If you’ve done all you’re able or willing to do right now to reduce your footprint, work on increasing your handprint. Here are some suggestions:
Increase Your Handprint in the Riot Categories Themselves:
1. Gasoline: Organize a workshop on bicycle safety. Start a neighborhood culture of offering others a ride when you’re going somewhere. Invite neighbors to walk or cycle together to the neighborhood meeting rather than drive. Teach your kids how to use public transportation.
2. Electricity: Share Michael Bluejay’s website: Michaelbluejay.com
Read about passive solar heating and cooling and share your knowledge to help other people use low-tech, inexpensive strategies to reduce the footprint of heating and cooling their homes.
3. Heating & cooking energy: Read up on solar ovens. Get a solar oven for your school or church. Conduct a cooking class or bring sun-cooked cookies to the potluck and let everyone know how they were baked. Find out about Rocket Stoves and Rocket Mass Heaters, haybox cooking, and other DIY alternative heating and cooking technologies. Share your knowledge or start a creative tinkerers’ group to build things.
4. Garbage: Divert other people’s castaway stuff from the waste-stream, then brag on social media about your great curb-scores! Contact a company about reducing its product packaging. If you compost, teach others how to also. If you don’t already compost, learn how and then teach others how. Start a compost bin at your school or church. Get together with neighbors and form a buyers’ co-op so you can buy more food in bulk rather than packaged.
5. Water: Read Brad Lancaster and Art Ludwig to learn about water harvesting. Set up a rainbarrel and show your neighbors. Ask your city to use more native and water-wise landscaping (if they haven’t been moving in that direction already——many cities have).
6. Consumer goods: Donate toys, clothes, art supplies and books you’re no longer using to a school, church, or shelter. Arrange for a screening of “The Story of Stuff” in your community. If you know someone who’s struggling with excess stuff, offer to help them find worthy homes for it.
7. Food: Organize a local-food meetup. Visit a local farm. Volunteer on a farm. Boost your skills and knowledge and share with others what you’ve learned. Host a plant- and seed-swap in your neighborhood. Write an article about food-sustainability issues for your local paper. Talk with your city leaders about the sustainability of your local food supply. Some cities have set up sustainable-food policy boards; yours might too.
These are just a few examples to get your creative wheels turning. And finally, a general overall suggestion: Start a Riot for Austerity study group!
Increase Your Handprint By Tapping Into a Social Movement:
There are a number of social movements aimed at retooling human settlements and ways of life to create a sustainable civilization. The ones I’ve found most effective and engaging are the Permaculture Design movement, the Bioregional movement, and the Transition movement. You’ll find descriptions and links to these movements in the appendix.
The advantage of tapping into a social movement is that you expand your menu of opportunities to make a difference, beyond just reducing your own footprint. You also get the support of a community. This is particularly true if you join, or start, a local chapter in your geographic area. It even holds true if you only participate online.
Increase Your Handprint by Getting Active in Your Community:
Give your time, talent, and energy to your neighborhood and your town. Volunteer for citizens’ boards and neighborhood committees. Do you know your neighbors? Go knock on their doors and meet them, at least the immediate ones. (And in case you have any doubt about whether you’ll meet with a friendly response, go armed with some fresh-baked cookies, or some sun-ripe tomatoes from your garden!)
You could start a community potluck (like Jim O’s, a longtime South Austin tradition) or turn your backyard into a weekly community salon for music and conversation (thanks, Howie and Linda!).
Increase Your Handprint By Unleashing Your Creativity; Find Your Right Livelihood:
“Right livelihood” is a phrase I first learned in permaculture class. It’s basically your ideal occupation, where your creative talents and inclinations intersect with some need in the world. (The community you serve could be in your immediate neighborhood or it could be online, scattered all over the world; as is the case for many writers, artists, and educators these days.)
If you have a good steady day-job but it doesn’t feel like the right livelihood for you, you don’t have to up and quit your job in order to start exploring what might be your right livelihood. Just start reading, researching, and maybe even taking classes on the side.
