I propose that Occupy Seattle spend the FIRST THREE MONTHS of 2012 working to address internal issues of racism, protest tactics, organizational structure & stability, and greater outreach to the community.
Since we started, three months ago, Occupy Seattle has accomplished Feats of Awesomeness we only dreamed possible. In that time we have been overworked, over-rushed, and faced with direct and targeted opposition from systems of authority... As we close the year, it feels appropriate to end 2011 with celebration of our new community.
In the past weeks, and especially days, deep systemic issues of prejudice and internal politics have arisen within Occupy Seattle. These issues divide us, block us from making progress together and making decisions together, and threaten to tear us apart.
I want to be very clear: I do not believe that our movement will survive further "splitting" and "factions". I believe that it will dilute our power, de-legitimize our messages, and dissipate the momentum we have worked to hard to build.
The issues that we face within our community are no less than the kernal of what we are fighting against in the state. They are the internalized prejudices of living our whole lives inside a society based on violence and oppression. How can we think to fight against the institutions of violence without seeking to heal the underlying causes. Holistic healing (and common sense) tell us that you can treat symptoms endlessly, and create an illusion of "wellness" - but until we have the patience to dig deep and seek to heal the root causes of our illness, we will never truly be well. This can be painful and scary, but only by looking our fears in the face, acknowledging our demons for what they are, and working to create new patterns of love and compassion, we begin to effect the systemic changed and radical paradigm shifts that we all talk about fighting for.
Where there is fear, there is power. So let us face our collective fears together, and together work to find the power within ourselves to BE AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE OF TRUTH AND LOVE.
To that end, I propose that Occupy Seattle spend the FIRST THREE MONTHS of 2012 focusing inward on this journey. By means of teach-ins, community discussions, art & celebration, and outreach to Seattle neighborhoods, communities, and social justice organizations.
There are already several days of international action planned in the next three months. I propose that we continue to plan for and participate in those actions, but that we back off of planning additional marches and actions focused solely on Seattle. The internal work of building our community, strengthening our organizational structures, and fighting our internal demons is TOO IMPORTANT to be put off indefinitely, or worked with less than our full attention.
Three months seems like a long time. It is equal to the amount of time that we have existed, which would be symmetrical. I do not expect Occupy Seattle to solve all of the systemic causes of hate and violence in three months. But it is enough time for us to dig in and make significant progress within our community. It is enough time to start building understanding amongst our many activists, and create a shared vision for our future world.
In the next three months, we will be establishing a new camp in which we hope to model our positive vision of the future. We will participate in international days of action and protest. We will work to build and create networks of cooperation with Seattle neighborhoods and social justice organization. We will work to grow our numbers and our movement by being actively engage with our communities.
Because I believe that the only way forward is together, in solidarity, with EVERYONE.
This proposal is open to modification and suggestions. I intent to present this for vote at GA on Wed, Dec 28th.
Love,
Ginger
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Paining: Journey from Tuscany to Andalusia
This is a painting from a sketch that I drew on the airplane ride home from Barcelona, ending a one month journey through Tuscany and Andalusia last Feb (2011).
Friday, December 9, 2011
Occupy's Identity Crisis
A note for the continuity of this blog: I started out in Food Group. I got frustrated, and burnt out, and pulled back. Only to get pulled into Camp Safety a week later, in an effort to spread my secret subversive agenda of love & compassion in the most direct way I could find.Occupy Seattle is going through an identity crisis.
Occupy [insert American city] is likely also going through the exact same identity crisis. So here's the thing... Occupy Wall Street started out as a very specific and focused protest against corporate greed. "Yes! Yes, I can get behind that!" we all said. "I want to do it too!" we all said.
In Seattle, we jumped in feet first, with all of the passion and enthusiasm of a population truly fed up with The Way Things Are. But "End Corporate Greed" quickly morphed and grew into "FIX ALL OF THE THINGS RIGHT NOW" and "BUILD OUR NEW SOCIETY WITHIN THIS OCCUPATION / TENT CITY". Holy shit. That's a big shift.
All of a sudden, not only were we engaged in an ideological protest... but we turned ourselves into a homeless shelter. Accidentally, unintentionally, without really thinking through what it means to preform that sort of service work. Idealists among us (and really, who among Occupy organizers is not an idealist???) talked about visions of inclusiveness, and healing the harms in our society, and meeting each person where they're at to participate in a movement that belongs to all of us... As we moved into the camp at SCCC, we tried over and over again to pass community agreements through the General Assembly that would govern our community and inform acceptable conduct. But those community agreements were flouted and disregarded by activists and hangers-on alike ("oh, that rule applies to those assholes over there, not to me. I'm peaceful..."). Anyone and everyone wandered into our camp with all manner of addiction, dysfunction, and mental instability.
