I’ve actually made a lot of mistakes, and seemly continue to do so, and probably will until I’m very dead.

The specific mistake I’m referring to is teenager-esqe arrogance. Somehow it carried through until just very recently.

I don’t have the answers… I never did. I have a few ideas of what could be cool, and might work, but answers? The Truth?

Nope.

Education is a bitch. If you’re really learning, it’s a continual process of revelations of ignorance. Every bit of new information shames your long-held, uneducated beliefs. By the end, you get to that point where you can barely move, unable to speak, as the level of you unknowledge is fathomless. People come to you for answers, and all you can do is say, “I… I don’t know.”

If you want a career, you have to back up that with “But, here’s some cool ideas that might work.” You swallow the shame of your ignorant opinion, taking some solace in that fact that no one else seems to know, either.

I’ve recently discovered that civilization itself is unsustainable, and taking it down is the key to establishing real, true and lasting sustainability for humanity and the planet. But that’s all I know, and I’m not even sure that’s the entire picture. I don’t have alternatives, just “someday” ideals that could come to pass. I don’t know how to save people and stop the destruction of the planet. I don’t even know how to save myself and the people I love without going to jail or worse.

I’ve taken the entire weight of the world upon my shoulders, and I know that’s not enough. There’s so much more to this than I’ve discovered in this short period of education. I cannot shift, like so many others, to some idea of salvation, some simplistic fix-all solution that is entirely out of my hands. Everywhere I look people are giving up, because they can’t handle the decent, the revelation of the terrible truths and the fact that we all, every one of us, are all individually responsible for it, and are equally responsible for changing things.

I decided, long ago, that I wouldn’t take the well-traveled path. I knew then, as I know now, that it’s not going to be easy. So far it’s been hell. But god damn, I couldn’t live any other way. How could I just live a normal, shrugging as we kill the planet and each other, saying things like “it’ll all work out” and “everything will be fine” while perpetuating the problem?

I’ve recently been confronting mortality. We’re all going to die someday. It’s coming for me, and whether I have 100 more second, days or years, the final result will be the same. I can either look after myself, play it safe, not rock the boat, or I can get something done. I can do things most people are unwilling to do, because that’s who I am. I’m crazy. I’m a warrior. I have bones and muscles, breath and sight, and I can do something.

But what can I do?

I don’t know.

I wonder why the word “nature” is used to describe such radically different things.

One definition includes all the trees, rocks, grass, water, animals, sands… those places and things which are least touched by mankind.

But another definition is used to describe the inner behavior of our own selves – our inner nature, what we are compelled to do, those things structured into our own nature.

I would like to reverse these definitions, just to see what happens.

What happens when we talk about the nature (behavior) of nature – how the trees behave, what the grass is compelled to do, how the streams react to the rain on an emotional level. What is the attitude of the forest? What bias does the prairie hold? Does the soil desire something, or is it aimless, even lazy?

Conversely, what does my inner forest look like? Where is my internal river? Do I have plains of the mind, mountains of the soul? Is there a sky of my being, one that storms and rages, only to celebrate sun rises and settings? When do my stars come out, and what mythical constellations are traced upon them?

Can I sit on my beaches, and look out across my oceans that reach far out beyond my sight?

I don’t believe in the arbitrary distinction between man and nature – everywhere is nature, even deep in a classroom or sterile lab, the heat of the city holds just as much nature as a rainforest.

What, then, do my inner cities look like? What kinds of people inhabit them, and what are their professions? What skyscrapers define my skyline? What historic churches sit nestled at special street corners? Are the people happy there?

Switched again – what is the road’s inner nature? Does a house really have a soul, a spirit, a feeling? Does the downtown really come alive? Is it happy that we are there, or do we impose upon it?

I don’t have the answers to these questions, but for some reason, just asking them makes me happy.

Greetings!

There are many things to talk about:

First up – I’m now on the mailing list, so I receive all Board emails now! I also have access to all the archived emails on the Google Groups site, so I’ve been reading up on the recent history.

Are there any more developments with New Spirit Farmland and the purchasing of the rest of Vedic City Farms?

