We are in Denver for the hand-fasting ceremony of our good friends, Tim and Aicilla. There's a mad dash of activity after a lovely night spent meeting up with all of their friends. It's wonderful how well everyone meshed. I guess living a life authentically facilitates that. I've discovered that my new laptop has no spellcheck for any application. And I've not been able to fing the mind power to search out a fix yet. Be warned. We're still working on the many leaks on the RV we bought, but are blessed with good friends and wonderful help. We're docked at a house right now but are slowly gaining in autonomy. I guess I should have known that this would be a slow process. We did not take the RV to Denver - it's not quite ready for its maiden voyage but this weekend we will be taking it to Witchwell for the regional burn, Toast. We'll also be doing some more work on it there as it still has no bathroom.
Well, that's about all my brain can offer this week. Next week I should have adventures to share and insights to explore. Till then...
06 May 2010
29 April 2010
Of Mice and Other Funny Creatures
So on the day following my first missed weekly blog post, I am reflecting on where exactly expressing oneself falls on pretty much anyone's hierarchy of needs. When faced with electrical, sewage, and mechanical issues that would worry Job, typing away on a coputer seems a bit too Nero to me. Besides, all the wet wipes in the world won't make me comfortable going back and forth between pulling a black water tank and molesting my brand new, albeit very cheap, laptop. I'm just about set to hook up to the internet in a less tethered fashion, through my Blackberry Blast - I'll report on it once the deed is done. For now, we're sitting outside the home of a friend and piggy-backing on their service for a small fee towards their electric and internet bills - with bathroom privileges too - a godsend considering we have none yet in our little box on wheels.
Most of the last few days since leaving home-dwelling, have been spent asking myself "why the hell do I have this?" or more often even "Why the hell do I have two (or four) or these?" and tossing all but the essential. Fear is being tossed too - out in the trash with my excess baggage go thoughts like "What if this one breaks, gets lost, gets stolen?" It's not easy trusting that I'll be able to find another of whatever that thing is but it helps reminding myself of all the times I did without it and even enjoyed myself in the trying. Cheese graters are awesome - but knives work to make things into small bits too. If my cheesegrater ran off with my spoons, I'd survive, so carrying more than one small one becomes suspect. The difference between need and want is so obvious to me now that I wonder how that line ever was so obscured.
I woke this morning to a call from my old landlord - who is just the sweetest man I could have hoped to have as a "last landlord" and since I've had some very not sweet ones in the past, it was a nice way to say goodbye to the species. We had a little glitch - no one's fault really, where I'd told the electric company to shut the electric on a specific day, months ago and then forgot I did. The landlord asked if we would mind leaving the electric on a few extra days since the people would be moving in, I said "of course' and well, chaos ensued. He called me, and I called the electric company. We were all just trying to help each other out and then I realized, in talking with the very professional Electric Co. rep on the phone, that I didn't like how companies treated us people in general these days. So I said "You know, we're people here - just trying to help each other out - decent, kind people living in your community. And you, your company, you are also memebers of our community and if you are not, you are simply profiteering off us. That's not what you're doing, is it?" Of course the manager I'd been put in touch with had her lines down pat, all acquiesing without really giving anything - like a sociopath really, if you think about it.
So I said "Do you ever just go home and look at your children and ask yourself what you're doing with your life? What are you adding to their future world? But of course, most companies do not really want people to have families - I wonder why? I said to here. I think we all have to start treating each other that way. We need to start paying attention to other people and stop just trying to use each other and you all are going to have to change to accomodate this because this is the way the world is going.
And I realized, at that moment, I spelled out something - still in a bit of twightlight from just awakening and lack of caffeine - I'm making this world around me - I told my landlord the story and he said "I love it". We created between us a bond that transcended our business dealings. I'd like to tell you all that the electric company called me and offered to wave the seventy dollar emergency turn on fee, but of course, you wouldn't believe me. But my landlord, the new tenants and I have agreed to each pay one third of it and that's a start. And maybe if all of you will start demanding that companies act like members of their community, some day, they will too. But in the meantime, at every turn where we can, we have to begin to make the world we want. Don't get upset that it's not that way already - I can tell you from experience, that never works. But what does work, imperfectly to be sure, is to be what you want. Act as you want to encounter and never give in to "that's just how it is" because that is only how it is now, not how it always has been, and not how it has to be in the future.