Then again, I know of many successful entrepreneurs who mentioned that a key factor in finding their right livelihood was that they suddenly lost their steady day-job and had to come up with another way to pay the bills. Two examples of such businesses, off the top of my head, are The Soup Man in Austin (which started out as a bicycle-based soup delivery business and grew into a brick-and-mortar place) and Kale Cafe in Daytona Beach (which started out as a smoothie stall at the farmers’ market and now has multiple store fronts).
If you could do anything and still get paid, what would that be? What do you do willingly for many hours a day without getting paid? There’s a way to turn that into a livelihood. In the “Creativity” section of the appendix, I list several books and other resources that have lit a fire under me to take more creative initiative. These books are not specifically about green or low-footprint life; they’re about creativity, initiative, and courage. But my personal opinion is that those are essential ingredients in making a more ecologically balanced world. When I ask people what they’d really rather be doing for their occupation, the answer almost invariably winds up being something with a lower footprint (and greater handprint) than what they’re doing.
For example, a guy working a typical paper-pushing job wishes he could earn his living by teaching local kids how to garden. Everyone has talent and creativity, but too many of us are holding back in fear of “whatever.” Maybe these fears are based on rejection, failure, wasting time, or simply not measuring up to our own standards.
The following “Creative Champions” have given me a big shot in the arm. After reading a couple of Seth Godin’s books, I organized my first art show, which included six other artists. After reading advice from Stella Orange, Jeff Goins, and Sean Donovan on how to stop procrastinating and start writing, I finally got off my butt and wrote my first book (this one). If all goes according to plan, this book won’t be my last.
To sit on your talent is to hoard resources that the world needs. Right now the planet needs all the creativity it can get, in every field, from agriculture, to textiles, to architecture and construction, to education, to government, to urban planning, to sanitation, to finance, to transportation, just to name a few. And yes, of course that includes the arts as well. The arts are a key vehicle for cultural transmission.
I hope that you will get inspired to deploy your unique blend of creativity, talent, and passion to make a difference in the world.
Here are some common questions regarding a low-footprint lifestyle.
Q.Why should I reduce my footprint when corporations are the ones producing all the stuff that’s causing the pollution?
A. Who do you think is creating the demand for corporations (or China, or whoever your villain of choice is) to produce all that stuff? Look in the mirror! Corporations (and Chinese industry) are a reflection of the U.S. public’s wants and our lack of self-discipline. Also, more pollution is produced by nonpoint sources (lawns, cars, etc.) than by point sources (industry’s tailpipes).
Q.If humans stopped having kids, would that solve everything?
A. Take a look around you. Even if not one more child were born on earth, the resource-hogs who are currently living on earth are trashing the planet quite successfully. Besides the fact that you’re trying to fight a pretty strong biological urge here, which is bound to be a losing battle, zero population growth won’t solve the problem. In fact, who’s to say that the next child born, or the next, won’t be someone who holds the key to saving the planet?
Q.If the government imposes green standards on industry, would it solve everything?
A. Do you want to be ruled by a totalitarian government? Do you believe that the government is the highest authority on what’s green, and knows what’s best for industry and commerce? Remember how WalMart started carrying organic produce? That had nothing to do with the government. It was WalMart responding to millions of votes from consumer wallets.
Q.Solar panels are getting better and cheaper. Can’t we just switch to solar, and have a sustainable world without cutting back on our consumption?
A. Fossil fuels are an energy-dense resource, what my renewable-energy teacher at EcoVersity, Mark Sardella, told us was equivalent to each person in the United States owning 80 slaves. If we were to try to just switch over to solar panels, we’d have solar panels covering every square inches of available space, quite possibly including all our agricultural land. And instead of mountaintops ravaged and streams polluted by coal mining, we’d have … well, hmmm … it still takes electricity to produce those solar panels and gasoline to transport them, so ….
The point is, if we don’t handle our addiction at the source by radically reducing our own consumption, we’ll chew up more and more land. We’ll also create more pressure for building nuclear power plants.
Q.What about nuclear power? There’s been a lot of development in nuclear technology over the years, but public sentiment is against it because of disasters like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. Those were either old or ill-designed systems, and the new systems (for example, thorium reactors) produce minimal waste, or even recycle the waste into something innocuous. Wouldn’t clean nuclear solve the world’s energy problems?