And it was a clusterfuck. It was the wild wild west, and Lord of the Flies. And one-by one, committed activists packed-up their tents in fear and frustration, and a desperate need to sleep in a safe and restful space. They left behind empty spaces to be filled by those with addiction, dysfunction, and mental instability. They left behind a crew of organizers and activists (many of whom are also homeless), who just couldn't quit. Who were so obsessively focused on trying to make the camp at SCCC work that many of us lost site of the Bigger Picture of what we are trying to accomplish. And also those of us who desperately tried to work with this camp, such as it was, and figure out how to keep moving towards that Positive Vision... And those of us who were willing to take the risk, to open ourselves up to the trauma of others, hoping to serve and help those with addiction, dysfunction, and mental instability. Because we carry with us a vision of the new world we want to create, and that new word is based on inclusion and healing and community support... and creating that new world starts with healing the harms we see before us because we cannot leave that trauma behind us or sweep it under the rug. We must face it head-on and see its source within ourselves.
But there are some very harsh realities of the Existing World that we failed to consider...
#1 - We're not just working with the homeless and unemployed population. We are working with some of the most violent, most dysfunctional, most mentally unstable population in the city. We are working with those people who get kicked out of other shelters and other social service agencies. Some of those people get kicked-out of their programs as a direct consequence to a violent attack. And their next step is move to the Occupy camp.
#2 - We are working with less resources than any of the social service agencies in the city. Resources in the sense of stability, training, emotional and psychological boundaries, accountability, personal protection...
#3 - Social service agencies all have rules, boundaries, and social agreements that limit their populations to those who can step up to them. This is not a tool that they use for oppression; it is a survival mechanism. Any healthy community includes rules, boundaries, social agreements, and consequences for breaking those agreements. We want to create a new paradigm of community governance that focuses on healing and inclusion... But in the meantime, we must protect ourselves from the overwhelming needs of a population that is drowning. Just as a drowning person will flail in desperation and pull an unskilled lifeguard down into death with them, this population of homeless is pulling Occupy down with them in a desperate and very human attempt to grasp onto any support they can find. OS is beginning to realize this and pull back from it. And to many, it feels like tragic betrayal and abandonment.
#4 - Compassion includes boundaries and consequences. It is not compassionate or healing to enable violent and addictive behavior.
#5 - We cannot serve ALL THE NEEDS ALL AT ONCE. As we continue to grow - continue working to build the new world we all envision - our work is to focus on affecting systemic change; holding politicians and leaders and corporate moguls accountable for the oppression of us all. In the process we want to model our future community, but that is a delicate balance. Occupy Seattle needs to preform the same self-care that all of our burnt-out organizers so desperately need. To find our emotion/psychological center, to be grounded and focused and open to seeing the whole big-picture vision of what we are moving towards. To understand the limits of our resources, and understand exactly what roll we intend to play.
So here is the heart of our identity crisis:
Are we a social service agency, or are we a GLOBAL MOVEMENT FOR SYSTEMIC CHANGE AND REVOLUTION? Okay, maybe I have a bias about which choice I think we need to make... I think we already know the answer. And we're not really making a choice to take one and reject the other. I am making observation: a Global Movement For Systemic Change and Revolution has many faces. It exists everywhere and nowhere. It is an internet meme, and it is your neighborhood council, and it is your direct action network, and it is a general strike, and it is non-violent gorilla warfare. It is an occupation of foreclosed homes, and it is protesters in the middle of your city every day reminding you and the 1% that THIS SHIT IS NOT RIGHT.
It may also be a community of activists sleeping in tents, some of whom don't have another home to go to. It could also be a new tent city or a new ecovillage, built to model our Positive Vision; built to help serve those whom the system has abandoned. And if some of us within the Occupy Movement choose to pursue that project, let us choose it consciously, with open eyes and open hearts and with the support and knowledge of the social service community that has come before us.
Let us make conscious choices about the work we take on and the paths we choose to walk.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Whoadreambig
It's nearly December. This time of year, I would generally anticipate some crippling depressive apathy, a constant desire to stay in bed all day reading romance novels (but only if they were written +100 yrs ago), while lamenting my general incompetence at life.
I am working to help build Large Scale Awesomeness (both inside and outside of OS). I am getting involved in projects and movements and momentum that are bigger than me. WAY bigger than me. Swept up in a current of change that is at once transforming our society, but also transforming my soul. Getting me closer to the vision of myself that I see in my dreams.
It is at once thrilling and terrifying and it all feels so right... down to my bones, and in my toes. Is this what falling in love feels like? Like falling in love... with myself... with all of society and all of humanity and all of everything.