I called the vet to see about having our bill reduced or getting some donated back to us – to help facilitate this, I created a “Sustainable Living Coalition” account there. Ken, they needed a person within the group to contact, and since you live closest to where the kitten is, I gave them your name and number. I have to bring her back on Friday to get the stitches out. I actually haven’t see her all day, which is odd – usually she just bites down on my arm or leg and doesn’t let go.

random picture!

Over the past few days I’ve been able to talk to Steve, Briggs, Brian, Ashley and Kyle – I’ve got a meeting with Elizabeth tomorrow to talk about the strategic plan, and on Monday I’ve got a meeting with Scott Timm to discuss… well, just about everything, but specifically how the Go-Green plan has developed and what we can do to own up to our commitments to it.

I haven’t received an official bid on the floor from Brad yet – I’ll send him a reminder.

As of today, I have 21 more days left as an intern – I have to leave on the 17th of August to help my pregnant sister and brother-in-law move back to Fairfield – I would be back late on the 19th. School registration is on the 20th, and school starts that Monday or Tuesday. I want to get the SLC to a good, sustainable place before I go – and that time is going to get here fast.

To that end, I’m working on a presentation I’d like to give the full Board, before we really start planning and promoting our big fund raiser. I would ideally like to meet with the Board next Wednesday, Thursday or Friday (the 3rd, 4th or 5th of August). Is everyone in town? Can we commit to a meeting, maybe sometime in the evening at the SEED Center or someone’s house? Let me know.

If there’s something that needs doing, be sure to remind me – I’ve been a bit overwhelmed with all the information that’s been coming my way lately, so I’m bound to forget something.

Alright! So let’s plan a Board meeting and lock in our plans.

Ron

I’ve been asking myself this since I started: What is the Sustainable Living Coalition? What does it do? Why does it exist? Who benefits? How do we fit into the larger picture? So let me ask you….

Is the SLC:

1) An Educational Organization, with the primary purpose of providing workshops and classes for the benefit of the community?

2) A Center where start-up, off-grid businesses can start?

3) An Educational Campus, where interns from around the state and country can live and learn about Sustainability?

4) An Umbrella network, which connects various Sustainable Organizations with the community?

5) An extension of Fairfield’s Go-Green Initiative?

6) An extension of MUM’s Sustainable Living Department?

7) An extension of Eco-Village?

8 ) A Showcase of various permaculture  design and natural building techniques?

9) All the above?

10) None of the above, or some sort of mish-mash?

I’ve been asking myself these questions for a while now. I need to know the definitive answer – the exact, concise purpose of the SLC – before I can move forward on any of the hundreds of projects that need to be done around here. There’s a nearly-unlimited amount of things to do, and because of that, I must know where my time, energy and skills will be put to best use. More to the point, I must know what the SLC truly is, and what I can do to help it achieve those specific goals.

Everything is up in the air with me right now, as I try to sort through the vast amount of information that has come my way. I spent over four hours talking to Steve Cooperman, Brian Robbins and Jim (uh… I forget how to spell his last name), just going over things – incorporating my research into the Board Group emails, what various Board members have told me, plus talking to Briggs, Ashley and several other people.

I was asked to take control of this place and run it like I would if it was mine… and that’s exactly what I’ll be doing, just as soon as I figure out what it is.

It’s 11:24pm, and I’m wondering about social customs.

It hot climates, it’s traditional to take a “siesta” – that is, a several-hour long “lunch break” during the hottest parts of the day. During this leisure time people will eat, nap, drink – whatever keeps them cool and rested.

It's almost midnight and I'm sweating buckets.

They go back to work when the sun is lower, and things start to cool off.

We probably have more humidity than “they” did, which means shade and lower sun doesn’t count as much, but this still makes sense. With daytime heat index reaching 117 degrees the last two days, it just makes sense that I shouldn’t be working in a building that has no air conditioning.

I could just move my computer back to my a/c house, and work on digital/management stuff during the day, and only come to the SLC SEED Center during cooler hours. It’s tempting, but I know that I will be less likely to come out here at all – evenings are my leisure hours, when I nap, eat and hang out with friends. If worked both daytime and evening I would rob myself of “me-time” and become overworked, even if I don’t get much done. By keeping my computer here, I ensure my presence at the SEED Center, and thereby a certain level of upkeep occurs – I would not have made that short path in the grass if I hadn’t just decided to do it on the way in to use my computer.