A. This is an excellent question. The new technology for nuclear power does seem to be promising and warrants investigation. We are right to be cautious about nuclear power, and we need to test this new “clean” version in a contained manner such that failure won’t produce catastrophic consequences.
The existence of unlimited “clean” energy won’t solve the fundamental problem of humans crowding out other species, or humans in rich countries taking more than their share, or humans wrecking the forests and wetlands and aquifers. If our default way of doing things continues, the availability of unlimited clean energy will just allow us to build even bigger houses, pave over even more land, replace even more wilderness with buzz-cut squares of turf. Hence, in an “unlimited clean energy” scenario, a low-footprint movement would not only still have value; it might become even more essential!
This question leads to another topic: technophobia. There’s a faction of the eco movement that is anti-technology; however, humans are fundamentally technological, innovative creatures. Living a low-footprint life doesn’t mean going back to the Dark Ages. We need to be discerning about how we use technology, but we do need to keep innovating.
A key example of technology that’s been a godsend to grassroots movements is, of course, the internet and social media. Two of the most beneficial vehicles for instantaneous mass information-sharing are Facebook and NextDoor.com . NextDoor is a service that allows neighbors to connect online. Thanks to NextDoor, I’ve gotten to know many more of my neighbors face to face as well as online, and we’ve greatly strengthened the cohesion of our neighborhood.
Q.How do I maintain an appropriate sense of urgency, without falling into despair and getting burned out?
A. I find that this is a matter of managing my attention, so I stay in the happy medium zone between la-la land and catastrophic thinking. If I find myself getting too complacent, I read a current article about the scariest aspects of climate change—or I look at pictures of the horrific environmental degradation caused by our everyday human activities. If I find myself getting too anxious, I do mind-centering practices and then I go out and engage in actions to help make my community greener and more connected. Sometimes I just go to a movie, treat myself to an ice-cream cone, or more often, read a novel.
Q.How do I know when I’ve reduced my footprint enough?
A. Unfortunately, you won’t know for sure. None of us do, not even the scientists. However, there are some people whose opinions I respect greatly, and they’ve made some pretty educated calculations based on scientific observation. I’m choosing to follow their numbers for now. It could be that we will have to revise our targets later, but in any case, for now, you can’t possibly go wrong by aiming for 10% of the average U.S. footprint.
Q.What if that answer is not good enough? I need to find solid ground – I need the 100% reliable bedrock truth!
A. I hear you, I really do. Unfortunately, the bedrock solid truth of which you speak is not part of the deal that is human life on planet earth. My suggestions: Find community and take pleasure in simple things. Reach out and help others. In the course of serving, you’ll lose your need for bedrock. Actually, if you help others, you’ll be a form of bedrock.
Q.How do I persuade people to accept the facts about climate change?
A. You don’t! If someone doesn’t believe as you do about climate (or the footprint of factory-farmed beef, or anything else for that matter), don’t try to persuade them. No amount of what you consider to be facts will persuade a person to stop believing what they already believe. If anything, by bombarding a person with your facts you run the risk of prompting them to dig in their heels even more. This is a well-documented phenomenon of human behavior. And no matter how reputable the source of your facts, a person who believes differently than you do will always be able to come up with a different set of facts, from a source they consider credible, to support that belief.
Rather, for maximum effectiveness, conversations with “non-believers” could go something like this:
Example #1:
Non-green neighbor: Your skin always looks so amazing – What do you use?
You: Rainwater.
NGN: Rainwater? Is that the new skin-care line the ladies on the Today Show were talking about the other day?
You: No. I mean actual rainwater, from the rainbarrel. I collect it off my roof. That’s the only skin product I need anymore, except maybe a touch of coconut oil once in a while, like in winter when the air is dry. And boy am I saving a lot of money! I used to spend about $20 per month on skin products, and I’ve got other friends who spend $50. Now I spend pretty much zero, and my skin looks better than ever.
NGN: Hmm … rainwater … [walks away with thoughtful look on her face].
(Note the utter lack of mention of the eco-footprint of makeup and skin products and all the bottles they come in! Those things will take care of themselves.)
Example #2:
Non-green neighbor: [Pushes lawnmower out onto his lawn, glances over the fence at you with a pained look]: Gonna be a hot one today! I’m not looking forward to this!
