyle has brought me much greater satisfaction. I'm satisfied with what I have and where I am and how I'm living. I have all I need--really far more than I need--and I feel incredibly blessed.
Monday, August 11, 2008
My Best Move Ever (Part 1)
My best move ever was moving to a smaller house. Actually, it was more than just that. It was simultaneously moving to a smaller house, moving out of the suburbs into the country, and switching from owning to renting. Those three factors have combined to give me more benefits than I could probably list...but I will try.
First, the financial benefits. My mortgage for the old house was $1492/month. Rent for the new house is $340/month. My car insurance dropped by more than a third because I moved out of a major metropolitan area. I pay no property taxes and have no maintenance costs.
Aren't I tossing money away by renting? Not necessarily. When I owned, I was tossing away nearly $10,000/year in interest (after you deduct what I saved in taxes). Now granted, over the course of 30 years, my interest payments would have gone down, IF I actually stayed put--but being a rather typical American, I move every few years. And IF I stayed put, the house would likely have built equity to at least counteract some of my interest payments. Maybe...but just because markets have performed in a particular way in the past is no promise that they will continue to do so. So you never know.
What I do know is that so far, given the current housing slump, renting has been the better deal for me. The timing was just right and the fact that I was simultaneously downsizing has made it work for me.
The other financial plus is that renting has broken me of thinking like a homeowner. As in: Gosh, wouldn't the kitchen look better with a tile floor, or new white cabinets with glass fronts? We really need a new front door. Why'd the old owner's ever put carpet in the bathroom? A shed would sure be nice out back. And a deck. With a pergola. I never cared for rosebushes much, let's put something else in. It's never-ending when you own a home. There's always some project lined up.
Renting breaks you of that. Sure, I can think of things that would improve my little house, but the fact is it's incredibly charming just the way it is. I don't need to make any changes. Renting has helped me appreciate things as they are, has got me to stop fiddling and fidgeting with everything and just leave them be. Which is ultimately very nice on the wallet.
Then there are the utility bills. My old house was 2440 sq. ft. with an additional unheated 900 sq. ft. attached garage/workshop. My new house is 485 sq. ft. Which do you think costs more to operate? Here, I spend about $500/year for heat and about $400/year for electricity for everything else. Trash service is not mandatory (okay, that has its downside, i.e. neighbors burning noxious crap!) But, I take my own trash to the landfill and since I compost and recycle and don't buy much in the first place I go about once every 2 months. It generally costs me between $3.50 and $5.00 per visit. (In the metro area, trash service was mandatory and if you wanted to take a special load to the landfill it cost $20-something per car-load.)
Being 90 miles from the metro area has other financial benefits as well. Dinner at a restaurant in town costs around $5.50 or $6.50. The one time I went out for breakfast my total bill was $1.75. I can see a $3.00 movie in a neat old theater that still has its original stage curtains and is full of rich architectural detail. And vet bills are extremely low. A visit for a kitten's first shots was $10; for a cat with an infected wound $30, including meds. The most I've ever paid was $38.50, and that was a very dire situation. Back in the city, it seemed like every visit was at minimum $300. They always wanted to run every test under the sun when something was wrong. It's refreshing here to see these country vets taking a very no-nonsense, down-to-business approach to their work.
In the three years I've lived here I've saved thousands of dollars.
In Part 2, I'll get to the other benefits beyond money.
First, the financial benefits. My mortgage for the old house was $1492/month. Rent for the new house is $340/month. My car insurance dropped by more than a third because I moved out of a major metropolitan area. I pay no property taxes and have no maintenance costs.
Aren't I tossing money away by renting? Not necessarily. When I owned, I was tossing away nearly $10,000/year in interest (after you deduct what I saved in taxes). Now granted, over the course of 30 years, my interest payments would have gone down, IF I actually stayed put--but being a rather typical American, I move every few years. And IF I stayed put, the house would likely have built equity to at least counteract some of my interest payments. Maybe...but just because markets have performed in a particular way in the past is no promise that they will continue to do so. So you never know.