I wouldn’t have a problem switching my hours around – stay up late, get up early, sleep the day away – as there is a strong tradition of it, and it just makes more sense. However, as I’m trying to gain internship credit with Maharishi University of Management, I have to adhere to certain guidelines…..

…. and all of these guidelines I strictly adhere to. The hours I posted at the start of the internship, here on my public blog, are the ones I follow. Right?

Recently, a friend of mine (who is an excellent blogger) “quit” Facebook. I say “quit” because, as she pointed out, Facebook saves ALL of your information (contact and “about me”, pictures, links, friends, groups, pages, and so on). The difference between an active account and a deactivated account is simply how long it takes to log back in. There really is no quitting Facebook – even if you took the time to manually delete everything, your account would still be available to FB’s database mining, and if you did decide to rejoin you’d just have more work to do.

I know, because I’ve tried it. I’ve done both the “simple deactivation” type of quitting, and the hardcore “delete everything” attack. MySpace had the decency to fully delete your account after a certain amount of time, but Facebook? Despite the two, maybe three times I’ve tried to leave… I’m still on my original account.

The role social networking has taken in our society has been commented upon by many a blogger, and honestly I don’t care that much. I remember the Time Before Cell Phones, when you had to call someone on a land-line and arrange social gatherings before they happen, having to go out of your way to contact people before you left the house. I remember when I found my cellphone had an email address, and I could email other phones right from my computer. And then… texting.

In the same way, I remember getting my first email address, and then my first web-based email address (still have it: rskrules@hotmail.com … back before Hotmail was bought by MSN). Then ICQ was all the rage, because you could type to another person In Real Time! Broadband hit around then, eliminating the ear-splitting scream of a dial-up and offering blistering-fast, always-on Internet. Then MySpace, a website offering the best of having your own website without having to learn HTML and signing up at GeoCities or Angelfire. I remember how Napster introduced me to worlds of music I had never heard before, and directly led me to spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on bands I never would have discovered without it.

This is good. I imagine this is what old men feel like, telling the kids what it was like back in my day. You little punks! 16-bit graphics are blasphemy!

What was I saying? Did I have a point? Oh yes…

I got this new smart phone recently – the htc Driod Eris – and it did something shocking. I booted it up for the first time (don’t get me starting on phone that have to “boot up”) and put in my email address to help integrate it into… I don’t know, the web? After setup was over, I went to enter in all the numbers I had written down on a Post-It from my old phone (see what an old man I am?) when I discovered that they were already in there. My brain stopped. How was that possible? Something wasn’t right… it took me a full day to realize that my phone’s “contacts” were actually my Google Mail Contacts. My email contact list. In my cell phone.

This…. thing instantly knew everyone I had ever emailed. But… no, this can’t be… It also recognized my Facebook friends and linked my gmail contacts to them.

My jaw hit the floor. This was no cellular phone, this was a device to divine internet contacts, where ever they be, and bring them to me at post-computer locations.

Before I had this phone, I used to think of three groups of people: people on my phone, my email lists, and social network lists (FB, MySpace, Twitter, etc). I could quit any one of these groups at any time, depending on my mood or situation, and the others would be untouched.

Now I think of all of them as one singular group: My Contacts. It doesn’t matter which contact in on which website or service anymore, just so long as we’re connected.

My personal feelings about Google or Facebook are now irrelevant. I have a Google-based phone, in which it is easier to add a new contact FOR MY PHONE via my COMPUTER’S WEB BROWSER… which happens to be Google Chrome. The people on my Facebook friends list are not just there so I can have friends – their updates and information (email, phone number, pictures, etc) are all vital parts of my contact web. I could no more quit Facebook than I could delete all the numbers off my phone. And I, in no way, actually hold or store my friend’s information – Google does that for me.

I’d be concerned if I wasn’t so apathetic to the whole thing. I know my information is being bought and sold. Soon all my personal information will be available to the highest bidders, and they can find out exactly where I am, who I’m with, what I’m doing and where I’m going. If they wanted, they could delete me outright and I would be powerless to stop them. In an instant my phone could be bricked, my Google account erased and my Facebook account suspended. Then what would I do? Where would I go?