Most of the last few days since leaving home-dwelling, have been spent asking myself "why the hell do I have this?" or more often even "Why the hell do I have two (or four) or these?" and tossing all but the essential. Fear is being tossed too - out in the trash with my excess baggage go thoughts like "What if this one breaks, gets lost, gets stolen?" It's not easy trusting that I'll be able to find another of whatever that thing is but it helps reminding myself of all the times I did without it and even enjoyed myself in the trying. Cheese graters are awesome - but knives work to make things into small bits too. If my cheesegrater ran off with my spoons, I'd survive, so carrying more than one small one becomes suspect. The difference between need and want is so obvious to me now that I wonder how that line ever was so obscured.
I woke this morning to a call from my old landlord - who is just the sweetest man I could have hoped to have as a "last landlord" and since I've had some very not sweet ones in the past, it was a nice way to say goodbye to the species. We had a little glitch - no one's fault really, where I'd told the electric company to shut the electric on a specific day, months ago and then forgot I did. The landlord asked if we would mind leaving the electric on a few extra days since the people would be moving in, I said "of course' and well, chaos ensued. He called me, and I called the electric company. We were all just trying to help each other out and then I realized, in talking with the very professional Electric Co. rep on the phone, that I didn't like how companies treated us people in general these days. So I said "You know, we're people here - just trying to help each other out - decent, kind people living in your community. And you, your company, you are also memebers of our community and if you are not, you are simply profiteering off us. That's not what you're doing, is it?" Of course the manager I'd been put in touch with had her lines down pat, all acquiesing without really giving anything - like a sociopath really, if you think about it.
So I said "Do you ever just go home and look at your children and ask yourself what you're doing with your life? What are you adding to their future world? But of course, most companies do not really want people to have families - I wonder why? I said to here. I think we all have to start treating each other that way. We need to start paying attention to other people and stop just trying to use each other and you all are going to have to change to accomodate this because this is the way the world is going.
And I realized, at that moment, I spelled out something - still in a bit of twightlight from just awakening and lack of caffeine - I'm making this world around me - I told my landlord the story and he said "I love it". We created between us a bond that transcended our business dealings. I'd like to tell you all that the electric company called me and offered to wave the seventy dollar emergency turn on fee, but of course, you wouldn't believe me. But my landlord, the new tenants and I have agreed to each pay one third of it and that's a start. And maybe if all of you will start demanding that companies act like members of their community, some day, they will too. But in the meantime, at every turn where we can, we have to begin to make the world we want. Don't get upset that it's not that way already - I can tell you from experience, that never works. But what does work, imperfectly to be sure, is to be what you want. Act as you want to encounter and never give in to "that's just how it is" because that is only how it is now, not how it always has been, and not how it has to be in the future.
21 April 2010
Damned Hippies!! (On Values and Principles)
A few years ago, I found myself in a debate with a man who was adamant about the fact that no one should pick up hitchhikers because they are users and are giving nothing back to society. He went into great detail about how he, a normal American citizen, was working his forty plus hours a week, paying taxes, and buying gas. That gas had a tax which helped to maintain these roads that we are driving upon and that those damned hippies hitchhiking on those roads were not contributing at all to their upkeep - leaving more for him to carry.
Now this offended me at the time although I also could feel his deep anguish about being so trapped, but my thinking on this subject was not clear enough to have offered an effective rebuttal. I pointed out that he was driving in that direction anyway and they were not really adding to the gas burden by much at all - most of it being used in transporting the tons of metal and not the meaty creatures of considerably less weight within. But to him it was a "principle" question and there really was no arguing with that.