What I do know is that so far, given the current housing slump, renting has been the better deal for me. The timing was just right and the fact that I was simultaneously downsizing has made it work for me.
The other financial plus is that renting has broken me of thinking like a homeowner. As in: Gosh, wouldn't the kitchen look better with a tile floor, or new white cabinets with glass fronts? We really need a new front door. Why'd the old owner's ever put carpet in the bathroom? A shed would sure be nice out back. And a deck. With a pergola. I never cared for rosebushes much, let's put something else in. It's never-ending when you own a home. There's always some project lined up.
Renting breaks you of that. Sure, I can think of things that would improve my little house, but the fact is it's incredibly charming just the way it is. I don't need to make any changes. Renting has helped me appreciate things as they are, has got me to stop fiddling and fidgeting with everything and just leave them be. Which is ultimately very nice on the wallet.
Then there are the utility bills. My old house was 2440 sq. ft. with an additional unheated 900 sq. ft. attached garage/workshop. My new house is 485 sq. ft. Which do you think costs more to operate? Here, I spend about $500/year for heat and about $400/year for electricity for everything else. Trash service is not mandatory (okay, that has its downside, i.e. neighbors burning noxious crap!) But, I take my own trash to the landfill and since I compost and recycle and don't buy much in the first place I go about once every 2 months. It generally costs me between $3.50 and $5.00 per visit. (In the metro area, trash service was mandatory and if you wanted to take a special load to the landfill it cost $20-something per car-load.)
Being 90 miles from the metro area has other financial benefits as well. Dinner at a restaurant in town costs around $5.50 or $6.50. The one time I went out for breakfast my total bill was $1.75. I can see a $3.00 movie in a neat old theater that still has its original stage curtains and is full of rich architectural detail. And vet bills are extremely low. A visit for a kitten's first shots was $10; for a cat with an infected wound $30, including meds. The most I've ever paid was $38.50, and that was a very dire situation. Back in the city, it seemed like every visit was at minimum $300. They always wanted to run every test under the sun when something was wrong. It's refreshing here to see these country vets taking a very no-nonsense, down-to-business approach to their work.
In the three years I've lived here I've saved thousands of dollars.
In Part 2, I'll get to the other benefits beyond money.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Putting Down Roots
There is a missing piece in the discussion about sustainability. It is the significance of place and rootedness. Of humans putting down roots by once again becoming literal parts of their ecosystems. As long as we remain divorced from the land, above it and separate from it we will not live harmoniously with it.
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, in her wonderful book about her experiences with the !Kung bushmen in Africa (The Old Way
), depicts a society of humans who were beautifully interwoven into their ecosystem, as full participants in a complex and healthy web of life. Particularly striking to me was her discussion of the relationship between humans and lions; how they co-evolved and lived harmoniously together over the ages (only to have that balance finally destroyed in recent times by the arrival of pastoralists). The Old Way is now gone for the !Kung, as Thomas made depressingly clear in her final chapters, and today you'd be hard-pressed to find even a few examples of societies which still fully participate in their ecosystems. But for the bulk of human history we all lived immersed in an ecosystem, coevolving with the plants and the other animals, adapting to local conditions and occupying vital niches.
As we developed culture and especially as we moved off the land into cities, we stepped out of our niches. We stepped out of nature and placed ourselves above it. Culture has been plunked down on top of nature, completely out of context. Nature gets squeezed to the outskirts of culture, for the most part. Out of sight and out of mind for a lot of people.
The fact is however that we are embedded in nature. We are shaped by the land around us. Our every move is embedded in the matrix of earth and atmosphere. As we move we set off eddies of air currents, our heat rises, we are exchanging gases with the atmosphere. The plants around us share with us their breath and we share with them our own. When we eat their fruits, we transmute their plant flesh into our own flesh. We feed on our soils as well, indirectly for the most part, but nevertheless. The smells, the sounds, the landscapes of nature are internalized, laid down as neural passages in our heads, becoming literally part of us.