Outside, probably. *shudder*

EDIT: Instantly after posting this, College Humor summed it up better: http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1806517

I know it’s a myth, the idea of pioneers and settlers “discovering” the land, when people have been living here since 10,000 BCE. And, of course, what happened to the Native Americans was freaking tragic.

But the settlers themselves didn’t really think about that. To them, this land was new, and they were effectively the first people on it. The things they did – build a cabin, apply a name to an area, survey an plot of land – was the first time, for them, that anyone did these things. The names they used still apply today, the groundwork and structures they constructed have lasted over 200 years.

In this day and age, however, there is no “unclaimed” land, no unexplored areas (in harsh and deadly areas, perhaps, but certainly not around here). Everything we do in this day and age is within the framework of the settlers – by all accounts, people no different from you or I, other than their position in time.

It seems rather unfair that I, being born in this time, can no longer explore and settle. If I gain land, it’s within the Jefferson County, maybe even part of Fairfield, certainly part of the United States. The forms and structures available to me are the same that are universally enforced across a 3,000-mile stretch of land, throwing me into a group that I neither understand or particularly wish to be associated with. However, any attempt to break free of this structure would result in my immediate land loss and possible death.

I certainly understand the reasons why a society would choose to enforce itself so intently – but without the ability to try something new, innovation and the drive to experiment is lost. We’re running on a 200+ year old document not because it’s the best thing ever, but simply because we’ve been unwilling to find a better one. Some might say “that’s because there IS no better system!” but how could we know this, scientifically, without running experiments? How can we really know American Democracy is the Best Ever, without allowing modern Americans the option to try something else?

Maybe, lurking deep inside of every American, is a better American, a person who adapts quickly and prospers greatly within the framework of a new system of government we haven’t conceived of yet? It’s easy to enforce one uniform system with an iron fist and say “hey, it works!” Of course  it works. No one is debating that. Over time, however, as our understanding and maturity as the human race grows, we have to grow and adapt with it – the easier and quicker we can do this, the better chance we have to survive into the future.

If we do not, if we simply sit and assume we’ve the best system ever, then at some point someone with a better idea will overtake us. Our stagnation is our undoing. Our innovation is our salvation.

To this end, the only apparent way of achieving this goal is to go back to a pioneer mentality. We must look at the land with brand new eyes, as if it is the first time anyone has seen it. We must claim some as our own, through whatever possible means. We must give it new names and bring new agricultural techniques and technology to improve it. We must give it new names, protect it from those who would harm it, those who would take it way, and ourselves. We must think of how best to organize ourselves, bringing every available advantage to the fore.

We must step on the same ground we’ve tread our entire lives for the first time, with all the awe and responsibility that brings.

I don’t really have any stories to tell. Some people, I’ve seen them, they have stories. Characters, plots, rich new worlds of imagination…. I don’t. My aborted novel is testimony to that – it’s awful not so much due to lack of writing as a lack of clarity. I don’t own the world or the people in it. A half-baked idea without the passion to bring forth real creatures.

To be fair, I don’t care that much. That lack of passion for storytelling goes all the way down – I don’t care so much for it OR for the fact that I don’t care. I imagine some day I’ll have some stories that people might actually want to hear… writing them down would be more of a shortcut for me, a way to get out of repeating myself over and over.

Actually, that’s all writing has ever been for me: A way of getting it down and out so people can read it without bugging me or interrupting me with one of those “but that idea is stupid and would never work” comments. Trust me, I KNOW. I DON’T CARE ABOUT THE PRACITCALITY OF IT. What I do care about is the awesomeness of it.

Ahh… maybe that’s it. The work of fiction, the far-away place and colorful characters do exist for me, but I see them as the future, I see me as the future, living in a place of my own design and construct. I know this person and this place with a intimacy unrivaled even by this day-to-day modern existence. Maybe I could write a sort of “speculative fiction” set in the place I’ve devoted myself to creating.

It’s a concern, as my leanings towards the more epic side of life push me to put someone or something in danger… the protagonist or my place are the two things I would never wish for any harm, or potential harm, to come against. If you know about the “Law of the Attraction” you know my problem with that.

So this leaves either a “romantic comedy” set in this place, which…. eh…. hmm. I’ll have to think about this some more.

Get Volume 1 Now!

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