Many people are frustrated with Occupy Seattle (and the greater Occupy Movement), as we get distracted by a scope of change that seems too big for anyone to accept. As we get distracted by the needs of those on the edge of society who have wandered into our occupied camps with needs we can only begin to comprehend, let alone find the resources to address. But compassion can never be a waste of time...
My agenda... the work I pursue within the Occupy Movement... is to try to convince people that we are not at war with each other. Even as the police attack protesters and protesters battle back at them, even as our camps seem pulled apart by violence and addiction... even as those who believe in non-violence (including myself) close their hearts to the work of communicating with others who hold 'distasteful' viewpoints... We cannot start to make real change until we start to open up and communicate with one another.
This is the hardest, the most radical idea. The idea that the only way forward is by continuing to show compassion - to those we disagree with, and those who oppress us, and those who harm our bodies. And this is the biggest challenge I have ever given myself. To transform myself and remake my mind from the paradigms in which I am taught to seek enemies and adversaries. Taught to dehumanize and stereotype and categorize 'The Other'. There is no OTHER. There are only humans, desperately trying to make the best of the beliefs and the resources they have at hand.
To re-define the task: over and over again, at every possible opportunity, remind myself and otehrs of their own humanity. Challenge everyone to love themselves, and in so doing respect the humanity of those around them. Challenge people to see the humanity in those they see as 'enemy', and to seek the ways of finding common understanding.
And it is still thrilling and terrifying. And it feels so right.
But it's not there. Well, I should be more accurate: the psychological patterns of seasonal depression are definitely still with me. But feelings of emotional isolation, powerlessness, the burdens of unresolvable cognitive dissonance... these are the things that feed my seasonal depression and make it so deep. These things are conspicuously missing right now. There is something else in their place. Something like the spark of THE BIG THING. Change is coming. Change is already happening...
Back in early September, I had these thoughts:
This very basic dissonance [between needing to use a car & the belief that cars are fundamentally destroying our society] is at the heart of most of my current motivations in life. The underlying paradigm that feeds this reality in our society feels very, very wrong. On a daily basis, it makes me want to kick and scream and shake people (especially co-workers) and tear things down and fuck shit up. But I can't, because that wouldn't really be productive. So I channel all that energy into various ways that I can reduce the influence of cars and petroleum in my life.And now I am all up in the Occupy Seattle. Financial reform may not be exactly the same idea as creating a car-free society, but it is certainly on the same path. It has the same seed. Occupy Seattle offers me (and everyone else...) an outlet desperately needed to work to resolve cognitive dissonance.
I am working to help build Large Scale Awesomeness (both inside and outside of OS). I am getting involved in projects and movements and momentum that are bigger than me. WAY bigger than me. Swept up in a current of change that is at once transforming our society, but also transforming my soul. Getting me closer to the vision of myself that I see in my dreams.
It is at once thrilling and terrifying and it all feels so right... down to my bones, and in my toes. Is this what falling in love feels like? Like falling in love... with myself... with all of society and all of humanity and all of everything.
Let my heart be so broken, that the whole world may fall in.
Many people are frustrated with Occupy Seattle (and the greater Occupy Movement), as we get distracted by a scope of change that seems too big for anyone to accept. As we get distracted by the needs of those on the edge of society who have wandered into our occupied camps with needs we can only begin to comprehend, let alone find the resources to address. But compassion can never be a waste of time...
My agenda... the work I pursue within the Occupy Movement... is to try to convince people that we are not at war with each other. Even as the police attack protesters and protesters battle back at them, even as our camps seem pulled apart by violence and addiction... even as those who believe in non-violence (including myself) close their hearts to the work of communicating with others who hold 'distasteful' viewpoints... We cannot start to make real change until we start to open up and communicate with one another.
This is the hardest, the most radical idea. The idea that the only way forward is by continuing to show compassion - to those we disagree with, and those who oppress us, and those who harm our bodies. And this is the biggest challenge I have ever given myself. To transform myself and remake my mind from the paradigms in which I am taught to seek enemies and adversaries. Taught to dehumanize and stereotype and categorize 'The Other'. There is no OTHER. There are only humans, desperately trying to make the best of the beliefs and the resources they have at hand.
To re-define the task: over and over again, at every possible opportunity, remind myself and otehrs of their own humanity. Challenge everyone to love themselves, and in so doing respect the humanity of those around them. Challenge people to see the humanity in those they see as 'enemy', and to seek the ways of finding common understanding.
And it is still thrilling and terrifying. And it feels so right.
Monday, October 24, 2011
An Open Letter to Occupy Seattle
An open letter to Occupy seattle,
I work with Food Group. I jumped in with both feet three weeks ago and have been working my butt off and losing sleep since then to feed protesters every day and help build a functioning network of volunteers to cook & donate food.