A return to balance here on earth will require us to recognize and re-embrace our place within the larger ecosystem. But first we must merely remember. So much has already been forgotten.
In future posts, I will explore the subject of place and rootedness in depth. My next installment will cover the process of "naturalization" from a unique slant.
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, in her wonderful book about her experiences with the !Kung bushmen in Africa (The Old Way
), depicts a society of humans who were beautifully interwoven into their ecosystem, as full participants in a complex and healthy web of life. Particularly striking to me was her discussion of the relationship between humans and lions; how they co-evolved and lived harmoniously together over the ages (only to have that balance finally destroyed in recent times by the arrival of pastoralists). The Old Way is now gone for the !Kung, as Thomas made depressingly clear in her final chapters, and today you'd be hard-pressed to find even a few examples of societies which still fully participate in their ecosystems. But for the bulk of human history we all lived immersed in an ecosystem, coevolving with the plants and the other animals, adapting to local conditions and occupying vital niches.As we developed culture and especially as we moved off the land into cities, we stepped out of our niches. We stepped out of nature and placed ourselves above it. Culture has been plunked down on top of nature, completely out of context. Nature gets squeezed to the outskirts of culture, for the most part. Out of sight and out of mind for a lot of people.
The fact is however that we are embedded in nature. We are shaped by the land around us. Our every move is embedded in the matrix of earth and atmosphere. As we move we set off eddies of air currents, our heat rises, we are exchanging gases with the atmosphere. The plants around us share with us their breath and we share with them our own. When we eat their fruits, we transmute their plant flesh into our own flesh. We feed on our soils as well, indirectly for the most part, but nevertheless. The smells, the sounds, the landscapes of nature are internalized, laid down as neural passages in our heads, becoming literally part of us.
A return to balance here on earth will require us to recognize and re-embrace our place within the larger ecosystem. But first we must merely remember. So much has already been forgotten.
In future posts, I will explore the subject of place and rootedness in depth. My next installment will cover the process of "naturalization" from a unique slant.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Book Recommendations: Immigration and Population Issues
I've added a list of book recommendations in the sidebar. The only one I need to qualify is How Many Americans?: Population, Immigration, and the Environment, by Leon F. Bouvier and Lindsey Grant.
I'm not sure how many times I picked this book up and set it back down before committing to reading it. The title alone made me feel defensive. If it was going to be bashing immigrants, I had no stomach for it. Simply put, I don't recognize borders. They are imaginary, divisive things. We are one species and I don't believe that any individual has more of a right to occupy a particular place on this planet than anyone else. So if this book was going to be saying, "Keep out all those d*** foreigners", it wasn't going to be worth my time.
Well, I'm glad I gave this book a chance, because it ended up being very thought-provoking and fairly persuasive in its argument. And it served as a good reminder to me not just to read things I know I already agree with, but to lend an ear (or eyeball) to opposing viewpoints as well.
I've been keenly interested in population issues and believe overpopulation to be the No. 1 critical issue we face. All of our other problems are stemming from too many people on too small a planet. Until I read this book, though, I had never considered that the U.S. might be suffering from overpopulation. What's a measly 304 million people in this vast land compared to the populations of India and China? It hardly seems significant.
Yet, the authors' projections for population growth here in the U.S. were alarming. They could be way off-base--projections are notorious for that. But the book was first published in 1994 and here fourteen years later it turns out their projections so far were actually conservative. (I wish I had the book handy right now so I could share the figures, which we could then compare with these: Population Clock. Darn it! I'll edit in the figures as soon as I can.) [Okay, here they are: the authors estimated that we would reach 300 million people in 2012. We actually hit that mark in October of 2006, which means the curve is much steeper than even the authors had predicted.]
The book got me thinking about immigration in new ways. I'm not sure what I believe, but at least this book challenged me to think in new ways. Here are some things I wrote in my journal right after I finished the book (don't hold me to any of my crackpot ideas, please):
Regarding borders...