You: Yeah, I know what you mean! That’s why I phased out my lawn and switched over to natives and succulents. I went from spending $100 a month on water, fertilizer, and maintenance, to maybe $5 or $10 a month. I also went from ten hours of work to less than two, leaving me a lot more time for fishing! Speaking of which, I’ve gotta go pick up my grandson, we’re headed for the creek today. Nice chatting with you, try to stay cool in this hot weather! I hope you can come fishing with us sometime.
(Note the complete lack of mention of the greenhouse gases emitted by lawnmowers; the fact that lawns have an incredibly wasteful footprint accounting for 40 percent of total US agricultural land; the fact that you personally would prefer he plant wildflowers for the bees and butterflies.)
Example #3:
Non-green neighbor: Did you survive the storm OK? Looks like our water is cut off along with the gas!
You: Oh, do you need some water for cooking or washing? Here, I’ve got extra. It’s rainwater, the freshest water around. And if you need to cook something, you’re welcome to use my solar oven; looks like the sun is coming back out. Better yet, you’re welcome to share some of this fish and veggies I’m about to cook.
The above were examples of how to talk with people who seem to have no interest in reducing their footprint. But if someone comes to you and says something like, “Wow, I just got my electric bill. It’s $300! I wish I could cut back, but I’m not sure where to start, and I’m not sure how I could live without any of what I’m using.”
That person is receptive to new information about how to reduce his or her footprint. You could say, “Well, here’s how we did it …” Or “You’re in luck, have I got a website for you …”
Q.The Riot is a great concept, but what do we do with the 90% who’d rather be planning their next trip to Disneyland than thinking about their carbon emissions? Ignore them? Just move forward without them?
A. Yes. Just go about our business and continue to radiate excitement and enthusiasm. People will notice. Create a beneficial contagion! Also, the Disney parks are pretty committed to environmental stewardship and education; those families are bound to learn something green on their vacation trips!
Q.How do I avoid being drawn into arguments with people who believe differently?
A. Just do your best to stay calm and listen to their concerns. Remember, we all want the same things deep down. Remind yourself how ineffective it would be if you try to persuade them to your way of thinking. If someone seems to be trying to goad you into an argument, change the subject or walk away.
Q.Is it possible that there will be no civilization-ending crisis at all and that we are all worried for nothing?
A. Yes, that is possible, but I’m a great believer in the precautionary principle—the old “do it just in case” approach. If the “just in case” actions involve only self-deprivation, it’s harder to get on board (and get others on board), but in a case like this, where the “just in case” track includes immediate PERSONAL benefits, it becomes not only prudent, but also a no-brainer!
And then too, there’s the very compelling argument that footprint reduction is something we should be doing in any case, regardless of climate change or Peak Oil, or whatever. We should be reducing our footprint in order to stop chewing up the rainforest. We should be reducing our footprint to improve our health; to stop squeezing out other species; to make more resources available (including our own time, talent, and energy) to people less well-off than us. Sharon Astyk’s article explaining her friend’s “Theory of Anyway” is a lovely expression of this line of thinking.(9)
Q.I want to grow food and native plants, but my homeowners’ association won’t allow me to have anything except turf-grass or ornamentals.
A. First, check your state laws. nowadays, many states have laws forbidding HOA’s from disallowing waterwise or native vegetation. Second, it’s pretty easy to plant veggies and herbs in such a manner that they blend right in with the ornamental vegetation. Third, if the HOA is really oppressive, you might seriously want to consider moving! (Either than or try to get on the board yourself.)
Q.Speaking of lawns, I like my lawn! Why should I get rid of it?
A. You don’t have to. If you find beauty in a nice, soft, tidy, cool, green patch of turf, you are not alone. Just try to keep it at a size and breed that doesn’t require constant infusions of chemicals and a burdensome, fossil-powered maintenance program. Mow less often, leave the grass clippings on the lawn, and if leaves fall onto your lawn, rake them into the mulched areas around the shrubbery rather than blowing them away or otherwise treating them as trash. Life is precious; don’t waste your life on slave labor for a status symbol!
Q.It’s easy for you to do this—you’re a single person who lives alone. But I’ve got kids.