Right now I am frustrated. We are all frustrated with divisiveness, police harassment, and a perceived lack of on-the-ground progress.
So really, it is time to ask ourselves "WHY". What are we trying to accomplish? Why are we all sacrificing so much time and energy and care to create what might amount to a shwanky mobile homeless camp with protest signs? I cannot speak for you, but I can tell you what my personal reasons are.
I am here to create a more compassionate world. I want to build a world where the economy works for everyone - an economy and society focused on creating plenitude and abundance, rather than the mechanized and de-humanizing "efficiency" of our current system.
Our power is not necessarily in our protests on the street. As we grow, our movement will help to enact top-down reforms of government institutions. We are working towards a government which regulates and controls corporations on our behalf, for the benefit of everyone. We are not asking for small things. We are telling The Powers That Be that they have fucked-up, and they are fired. We cannot wait for them to step down and hand us the reigns. We start by simply taking control of our own lives, communities, and economies.
That is why we are also modeling our new society every day. We are re-creating and re-educating and empowering ourselves and building accessible local governance. The General Assembly and the working groups are a seed of growth for our future. We are not waiting for the change to come to us. Not waiting for our government officials to "see the light" and begin to work with us. We are simply doing it. We may have to pick our battles and be strategic about how we grow and where we focus our energy; but we must always keep in mind a positive vision for what we are working towards. In this way, we can continue to grow, become more accessible to our communities, and be an open body for participation and a powerful force of change.
I want to remind everyone to be compassionate with yourselves. Be compassionate with those around you. Be compassionate with the police and with our Mayor. Compassion is NOT a weakness, but a means to stand up for our needs in a way that respects our own humanity. In this way, compassion is the greatest and most important of strengths. We do not want you to sacrifice your life to this movement. No one person holds Occupy Seattle on their shoulders. And if they do, that person is a weak point and we must find more people to share their tasks. Strength comes from our collective joy and positive vision. Everyday people give what they can to move us forward, and in the process, I hope we are having the time of our lives and creating the best, most joyful party on the whole god-damned block.
So Occupy Seattle, I ask you: what is your joy? How can we help you live out the work that feeds your soul? How can we learn to work together and support each to achieve Greater Feats of Awesomeness?
And [i]please[/i], join a working group!!!
Love,
Ginger
I work with Food Group. I jumped in with both feet three weeks ago and have been working my butt off and losing sleep since then to feed protesters every day and help build a functioning network of volunteers to cook & donate food.
Right now I am frustrated. We are all frustrated with divisiveness, police harassment, and a perceived lack of on-the-ground progress.
So really, it is time to ask ourselves "WHY". What are we trying to accomplish? Why are we all sacrificing so much time and energy and care to create what might amount to a shwanky mobile homeless camp with protest signs? I cannot speak for you, but I can tell you what my personal reasons are.
I am here to create a more compassionate world. I want to build a world where the economy works for everyone - an economy and society focused on creating plenitude and abundance, rather than the mechanized and de-humanizing "efficiency" of our current system.
Our power is not necessarily in our protests on the street. As we grow, our movement will help to enact top-down reforms of government institutions. We are working towards a government which regulates and controls corporations on our behalf, for the benefit of everyone. We are not asking for small things. We are telling The Powers That Be that they have fucked-up, and they are fired. We cannot wait for them to step down and hand us the reigns. We start by simply taking control of our own lives, communities, and economies.
That is why we are also modeling our new society every day. We are re-creating and re-educating and empowering ourselves and building accessible local governance. The General Assembly and the working groups are a seed of growth for our future. We are not waiting for the change to come to us. Not waiting for our government officials to "see the light" and begin to work with us. We are simply doing it. We may have to pick our battles and be strategic about how we grow and where we focus our energy; but we must always keep in mind a positive vision for what we are working towards. In this way, we can continue to grow, become more accessible to our communities, and be an open body for participation and a powerful force of change.
I want to remind everyone to be compassionate with yourselves. Be compassionate with those around you. Be compassionate with the police and with our Mayor. Compassion is NOT a weakness, but a means to stand up for our needs in a way that respects our own humanity. In this way, compassion is the greatest and most important of strengths. We do not want you to sacrifice your life to this movement. No one person holds Occupy Seattle on their shoulders. And if they do, that person is a weak point and we must find more people to share their tasks. Strength comes from our collective joy and positive vision. Everyday people give what they can to move us forward, and in the process, I hope we are having the time of our lives and creating the best, most joyful party on the whole god-damned block.
So Occupy Seattle, I ask you: what is your joy? How can we help you live out the work that feeds your soul? How can we learn to work together and support each to achieve Greater Feats of Awesomeness?