Over the years, this has gnawed at me, as unanswered questions often do, and recently I've been thinking on this again, being now on the verge of planned homelessness and joblessness. I would likely get a pass because of my savings and the fact that at some point along the path I was "paying my way" but the whole experiment has me thinking more deeply about this issue. And I think I've reached some conclusions.
I think this is a question of value, more than of principle. Our culture values one thing above all else and that is the thing that has the least intrinsic value: money. It's at best an artistic rendering upon which we bestow some sort of magical power and value of exchange. No one really believes anymore that it is a stand in for something of any real value. And even when dollars stood for coins and coins were actually made of gold and silver, the "value" of those metals was only in the fact that they didn't rust and were considered beautiful because of it. They weren't strong metals that could be used to make tools - they were beautiful things that wouldn't die. Our understanding of value is always based in these sort of fantasies instead of in the real worth of things.
In our world, what we consider to be of value almost always links to money. We give lip-service to valuing our teachers, farmers, mothers, firefighters, etc. But far more of us would shudder more thinking of our children marrying a teacher or a farmer than a stock broker - someone who arguably adds the least real value to the world. Something is askew and if we don't look at it, it's just going to get more surreal and seem more normal at every step.
So back to my friend who was angry with those damned hippies, wasting their lives and taking from other people. I sort of understood where he was coming from then - I, too, was working hard and paying my taxes and the thought of these people not having to do that and still being able to be mobile, to live and love, kinda irked me - this was jealousy, of course, and that's the point. It seemed so unfair that I was trapped in a sort of slavery to my principles - principles it took me a long time to identify as not actually being mine. Principles, it could be argued, that were instilled in me precisely to keep me from questioning my position in a machine of slavery that failed to feed me or anyone I knew what we needed to live a fulfilling life. And what exactly is this machine producing? What value are we all adding in a larger sense? When I think in these terms, the guy with his thumb out at least has the value of not raping and pillaging as much as those of us buying into a consumer culture that is wedded to slavery at some point in its production.
I think I have an answer now to this man: as I embark on my new journey, I am questioning my value in relation to my value at other times in my life when I worked for corporations, pushed papers and labeled codes so people could file them appropriately, when I drove forty miles to and from work every day, and felt the need to shop at malls that sold objects I didn't need made by people so poor they couldn't turn down slave wages or they would risk starvation, so that I could scurry to keep abreast of the made up world of fashion and "cool" and "cutting edge", to keep from looking out of place in the conforming world that I thought was my only choice. I am comparing the value I added then, to the value I am adding now to the world - holding swap meets where people find treasures, eat and create good food with friends, listen to and engage fully with other people. I'm noticing the satisfying value I am adding in spending actual time with my son and ensuring that he grows to be a decent man, who knows he is loved and cherished, or time with my friends and neighbors - time weeding a garden that will feed the hungry and homeless - those who didn't choose it as I have. I'm building art, for free, and giving it as a gift to the world. I'm creating beauty and perhaps some pause to think. If I do it right, I may end up creating a portal for people to enter into their own dreams for their future, and the future of the rest of the world - to think about their own choices. I won't be making money - so I have no way to quantify my value. No way to explain myself or my actions.
But maybe this is the point - to walk away from the need to explain ourselves. To recognize finally that this action has no value at all. If we all stopped keeping track - I wonder what we would produce. If we began to think in terms of quality of production instead of quantity, I wonder how our world would be different. So I plan on picking up all the damned hippies I meet - giving them a lift if I'm going their way - and dedicating myself to finding the value that they do add, and since I know I can't quantify it, I'm going to sing their stories so that their value is recognized, so all our value is recognized.
If this type of thinking makes you uncomfortable, don't worry. It's easy to dismiss these thoughts with a simple label - I'm a damned hippie and so my words hold little value - no one's paying me for them, so what could they possibly be worth?
Now this offended me at the time although I also could feel his deep anguish about being so trapped, but my thinking on this subject was not clear enough to have offered an effective rebuttal. I pointed out that he was driving in that direction anyway and they were not really adding to the gas burden by much at all - most of it being used in transporting the tons of metal and not the meaty creatures of considerably less weight within. But to him it was a "principle" question and there really was no arguing with that.
