Human beings will continue to invest in and conform to the laws of large scale hierarchical systems despite the growing obviousness that such systems do damage both to individuals and our society as a whole. That is, we will continue doing what we're doing until one of three things happens:
a. The rules of the natural world are fully enforced by the strictest of madams, Ms. Mother Nature.
b. Human beings are able to fully utilize consciousness and the extraordinary amount of information currently available to us to respond appropriately with change in advance of the coming culmination of problems that have been set in motion.
c. Something I can not foresee will happen.
What surprises me is that so many people want to talk about c. Not many people want to consider the first thought, that a large-scale die-off is possible post petroleum where many or even most human beings perish. I admit it's a scary thought and I like to think it is only a very remote possibility, but mass extinction events are not out of the ordinary, historically speaking. It seems like few people want to consider the second possibility either, that we have the tools and the talents to work together to mitigate the ill effects of industrialization, including but not limited to: our addiction to fossil fuels that are about to enter into declining availability, large scale pollution of our air and water, massive losses and degradation of soils, climate change as a result of global warming, world hunger and widespread social injustice. It seems like we just want to close our eyes and hope it will be alright.
So the gloom and doomers have no hope and the green gadget people are overly optimistic, just waiting to buy the next product that will save the day. It seems to me that the work of people who don't fall into these categories, who are worried and fearful about what's coming 'round the corner but not ready to write off all human future existence, their work is to share a message of appropriate action. To spread the idea that each one of us is part of a larger group of the citizenship of our respective nations and humanity as a whole and that individual changes added up could have an incredible effect on our lives and the lives of those who are to come after us. Truth be told, one of the most effective ways you personally can help make positive change happen is to just reduce the amount of things you consume, especially things from far away. But because actions like this one are different, because they aren't being praised by main stream media, because some of them run contrary to popularly held beliefs and because many are unintuitively simple, the work of sharing this message isn't easy. How to share this message then?
It seems like inspiration followed by information is a fairly effective method. It's great because the inspiration you offer to others can come from changes you're making yourself. You can simultaneously make your own change and use it to inspire others to follow the path. Also the information you gather and process as you make personal change can be shared with those who become inspired by you. Action and sharing, a cycle of change.
Regardless of what the future looks like exactly, we're going to need an alternative to the behemoth of a hierarchical structure we have in place right now and it would be quite helpful if such a system were at very least in existence and at very best already in minds and actions of those who will be challenged. By this I mean that I think it's possible to use this cycle of change, this idea of action followed by sharing to create a system that runs parallel to the top down structure already in place. That way as it fails we'll have a head start on rebuilding community and helping others to respond to event failures like those witnessed in
Lately I've been reading about and thinking about the informal economy currently being discussed in some of the Internet circles I frequent. It seems very likely that if you were to add up all the labors done outside of the cash and credit economy you'd likely find more work being done than that used to calculate the gross domestic product. Most estimates include domestic labor, as well as bartering and trading. There are also volunteer efforts to consider. Such a peer to peer system for sharing goods and services in a more face to face manner seems like an excellent idea when one considers peak oil, resource depletion, climate change and even currency crash as a result of any of the previous three. I think it's inevitable that our world will relocalize at least in the manner in which we meet our physical needs and wants. Perhaps a loosely organized system similar to the one Jeff Vail describes by using the term rhizomes, could serve as a network of inspiration and information as it's being built and could, once it’s fully formed, serve to share resources and meet needs between semi self sufficient households and communities. Maybe it has already begun.
By the way all of this is a long winded means of sharing some news. I have negotiated a new schedule with my employer. I do not work on Fridays any more so I can stay home with my wife & daughter, grow more food, and write. I have decided not to continue my life as this society expects me to but I am also not running off to live in the woods. I am choosing a slow motion drop out as my option because as Ran Prieur points out, "In reality, between the extremes there's a whole dropout universe, and no need to hurry." Of course as a household we have already been taking steps to change the ways we live. But something about reducing the numbers of days per week I devote to the earning money to be used for interactions with the old system and increasing the number of days I will spend working in the informal economy of the new system is very exciting. I am sharing what I hope will be an inspiring story. I only work 4 days a week now. I am making change to address a future different from the one I expected until relatively recently.
As for sharing information, I'll let you know as I go along. This morning, as I more closely considered the results of my decreased bread-winning efforts, made more acutely tangible by Friday's inaugural holiday, I found a jar of peanut butter in our pantry. It is one of jars with a lot number that begins 2111. It is one of the jars of peanut butter that has been recalled because of salmonella contamination and I realized all at once that I had made the right decision. Next Friday I’ll make peanut butter and this summer I’ll probably grow my own.
How to make your own peanut butter:
2. Remove the red skin from the peanuts.
3. If you want chunky peanut butter, put the peanuts in a food processor or grinder and run the chopped mixture through three or more times until the peanut butter is the consistency that you like. For creamy style peanut butter, chop up the peanuts in a blender.
4. Add about one to two tablespoons of cooking oil in small amounts and regrind or blend the mixture until the peanut butter is the familiar paste consistency. Homemade peanut butter contains no preservatives or other additives.
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