A. Actually, that’s all the more reason for you to do this. No one ever said raising kids was a cushy gig, right? Imparting morals and values is part of your responsibility as a parent. Fortunately, you don’t have to take it all on your shoulders and feel like a bad parent for not buying your kid every single toy their friends have, or choosing not to have a big fancy house. You tell them WHY you are doing this: because humans have an obligation to protect the plants and animals. Because it’s wrong to use more than our share. Because when we consume more than our share, kids in other parts of the world, kids just like them, suffer.
Adjust your responses to incorporate whatever your family’s religious background is, or your favorite family pastimes, or family circumstances. (“We need to conserve resources so we can save the national parks for camping!” “We do without a lot of new stuff so we can have more time and money for those family trips to the beach that you love!” “We need to walk more instead of using the car because Dad’s doctor told him he needs to get more exercise.”)
What’s another advantage of having kids? Many hands make light work! Make work activities part of your togetherness as a family. The happiest kids I’ve ever met were the children of my friends Erin and Skip, the farmers of Green Gate Farm in Austin. When they weren’t in school, those kids stayed busy feeding chickens, exercising horses, and cleaning the barn. Their contribution was essential to the family economy and they knew it from a young age. I know some storekeepers’ kids who radiate that same sense of pleasure in responsibility.
Kids need boundaries and limits. The Riot, and concern for the earth, provides you with a good way to set those boundaries and limits. Oh, and by the way, Riot founders Sharon Astyk and Miranda Edel are both Moms!
Q.How do we know this will work?
A. Frankly, we don’t. Life can be tough. Sometimes the only choice is between something that might not work, and something that DEFINITELY will not work. The same holds true with the low-footprint lifestyle. It might not work. It might not be enough to save humanity even if all of us were to get on board right now. I tell you what definitely won’t work: Keeping on as we’ve been going. And I can tell you what definitely will work: Pursuing this lifestyle for your own immediate personal benefit. Use it to save money. Free up your time and energy. Declutter your mental space. Improve your sense of security and well-being. Become a better friend, family member, and citizen. And regardless, at the end of the day, if our civilization dies out, then you’ll have the satisfaction of being able to say (from your spot somewhere out in the etheric stardust realms), “I loved my planet. I lived my life to the fullest. And I gave it my unreserved best shot.”
Before ending the main body of this book, I have one more topic. Last but not least, get your mind in order. The phrase “It’s all in your mind” gets a bad rap. Usually people use it to mean “You’re making things up” or “You’re imagining things.” I use it to mean “The mind is Ground Zero and Command Central of everything we do!”
“With our thoughts we make the world,” said Buddha.
How you look at things, what you focus most of your attention on, what you believe about yourself and the world——these things are bigger factors in your success or failure and your happiness or unhappiness than any external circumstance, however large.
Anyone who is committed enough to the planet as to pick up a book called DEEP GREEN, let alone read this far, is a sensitive individual who may be carrying a lot of pain and worry. Sometimes, our emotional reactions from personal stuff in our lives get overlaid onto the present moment, distorting our present-time perception.
Also, sometimes our personal pain gets mixed up with our pain for humanity, thus intensifying our emotions and making it hard to speak clearly or act calmly. It’s essential to clear our minds of distortion so we have maximum attention free for the tasks at hand. We need to be on point!
The best advice I can give anyone who’s trying to make a better world (or do anything else for that matter) is, “Get your mind in order!” Sort through your feelings. Work through your traumas. Get support to put the past behind you. Own up to things you’ve done wrong and make amends. Rise above victim-consciousness.
I’ve had a long journey in getting my mind in order. I’ve done psychotherapy, which helped me sort and process my emotions. I’ve done a program for addiction, which helped me take responsibility for my life and stop feeling sorry for myself by owning up to my wrongdoings and making amends. I’ve read and reread mindfulness books and tried meditation and yoga. I’ve taken many different kinds of workshops.
Every bit of time and money I’ve invested in working on my “inner landscape” has paid off in unimaginably rich dividends. Therefore, I offer everyone, especially you, my deep-green comrades who share my commitment to the planet, the same advice: If you want to be truly happy and successful, get your mind in order. In the appendix I list a select few of the resources that have helped me most.
CHAPTER 10. IN CLOSING
Goodbye for now, but I hope to see you soon.