If there were no borders of course people in marginal lands would move in droves to more productive places, which would then in time become over-exploited until people moved on to the next best place and so on. There would still be suffering but (if I can claim such a thing) more equitable suffering.
Regarding immigration...
What I had never really thought through until now is this: in these extremely dire times, closed borders (which is not at all what the authors were proposing--they were proposing serious limits, but not outright restrictions) might be our only hope. Not just for the U.S. but for the planet. If we stop immigration and lower fertility, ultimately decreasing our population, we will be able to preserve groundwater, forests and other vital environmental resources, prevent more species from going extinct, and perhaps a still (relatively) green America might offset some of the massive environmental degradation elsewhere. A green America, in a world out of ecological balance, could potentially be the thing that staves off total environmental collapse worldwide. Who knows? After all, Americans consume something like 20-40 times more resources than people in third world countries, so each person you add to the population here in the U.S. has a huge negative global impact.
Here, Jared Diamond, one of my favorite "big-picture" people, talks about population and consumption. He states that individuals in first-world countries consume 32 times more resources and produce 32 times more waste than individuals in third-world countries, and that it is consumption that matters far more than sheer population numbers. The problem, he says, is not merely how many people are crowding the planet, but how many times how much. Six, seven, or eight billion people, if they've all acquired the American lifestyle, would create quite a different world than the one we have now (or quite possibly no world at all).
, by Leon F. Bouvier and Lindsey Grant.I'm not sure how many times I picked this book up and set it back down before committing to reading it. The title alone made me feel defensive. If it was going to be bashing immigrants, I had no stomach for it. Simply put, I don't recognize borders. They are imaginary, divisive things. We are one species and I don't believe that any individual has more of a right to occupy a particular place on this planet than anyone else. So if this book was going to be saying, "Keep out all those d*** foreigners", it wasn't going to be worth my time.
Well, I'm glad I gave this book a chance, because it ended up being very thought-provoking and fairly persuasive in its argument. And it served as a good reminder to me not just to read things I know I already agree with, but to lend an ear (or eyeball) to opposing viewpoints as well.
I've been keenly interested in population issues and believe overpopulation to be the No. 1 critical issue we face. All of our other problems are stemming from too many people on too small a planet. Until I read this book, though, I had never considered that the U.S. might be suffering from overpopulation. What's a measly 304 million people in this vast land compared to the populations of India and China? It hardly seems significant.
Yet, the authors' projections for population growth here in the U.S. were alarming. They could be way off-base--projections are notorious for that. But the book was first published in 1994 and here fourteen years later it turns out their projections so far were actually conservative. (I wish I had the book handy right now so I could share the figures, which we could then compare with these: Population Clock. Darn it! I'll edit in the figures as soon as I can.) [Okay, here they are: the authors estimated that we would reach 300 million people in 2012. We actually hit that mark in October of 2006, which means the curve is much steeper than even the authors had predicted.]
The book got me thinking about immigration in new ways. I'm not sure what I believe, but at least this book challenged me to think in new ways. Here are some things I wrote in my journal right after I finished the book (don't hold me to any of my crackpot ideas, please):
Regarding borders...
If there were no borders of course people in marginal lands would move in droves to more productive places, which would then in time become over-exploited until people moved on to the next best place and so on. There would still be suffering but (if I can claim such a thing) more equitable suffering.
Regarding immigration...
What I had never really thought through until now is this: in these extremely dire times, closed borders (which is not at all what the authors were proposing--they were proposing serious limits, but not outright restrictions) might be our only hope. Not just for the U.S. but for the planet. If we stop immigration and lower fertility, ultimately decreasing our population, we will be able to preserve groundwater, forests and other vital environmental resources, prevent more species from going extinct, and perhaps a still (relatively) green America might offset some of the massive environmental degradation elsewhere. A green America, in a world out of ecological balance, could potentially be the thing that staves off total environmental collapse worldwide. Who knows? After all, Americans consume something like 20-40 times more resources than people in third world countries, so each person you add to the population here in the U.S. has a huge negative global impact.