And [i]please[/i], join a working group!!!
Love,
Ginger
Sunday, October 16, 2011
New painting!
Paining for a friend. Scanned it so I could make prints. Might sell prints as some point.
NEED TO DO MORE OF THESE!!!
NEED TO DO MORE OF THESE!!!
Saturday, September 17, 2011
On Compassion
Compassion is a difficult thing. Difficult, because the word is plagued by misrepresentation in Hallmark greeting cards and sappy commercials guilting you into spending "just a dollar a day" to feed some kid in a war-torn nation. It is much maligned by war-mongers (of which our nation has an abundance), and capitalists alike. Especially those clinging desperately to ideas of Social Darwinism to justify the destruction and destitution of many for the profit of a few.
But what about "real compassion". The Wikipedia definition says:
Compassion for the kid over in Rwanda whom you could feed for "a dollar a day" is meaningless. Well, it is meaningful, but that's not where we start. That compassion is too big. In order for that compassion to be meaningful, I can't just send a dollar a day to Rwanda. I have to examine every part of my individual life to asses how the life I live helps to create that poverty. And then begin to change things. That's how the scale works. And most people aren't ready to start on that scale.
But again, to have compassion for those in abject poverty and suffering, that is obvious and easy. Because their suffering is more abstract. The closer to home the suffering gets, the more difficult it is to have compassion. Sure, send a dollar a day to the kids in Rwanda, but those assholes down the street on wellfare, well they're just lazy sonsofbitches sucking the teat of the state dry, wasting my tax money. They probably traded all their food stamps for drug money.
But this is still a digression. Because it is always easier to have compassion for someone who is obviously suffering, obviously in a lower and weaker position than you. But what about having compassion for those above you or equal to you? Compassion for your boss who made you work overtime and miss your daughter's dance recital. Compassion for the police officer who pulled you over for speeding five miles over the speed limit on a country road. Compassion for a friend who has betrayed your confidence and stolen your lover. That compassion is the most difficult. Because it is the most likely to be labeled as weakness. Above all else, it requires compassion for yourself.
Ah, now that's the seed. Compassion for yourself. That is the most difficult. That is the one that requires the most courage and resolve. It requires acknowledging your needs and your weaknesses, and focusing on them long enough to figure out how to fulfill them. It requires that you pursue what you need first, above the needs of others, but also that you accept and live with the consequences. To be so honest with oneself can be terrifying. There is a pagan saying, "Where there is fear, there is power." To be compassionate with yourself is to face your fears. To find the power within yourself and manifest it in the world.
And what about having compassion for your boss? Or the friend who seems to be walking all over your emotions and taking advantage of your generosity? Compassion doesn't mean not standing up to exert your desires. But maybe it means understanding that this person is on their own path, and is acting out of an attempt to fulfill their needs as best they know how with the tools they have. And if there is conflict, maybe compassion means being brave enough to acknowledge the conflict, give it full voice and express your anger and hurt and resentment and then maybe to start to heal the conflict. For me, compassion means giving myself permission to express anger when I feel it, to the person making me angry. To stand up for myself and assert my needs, because only by communicating my anger can the wound that causes it truly start to heal.
And perhaps compassion also means to sometimes decide that a need is not a need. Or that the need of another is greater. But only when I am truly honest with myself about my feelings and intentions can I tell the difference. Maybe that is the wisdom that comes with age and experience and self-reflection. So compassion is also an ongoing, lifelong journey.
All I know is, people need more compassion. With compassion comes courage, integrity, power, and beauty. Hell, who doesn't want those things? People who are convinced that they need to live inside their own personal hell, that's who.
Ginger
But what about "real compassion". The Wikipedia definition says:
Compassion is a virtue — one in which the emotional capacities of empathy and sympathy (for the suffering of others) are regarded as a part of love itself, and a cornerstone of greater social interconnection and humanism — foundational to the highest principles in philosophy, society, and personhood.Well shit, highest foundations of society and personhood, huh? I think America fails at compassion. That's a digression though... or maybe it's the kernal. Anyways, it's not exactly what I have to say right now.
Compassion for the kid over in Rwanda whom you could feed for "a dollar a day" is meaningless. Well, it is meaningful, but that's not where we start. That compassion is too big. In order for that compassion to be meaningful, I can't just send a dollar a day to Rwanda. I have to examine every part of my individual life to asses how the life I live helps to create that poverty. And then begin to change things. That's how the scale works. And most people aren't ready to start on that scale.
But again, to have compassion for those in abject poverty and suffering, that is obvious and easy. Because their suffering is more abstract. The closer to home the suffering gets, the more difficult it is to have compassion. Sure, send a dollar a day to the kids in Rwanda, but those assholes down the street on wellfare, well they're just lazy sonsofbitches sucking the teat of the state dry, wasting my tax money. They probably traded all their food stamps for drug money.