For a long time, I was impatient with my fellow green-minded people. Folks were always saying they admired my lifestyle so much. Well, then why weren’t more of them doing it? Then I woke up and realized what a golden opportunity I’d been missing: the opportunity to help people create their own version of this lifestyle! I hope the guidance in this book will be of use to you, and that together we’ll spark a widespread and enduring craze for extreme-low-footprint living.
Thus concludes the body of this book. In the appendix you’ll find pointers to books, websites, social movements, and other riches (without which this book would not exist). Your adventure is just beginning! May you enjoy a long, fruitful, deep-green life. (And, I look forward to meeting up with you in the Riot community online!)
(1) Scary article about climate change: Wallace-Wells, David. “The Uninhabitable Earth”. New York Magazine, July 9, 2017: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html
(2) “We Might Lose Giant Sequoia National Monument This Week,” article by Lena Moffitt, Aug 21, 2017: http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/347399-we-might-lose-giant-sequoia-national-monument-this-week
(3) “After public outcry, the Interior Department won’t eliminate national monuments,” article by Ruairi Arrieta-Kenna, Aug 25, 2017: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/8/24/16199048/interior-department-national-monuments
(4) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, book by Robert Putnam http://bowlingalone.com
(5) Various websites give data and graphs of each country’s footprint, showing how many Earths we’d need if everyone on the planet had the footprint of people in the United States, as compared with other countries. According to one chart I’ve seen, we’d only need half of one Earth if everyone had the average footprint of people in India. But if everyone on Earth were living the footprint of people in the U.S., we’d need over four Earths! There are various ways of measuring this, but the U.S., Canada, and Australia invariably appear among the highest-footprint counties. Residents of other lands, such as oil-rich Middle Eastern countries, do have a higher footprint than ours because of their huge supply of petroleum (which allows the citizens to have unlimited free electricity and free water). Free water in a desert land, what a testimonial to the power of petroleum! My favorite info-graphic is here: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33133712
(6) Astyk, Sharon, “Revisiting the Riot for Austerity”. http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2011/04/25/revisiting-the-riot-for-auster/
(8) Brad Lancaster video: “Dryland Harvesting Home Hacks Sun, Rain, Food and Surroundings” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcAMXm9zITg This is the video where Brad slides down a fireman’s pole and chases off a would-be thief. “Hey! Hey” Get away from that car!” Priceless. I’m not telling you where that part of the video is because I want you to see the whole video.
(9) Climate catastrophe and Peak Oil aside, there are always reasons why a low-footprint life is the right choice––the thing we should be doing regardless. “The Theory of Anyway”, article by Sharon Astyk http://www.resilience.org/stories/2007-01-25/theory-anyway/
APPENDIX: RESOURCES
Books, Websites, Social Movements, & Other Resources
In being able to live my low-footprint life and write this book, I stand on the shoulders of giants. The following list is not meant to be exhaustive; however, I do feel particularly indebted to the people and works I mention below.
The Riot for Austerity:
• The book that started it all! HEAT: How To Stop the Planet from Burning, by George Monbiot
• Article by Lynn McDonald, summarizing and commenting on the main points of HEAT: http://www.justearth.net/george-monbiot-heat-extract-and-comments
• The Riot for Austerity group on Facebook
• Riot for Austerity (90 Percent Reduction) Yahoo email list https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/90PercentReduction/info
Sharon Astyk’s books on food security and other topics merit an entire category by themselves. When I was worried that this book would not end up being worth the money I was asking people to pay for it, I realized that a person could get their money’s worth from this book even if all it did for them was to introduce them to Sharon Astyk’s work.
• Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front (how families can adapt to climate change, financial crisis, and peak energy)
• A Nation of Farmers: Defeating the Farm Crisis on American Soil (written with Aaron Newton)
• Independence Days (focuses on food preservation and storage)
• Making Home: Adapting Our Homes and Our Lives to Settle In Place. http://sharonastyk.com
Electricity and Home Usage Calculators:
For highly detailed information and suggestions on how to reduce your electricity usage and save a lot of money without sacrificing comfort: “Mr. Electricity,” Michael Bluejay’s website www.michaelbluejay.com
Transportation:
“How Not To Get Hit by Cars” – bike safety tips – michaelbluejay.com
Stuff and Consumerism:
• “Story of Stuff” video online by Annie Leonard. You just have to watch this!