Here, Jared Diamond, one of my favorite "big-picture" people, talks about population and consumption. He states that individuals in first-world countries consume 32 times more resources and produce 32 times more waste than individuals in third-world countries, and that it is consumption that matters far more than sheer population numbers. The problem, he says, is not merely how many people are crowding the planet, but how many times how much. Six, seven, or eight billion people, if they've all acquired the American lifestyle, would create quite a different world than the one we have now (or quite possibly no world at all).
Friday, June 13, 2008
Fear-Based Living
When you explore voluntary simplicity in earnest it seems inevitable that, somewhere along the way, you will confront the big existential issues: who am I, why am I here, where am I going?
Simplicity creates emptiness, something that so many people fear. The frantic quality of modern life seems to be an attempt to run away from the big and meaningful issues, to never confront the cause of our fears and insecurities, to never be still long enough to do so. Emptiness is frightening. Stillness and silence are intimidating.
Simplicity opens up space--physical space, mental space, spiritual space. What is going to fill that? The beautiful thing is that something always does fill it. Not knick-knacks, not staff meetings, not baseball practice, or workouts, or appointments with the chiropractor, or lunch dates or trips to the mall. Something else. Spirit, you might call it. States of bliss. Serenity. Radical fearlessness. Radical freedom. And a safe context in which to confront the big questions.
At first though, what might want to fill the empty space is dread. That's okay. That means the bigger questions are starting to surface. That's why we're here, to confront those bigger questions. How will you ever live up to your fullest potential if you never confront the big questions? Manic, fear-based living is not conducive to you becoming fully who you are meant to be in this life. But it takes some courage to cultivate emptiness. You must be willing to pass the edge of the frontier and step into the unknown. You have to confront the demons waiting there.
Voluntary simplicity isn't the only way to create emptiness, of course. There are many different forms of what I call "emptiness practice": silence, solitude, fasting, meditation, celibacy, yoga, even the down-time when you're recovering from a prolonged illness. All of these things can get you to the same place, to the same lessons, to the same revelations. Telling, isn't it, that most of these practices come out of our spiritual traditions? Even voluntary simplicity itself, which now has such a secular flavor, originated in the "vows of poverty" and similar practices found in the early histories of our great religious traditions. Think of the Buddhist monks with their begging bowls, and Christ with his injunction to the wealthy young man, "Go, sell what thou hast."
Emptiness must come first. Fearlessness follows. Radical freedom follows that.
Fearlessly embracing your radical freedom means you can do anything. You can be a Gandhi or a Mother Teresa. You can change the world. You will be acting from your highest potential and from that place anything is possible.
Simplicity creates emptiness, something that so many people fear. The frantic quality of modern life seems to be an attempt to run away from the big and meaningful issues, to never confront the cause of our fears and insecurities, to never be still long enough to do so. Emptiness is frightening. Stillness and silence are intimidating.
Simplicity opens up space--physical space, mental space, spiritual space. What is going to fill that? The beautiful thing is that something always does fill it. Not knick-knacks, not staff meetings, not baseball practice, or workouts, or appointments with the chiropractor, or lunch dates or trips to the mall. Something else. Spirit, you might call it. States of bliss. Serenity. Radical fearlessness. Radical freedom. And a safe context in which to confront the big questions.
At first though, what might want to fill the empty space is dread. That's okay. That means the bigger questions are starting to surface. That's why we're here, to confront those bigger questions. How will you ever live up to your fullest potential if you never confront the big questions? Manic, fear-based living is not conducive to you becoming fully who you are meant to be in this life. But it takes some courage to cultivate emptiness. You must be willing to pass the edge of the frontier and step into the unknown. You have to confront the demons waiting there.