But this is still a digression. Because it is always easier to have compassion for someone who is obviously suffering, obviously in a lower and weaker position than you. But what about having compassion for those above you or equal to you? Compassion for your boss who made you work overtime and miss your daughter's dance recital. Compassion for the police officer who pulled you over for speeding five miles over the speed limit on a country road. Compassion for a friend who has betrayed your confidence and stolen your lover. That compassion is the most difficult. Because it is the most likely to be labeled as weakness. Above all else, it requires compassion for yourself.
Ah, now that's the seed. Compassion for yourself. That is the most difficult. That is the one that requires the most courage and resolve. It requires acknowledging your needs and your weaknesses, and focusing on them long enough to figure out how to fulfill them. It requires that you pursue what you need first, above the needs of others, but also that you accept and live with the consequences. To be so honest with oneself can be terrifying. There is a pagan saying, "Where there is fear, there is power." To be compassionate with yourself is to face your fears. To find the power within yourself and manifest it in the world.
And what about having compassion for your boss? Or the friend who seems to be walking all over your emotions and taking advantage of your generosity? Compassion doesn't mean not standing up to exert your desires. But maybe it means understanding that this person is on their own path, and is acting out of an attempt to fulfill their needs as best they know how with the tools they have. And if there is conflict, maybe compassion means being brave enough to acknowledge the conflict, give it full voice and express your anger and hurt and resentment and then maybe to start to heal the conflict. For me, compassion means giving myself permission to express anger when I feel it, to the person making me angry. To stand up for myself and assert my needs, because only by communicating my anger can the wound that causes it truly start to heal.
And perhaps compassion also means to sometimes decide that a need is not a need. Or that the need of another is greater. But only when I am truly honest with myself about my feelings and intentions can I tell the difference. Maybe that is the wisdom that comes with age and experience and self-reflection. So compassion is also an ongoing, lifelong journey.
All I know is, people need more compassion. With compassion comes courage, integrity, power, and beauty. Hell, who doesn't want those things? People who are convinced that they need to live inside their own personal hell, that's who.
Ginger
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Free Radical
I recently purchased a Free Radical, which I will use to convert a mountain bike into an Awesome Utility Bike. My intention is to use it to become a bicycle powered construction contractor. Or just enable me to never need a car.
The words "free radical" also feel right. Very close to my current psychological and spiritual state. Now, more than ever before, I am succeeding at becoming myself. "Fulfilling my destiny" sounds a little too melodramatic and pretentious, but something along the lines of becoming the person I imagine myself to be in my dreams. Resolving cognitive dissonance, to me, means finding a balance: between being fully present to each moment and enjoying life to the fullest extend with things such as they are, and at the same time striving to change the discomforting and upsetting things in myself and the world around me.
The biggest cognitive dissonance I find staring me in the face on a daily basis is thus:
Right now it seems like I have two paths available to me (the dichotomy here is entirely linguistic - there are infinite paths and options, but for ease of discussion there are two main themes).
One is to become a Commercial Building Energy Consultant. Or at least, to continue further down the path of being an Energy Auditor / Consultant. The opportunities are certainly there. It has the potential to be very lucrative. Or least provide a stable income. And it is totally within the realm of "working for a greater change". It also involves a lot of computer work, data analysis, dressing and acting more in the official "Consultant" role. Things that would all be Challenging Growth Opportunities... or would I really just be fighting against my inner nature to try and fit a role I'm not sure I'm comfortable with...? If I do this, it will have to be on my own terms. In the past, when I've tried to fit myself into some corporate image of "The Professional" everything just feels wrong and icky. But the options and possibility to pursue this Energy Consultant path are definitely there. I could take it and run with it and rock the shit out of that shit.
The other path is less clear. It feels warm and fuzzy. Down that path I see art, and earthen building, and community, and a near constant struggle for money and stability. But also glory. This path seems like the path of being a construction contractor, but just using that as an umbrella for whatever project I get engaged in at any particular time. This path involves getting paid to do my art. It involves building earthen houses in Seattle. It involves transforming myself into the community leader I want to be, to push and cajole people to get to know their neighbors and work together to grow food and build shit and work less and spend more time with their families. This path also holds the adventures and travels and spiritual work that I feel so called to do. It is more radical. Fuck sitting at a computer running models and numbers to figure out how Albertsons can use less energy, or even be Net Zero. I want to completely reconceive the building from the ground up (ok, yes, it is really important to work with the existing structure to make improvement, I just think that work is the wrong fit for me...). I want to reconceive the community it serves, and the concept of the grocery store in the first place. How can we expand farmers' markets and CSA's and urban farming to bring people closer to the source of their food and reconnect them to the earth, to the cycles of life?
