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Newsletter #17
In This Issue:
-Learning as I Go
-Fighting vs. Creating
-A Clearer Purpose
::LEARNING AS I GO::
For the past month or so, I’ve been redesigning the website with the help of one of my tech-savvy subscribers. In doing so, I’ve had to give a lot of thought into what this site is about, and how far it’s come.
When I first started this website, I envisioned it being somewhat of a practical guide to sustainable living. Those of you who’ve been there from the start may remember my handy little slogan: “The Sensible Guide to Everything Sustainable.” But it wasn’t long before I realized that it’s a very fine and fuzzy line between what’s sustainable and what’s not. Basically, I came to realize that I wasn’t really sure what sustainability really is.
I know that to sustain something means to nourish or support it. But when it comes to the “sustainability,” people tend to think it’s the ENVIRONMENT that we’re trying to sustain. One of the first things I realized was that it’s US we’re trying to sustain. It’s just that we can’t sustain ourselves if we destroy the environmental conditions that nourish and support us.
The environment itself is fine and will be fine long after we’re gone. It will change, as it’s supposed to, but what we don’t want is for it to change so much that we can’t survive in it! And that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re changing our surroundings so that they’re no longer hospitable to us…We’re soiling our nest, so to speak.
The second thing I realized was that we don’t have to FIX the negative impacts we have on the environment, or even STOP doing all of the things that have negative effects. We have to change the WAY our actions affect our environment. Rather than (or in addition to), say, cleaning litter off the beach, we need to create products that don’t need to be cleaned up in the first place (i.e. they’re readily biodegradable and benign once they’ve served their purpose).
::FIGHTING VS. CREATING::
In looking for “everything sustainable,” I had a much harder time than I anticipated. I was easily finding products and organizations with good intentions, but nothing that really CHANGED the way we do things.
Buckminster Fuller once said: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” All I found were people fighting, whether it was by paying more, making sacrifices, or just giving into their sense of guilt and/or altruism. But new models were really hard to find, perhaps because people with the will and the skills to bring them into being were too busy “fighting.”
There is nothing wrong with fighting. I used to be a fighter, too. You all know I used to fight by recycling, and by boycotting meat products, and by doing a bunch of little things like trying all-natural cat litter (which didn’t last because it doesn’t work as well as regular litter! It’s not a good model!).
The problem with fighting is that it is not very EFFECTIVE. But it sure FEELS effective!! It feels like you’re being a lot more helpful when you’re actually DOING something, and it’s even better if you’re giving up something, rather than just sitting there and THINKING about what you should do. But whenever I feel tempted to just fight, kick and scream at what’s going on with the environment, I think of Daniel Quinn, who spent a few decades of his life thinking up the book (Ishmael) that opened possibly millions of minds (including my own). If he had spent all that time volunteering for non-profits or tending to a backyard compost pile, I doubt he would’ve ever achieved such change as he did with Ishmael.
Now, that doesn’t mean we should all get out there and write a book. The beautiful thing is that Ishmael is a very unique book, meaning that it could have only been written by one person.
On the other hand, grassroots efforts are somewhat one-size-fits-all: Almost everyone and anyone can do them. And while that is their appeal, that is also their downfall. They are not very effective because they don’t use people’s unique skills and talents to the fullest. To do that, you really have to think about what you’re capable of doing, and how you want to use those specific qualities of yours as effectively as possible to change the world.
Grassroots efforts are perfect for people for whom our situation with the environment is a genuine concern, but not a deep enough concern for them to want to devote their lives to it. But for people like me, who really feel that we can contribute more of ourselves to this cause, there’s got to be something more to it than recycling and making things less bad.
::A CLEARER PURPOSE::
My difficulty in finding examples of sustainability is why my website never became the massive, product-review information source I imagined it would be. Instead, it became a collection of interviews, articles, and book reviews that highlighted people at least trying to do more than just be less bad.
In my articles, I talked about how we do all these little things, yet spend almost a third of our waking lives at a job that usually cancels out what we do for the environment. I shared my experiences with college, and how it taught me first-hand about the brainwashing that exists in our culture. I interviewed a man who started a business, and woman who made a building, and a guy who made a car, all of which challenged the way things are currently done. I shared, reviewed, and recommended books that blew my mind, and made me question my implicit beliefs about the environment.
Of course, I was not aware of the common string that went through all of my content. I guess it was developing subconsciously at the time. But now that I’ve had to take a wider perspective on my website, I can see more clearly what it was and where it’s going.
It’s my hope for the website to eventually become somewhat of an interactive hub for people interested in creating new models of any sort that challenge the unsustainable norm. I’m especially interested in those models that undermine the destructive mindsets that often spawn most of the damage we cause to the environment.
This is the vision I’m working towards as I redesign this site. During this time of transition, your feedback is especially appreciated. If you have any ideas that you’d like to see on this site and that are consistent with its purpose, please share them with me!
Till next month,
Krystle C.
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