Voluntary simplicity isn't the only way to create emptiness, of course. There are many different forms of what I call "emptiness practice": silence, solitude, fasting, meditation, celibacy, yoga, even the down-time when you're recovering from a prolonged illness. All of these things can get you to the same place, to the same lessons, to the same revelations. Telling, isn't it, that most of these practices come out of our spiritual traditions? Even voluntary simplicity itself, which now has such a secular flavor, originated in the "vows of poverty" and similar practices found in the early histories of our great religious traditions. Think of the Buddhist monks with their begging bowls, and Christ with his injunction to the wealthy young man, "Go, sell what thou hast."
Emptiness must come first. Fearlessness follows. Radical freedom follows that.
Fearlessly embracing your radical freedom means you can do anything. You can be a Gandhi or a Mother Teresa. You can change the world. You will be acting from your highest potential and from that place anything is possible.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Economic Woes--Could This Be The Best Thing Ever?
A worsening economy, rising gas prices, the mortgage fiasco, the weakening dollar. It all sounds so ominous and frightening. I'm being seriously impacted by it and I'm sure you are too. But as ever-the-optimist I see the silver lining here as well.
We are being forced to change our ways. We are being forced to adopt better ways. The price of gas has us thinking about energy conservation and shopping locally and living within our means. The housing crisis may help people more wisely evaluate their living situations and their true needs before jumping into supersized mortgages. The weakening dollar may help us to rein in our focus, away from the global economy to local economies, to re-building community, to creating bartering networks and to re-embracing our specific place in the ecosystem.
But beyond all of these personal things, the economic crisis could help reform what is a broken, dysfunctional free-market system. We may personally be suffering now, but the corporate world is really going to be reeling. This situation is our way in. We may complain about how corporations are desecrating the earth, damaging human health and exploiting billions of people, but most of us feel powerless to do anything about it. Corporations wield absurd power.
The economic disaster looming before us is our chance to challenge the corporations. We can say no to cheap crap from overseas and buy locally, and it will get easier and easier to do because cheap crap from overseas is soon going to be expensive cheap crap. At some point it's not going to make sense for corporations to outsource to the cheapest country because the fuel costs involved in shipping will wipe out any savings. The same applies to industrial agriculture. People will increasingly support local farmer's markets, sign up for CSA shares, and plant their own gardens. They will no longer be willing to bear the costs involved in industrial farming, especially not the transportation costs. Why pay extra for bland Mexican-grown tomatoes, when backyard tomatoes or farmer's market tomatoes are juicier, healthier, cheaper, and don't taste like cardboard.
Imagine recreating healthy local food systems, vibrant local economies, and sustainable practices all around. Change is possible, and before us right now lies a huge opportunity.
We are being forced to change our ways. We are being forced to adopt better ways. The price of gas has us thinking about energy conservation and shopping locally and living within our means. The housing crisis may help people more wisely evaluate their living situations and their true needs before jumping into supersized mortgages. The weakening dollar may help us to rein in our focus, away from the global economy to local economies, to re-building community, to creating bartering networks and to re-embracing our specific place in the ecosystem.
But beyond all of these personal things, the economic crisis could help reform what is a broken, dysfunctional free-market system. We may personally be suffering now, but the corporate world is really going to be reeling. This situation is our way in. We may complain about how corporations are desecrating the earth, damaging human health and exploiting billions of people, but most of us feel powerless to do anything about it. Corporations wield absurd power.
The economic disaster looming before us is our chance to challenge the corporations. We can say no to cheap crap from overseas and buy locally, and it will get easier and easier to do because cheap crap from overseas is soon going to be expensive cheap crap. At some point it's not going to make sense for corporations to outsource to the cheapest country because the fuel costs involved in shipping will wipe out any savings. The same applies to industrial agriculture. People will increasingly support local farmer's markets, sign up for CSA shares, and plant their own gardens. They will no longer be willing to bear the costs involved in industrial farming, especially not the transportation costs. Why pay extra for bland Mexican-grown tomatoes, when backyard tomatoes or farmer's market tomatoes are juicier, healthier, cheaper, and don't taste like cardboard.
Imagine recreating healthy local food systems, vibrant local economies, and sustainable practices all around. Change is possible, and before us right now lies a huge opportunity.
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