Choosing one path does not necessarily exclude the other path, but as my dad has told me many times, "you gotta focus on something." I gotta pick a thing and put my energy into it, to the exclusion of other things, in order to get good, to get into the craft of a thing. Right now I choose earthen building. It feels right.
But maybe I am also choosing to be a generalist. I feel confident about my current choice to do earthen building, but I'm already looking beyond that to think of what I'll do in 15 or 20 or maybe five years, when my body stops cooperating with this choice. Maybe the two paths I see now are not divergent, but will be woven together in a way I have yet to conceive. As a generalist, maybe I can help span the gaps within each area of focus (farming, building, transportation, community) so that we can reconceive a healthier society.
Of course, for now, all of this is posturing. I'm not personally involved in any long-term community groups, or working to build any particular structures. I just have ideas. For now, I'm still incubating and growing and moving around too much to work on building the things I'm thinking about. But I've got plans. For now, step one is building the FreeRadical.
The words "free radical" also feel right. Very close to my current psychological and spiritual state. Now, more than ever before, I am succeeding at becoming myself. "Fulfilling my destiny" sounds a little too melodramatic and pretentious, but something along the lines of becoming the person I imagine myself to be in my dreams. Resolving cognitive dissonance, to me, means finding a balance: between being fully present to each moment and enjoying life to the fullest extend with things such as they are, and at the same time striving to change the discomforting and upsetting things in myself and the world around me.
The biggest cognitive dissonance I find staring me in the face on a daily basis is thus:
Cars: gasoline powered personal vehicles, and all of the infrastructure and economy that comes along with them... are destroying our society, environment, and personal health. "Cars" themselves are not the problem, per say. But the paradigm in which it is considered more "efficient" to use a two ton combustion vehicle to convey individual human across town, rather than for them to use a bicycle, or for our society to invest in public transportation, or to even take the time to walk a long ways. This situation is only really "efficient" within an extremely narrow set of parameters, excluding a vast array of other conditions and factors. (I could go on here, but I think I'll dedicate this rant to a separate post). But, on a daily basis, I find it necessary to drive a vehicle, either for work or borrowed from a friend for an errand, consume gasoline, and otherwise continue to feed the monster. Hence the bicycle project...
The same basic idea is similarly and succinctly argued in this poster, regarding the plastic spoon:
This very basic dissonance is at the heart of most of my current motivations in life. The underlying paradigm that feeds this reality in our society feels very, very wrong. On a daily basis, it makes me want to kick and scream and shake people (especially co-workers) and tear things down and fuck shit up. But I can't, because that wouldn't really be productive. So I channel all that energy into various ways that I can reduce the influence of cars and petroleum in my life.
Right now it seems like I have two paths available to me (the dichotomy here is entirely linguistic - there are infinite paths and options, but for ease of discussion there are two main themes).
One is to become a Commercial Building Energy Consultant. Or at least, to continue further down the path of being an Energy Auditor / Consultant. The opportunities are certainly there. It has the potential to be very lucrative. Or least provide a stable income. And it is totally within the realm of "working for a greater change". It also involves a lot of computer work, data analysis, dressing and acting more in the official "Consultant" role. Things that would all be Challenging Growth Opportunities... or would I really just be fighting against my inner nature to try and fit a role I'm not sure I'm comfortable with...? If I do this, it will have to be on my own terms. In the past, when I've tried to fit myself into some corporate image of "The Professional" everything just feels wrong and icky. But the options and possibility to pursue this Energy Consultant path are definitely there. I could take it and run with it and rock the shit out of that shit.
The other path is less clear. It feels warm and fuzzy. Down that path I see art, and earthen building, and community, and a near constant struggle for money and stability. But also glory. This path seems like the path of being a construction contractor, but just using that as an umbrella for whatever project I get engaged in at any particular time. This path involves getting paid to do my art. It involves building earthen houses in Seattle. It involves transforming myself into the community leader I want to be, to push and cajole people to get to know their neighbors and work together to grow food and build shit and work less and spend more time with their families. This path also holds the adventures and travels and spiritual work that I feel so called to do. It is more radical. Fuck sitting at a computer running models and numbers to figure out how Albertsons can use less energy, or even be Net Zero. I want to completely reconceive the building from the ground up (ok, yes, it is really important to work with the existing structure to make improvement, I just think that work is the wrong fit for me...). I want to reconceive the community it serves, and the concept of the grocery store in the first place. How can we expand farmers' markets and CSA's and urban farming to bring people closer to the source of their food and reconnect them to the earth, to the cycles of life?