Over the years, this has gnawed at me, as unanswered questions often do, and recently I've been thinking on this again, being now on the verge of planned homelessness and joblessness. I would likely get a pass because of my savings and the fact that at some point along the path I was "paying my way" but the whole experiment has me thinking more deeply about this issue. And I think I've reached some conclusions.
I think this is a question of value, more than of principle. Our culture values one thing above all else and that is the thing that has the least intrinsic value: money. It's at best an artistic rendering upon which we bestow some sort of magical power and value of exchange. No one really believes anymore that it is a stand in for something of any real value. And even when dollars stood for coins and coins were actually made of gold and silver, the "value" of those metals was only in the fact that they didn't rust and were considered beautiful because of it. They weren't strong metals that could be used to make tools - they were beautiful things that wouldn't die. Our understanding of value is always based in these sort of fantasies instead of in the real worth of things.
In our world, what we consider to be of value almost always links to money. We give lip-service to valuing our teachers, farmers, mothers, firefighters, etc. But far more of us would shudder more thinking of our children marrying a teacher or a farmer than a stock broker - someone who arguably adds the least real value to the world. Something is askew and if we don't look at it, it's just going to get more surreal and seem more normal at every step.
So back to my friend who was angry with those damned hippies, wasting their lives and taking from other people. I sort of understood where he was coming from then - I, too, was working hard and paying my taxes and the thought of these people not having to do that and still being able to be mobile, to live and love, kinda irked me - this was jealousy, of course, and that's the point. It seemed so unfair that I was trapped in a sort of slavery to my principles - principles it took me a long time to identify as not actually being mine. Principles, it could be argued, that were instilled in me precisely to keep me from questioning my position in a machine of slavery that failed to feed me or anyone I knew what we needed to live a fulfilling life. And what exactly is this machine producing? What value are we all adding in a larger sense? When I think in these terms, the guy with his thumb out at least has the value of not raping and pillaging as much as those of us buying into a consumer culture that is wedded to slavery at some point in its production.
I think I have an answer now to this man: as I embark on my new journey, I am questioning my value in relation to my value at other times in my life when I worked for corporations, pushed papers and labeled codes so people could file them appropriately, when I drove forty miles to and from work every day, and felt the need to shop at malls that sold objects I didn't need made by people so poor they couldn't turn down slave wages or they would risk starvation, so that I could scurry to keep abreast of the made up world of fashion and "cool" and "cutting edge", to keep from looking out of place in the conforming world that I thought was my only choice. I am comparing the value I added then, to the value I am adding now to the world - holding swap meets where people find treasures, eat and create good food with friends, listen to and engage fully with other people. I'm noticing the satisfying value I am adding in spending actual time with my son and ensuring that he grows to be a decent man, who knows he is loved and cherished, or time with my friends and neighbors - time weeding a garden that will feed the hungry and homeless - those who didn't choose it as I have. I'm building art, for free, and giving it as a gift to the world. I'm creating beauty and perhaps some pause to think. If I do it right, I may end up creating a portal for people to enter into their own dreams for their future, and the future of the rest of the world - to think about their own choices. I won't be making money - so I have no way to quantify my value. No way to explain myself or my actions.
But maybe this is the point - to walk away from the need to explain ourselves. To recognize finally that this action has no value at all. If we all stopped keeping track - I wonder what we would produce. If we began to think in terms of quality of production instead of quantity, I wonder how our world would be different. So I plan on picking up all the damned hippies I meet - giving them a lift if I'm going their way - and dedicating myself to finding the value that they do add, and since I know I can't quantify it, I'm going to sing their stories so that their value is recognized, so all our value is recognized.
If this type of thinking makes you uncomfortable, don't worry. It's easy to dismiss these thoughts with a simple label - I'm a damned hippie and so my words hold little value - no one's paying me for them, so what could they possibly be worth?
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