Choosing one path does not necessarily exclude the other path, but as my dad has told me many times, "you gotta focus on something." I gotta pick a thing and put my energy into it, to the exclusion of other things, in order to get good, to get into the craft of a thing. Right now I choose earthen building. It feels right.
But maybe I am also choosing to be a generalist. I feel confident about my current choice to do earthen building, but I'm already looking beyond that to think of what I'll do in 15 or 20 or maybe five years, when my body stops cooperating with this choice. Maybe the two paths I see now are not divergent, but will be woven together in a way I have yet to conceive. As a generalist, maybe I can help span the gaps within each area of focus (farming, building, transportation, community) so that we can reconceive a healthier society.
Of course, for now, all of this is posturing. I'm not personally involved in any long-term community groups, or working to build any particular structures. I just have ideas. For now, I'm still incubating and growing and moving around too much to work on building the things I'm thinking about. But I've got plans. For now, step one is building the FreeRadical.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Restarting
Restarting this blog... it's hard for me to sit down and write stuff without creating some context... but I suppose life is a good enough context?
I just spent two weeks with the Mud Girls up on Denman Island, BC. We were building an earthen house at a co-housing property, for a woman who is an graphic designer and a tattoo artist. The weeks were an intense learning experience in learning the building technique, and also a uniquely empowering experience to be on a construction site run entirely by women. Denman is a semi-rural island with many artist, farmers, and also much of the typical small-town troubles. In an email to a friend, I had these thoughts after returning home:
The more I think about these thoughts and make my plans for the next year, which involve spending the entire summer 2012 living on or around Vancouver Island, doing an earthen building internship, the more I wonder if my life will take me out into living in some rural area. Being away from the city, away from internet, and movies, and media just felt so damn good. I don't know whether my future will be in Seattle, or near my sister in Bellingham, or even somewhere around Vancouver Island or some other rural area looking for organic farms in need of earthen buildings. What I do know is that right now I am walking the right path, learning earthen building, doing more art. I feel very strongly called to spend time on Vancouver Island. I'm just enjoying the beautiful things in my life this summer, and incubating the ideas of Awesome Projects percolating in my head.
I just spent two weeks with the Mud Girls up on Denman Island, BC. We were building an earthen house at a co-housing property, for a woman who is an graphic designer and a tattoo artist. The weeks were an intense learning experience in learning the building technique, and also a uniquely empowering experience to be on a construction site run entirely by women. Denman is a semi-rural island with many artist, farmers, and also much of the typical small-town troubles. In an email to a friend, I had these thoughts after returning home:
'Ready to go back to normal life?'.
I missed home, and I was ready to be home and reconnect with friends at the end of the week. I did not miss my job one bit, nor even think about it at all, and now I'm here again, fiddling at my desk in a government cube farm, doing paperwork and feeling all of the collective computer EM radiation, spiritual complacency mixed with unconscious despair, and temptations to dick around on the internet all day and eat peanut M&Ms from the vending machine. And I remember that the main benefits of my current job are that it is non-challenging, low-stress, reasonably well-paying (allowing my to save-up money for building The Bicycle and Other Things), and most importantly temporary (because I'm a temp). It is still energy auditing, and I'm happy to be doing it for a low-income weatherization program, but the whole system of things makes me itchy. I feel like the time I spent on Denman was falling into place in another life, as a different person that I've always meant to be but never figured out how to. Cognitive dissonance. Coming back to the city feels good, like to fitting back into a well-worn jacket, but maybe comfortable because of it's familiarity, not necessarily because it's the right fit. But just leaving here and moving somewhere new (somewhere like Denman), doesn't feel right either. Somehow I've got to figure out how to more fully be the person I am when I feel free like that... within the structure of the city. Creating my own reality. Re-making the city, or at least some small corner of it, to feel like Co-Ho landing... But such things take time to manifest. I've got plans for making it all fall into place. I dunno if it'll work, but I gotta try, because not trying would be just going back into the despair and dissolution and complacency that I've only recently managed to pull myself out of.
The more I think about these thoughts and make my plans for the next year, which involve spending the entire summer 2012 living on or around Vancouver Island, doing an earthen building internship, the more I wonder if my life will take me out into living in some rural area. Being away from the city, away from internet, and movies, and media just felt so damn good. I don't know whether my future will be in Seattle, or near my sister in Bellingham, or even somewhere around Vancouver Island or some other rural area looking for organic farms in need of earthen buildings. What I do know is that right now I am walking the right path, learning earthen building, doing more art. I feel very strongly called to spend time on Vancouver Island. I'm just enjoying the beautiful things in my life this summer, and incubating the ideas of Awesome Projects percolating in my head.
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