• Junkyard Planet, book by Adam Minter. An eye-opening tour of the recycling and scrapping industry, and its sometimes-staggering impact on land, economies, and people all over the world.
• The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Mari Kondo (my all-time favorite book on decluttering).
• Ray Jardine: Ultralight Hiking “If you need it and don’t have it … you don’t need it!” This guy hikes the PCT with an 8-pound pack, yet he’s equipped for all weather.
• “100 Things” movement: people aspiring to own just 100 things or less. I don’t personally aim to pare down to a certain number of things, but have found this concept to be thought-provoking.
Home Heating and Cooling:
• Rocket Stove; Rocket Mass Heater: DIY stoves and heaters fueled by deadwood twigs! Yes you too can cook a meal or heat a home with a deceptively small pile of sticks. Aprovecho Sustainability Education Center, http://www.aprovecho.net and on YouTube
• Passive solar heating and cooling – “Passive solar design refers to the use of the sun’s energy for the heating and cooling of living spaces.” http://passivesolar.sustainablesources.com
• Solar cooking – Solar Cookers International, solarcookers.org “Solar Cookers International’s mission is to spread solar thermal cooking technology to benefit people and environments.”
• “How to flood-proof a house? Look to colonial New Orleans architecture,” article by Thom Smith. In addition to low-tech flood-proofing, the house also has passive-cooling and heating design features “known as ‘passive’ or ‘bioclimatic,’ and were the norm before modern, energy-intensive air conditioning and heating systems.” http://www.nola.com/homegarden/index.ssf/2017/08/how_to_flood-proof_a_house_loo.html
Water:
• Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, book by Brad Lancaster https://www.harvestingrainwater.com
• Brad Lancaster video: “Planting the Rain to Grow Abundance” (TEDx Tucson talk; on YouTube). Brad is a delightful speaker! You’ll get a big smile on your face while getting informed. His little butt-wiggling happy dance “a-BUN-dance” is priceless.
• Greywater recycling: Create an Oasis with Greywater, book by Art Ludwig http://oasisdesign.net
Composting:
The Humanure Handbook, by Joseph Jenkins. My favorite composting book even if you’re not yet ready to compost humanure. I’ve lost count of how many copies of this book I’ve donated!
Food—Gardening:
• Besides Sharon Astyk’s books mentioned above, a couple of my favorite books are Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew; and How To Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land than You Can Imagine, by Jon Jeavons. These books totally dispelled my apprehensions about having not enough land to grow food to feed everyone by non-industrial methods. Personally, I don’t follow their plant-spacing systems and so on to the degree of precision they recommend, but I do find both of these to be excellent guides.
• Also download your local Master Gardeners planting guide; visit your local nursery; attend talks by your local Master Gardener group and Native Plant Society.
Food—Foraging:
Florida-based experts:
• Andy Firk, floridaforaging.com
• Greene Deane, eattheweeds.com
Google for experts in your region
Wizards of Prosperity and Thrift:
• The following two highly popular bloggers are financially well-off people who have radically reduced their overhead in order to enjoy economic and creative freedom:
1) Mr. Money Mustache: created wealth and financial independence for himself and his family by radically reducing their need for money and material goods, while still maintaining a comfortable lifestyle. His goals: “To make you rich so you can retire early”; “To make you happy so you can properly enjoy your early retirement”; “To save the whole Human Race from destroying itself through overconsumption of its habitat.”
Mr. Money Mustache – “early retirement through badassity”
2) Early Retirement Extreme: “a combination of simple living, DIY ethics, self-reliance, and applied capitalism.” He and his wife live on $10-14K a year, combined. http://earlyretirementextreme.com/about
• And a wizard of thrift on the other end of the income scale: Dolly Freed, Possum Living book. Minimalists living off other people’s leavings, this young woman and her father created ample time for recreation and educational pursuits. Possum Living – How to Live Well without a Job and With Almost No Money, by Dolly Freed https://www.pdf-archive.com/2012/06/29/possum-living/
Social Movements for Sustainable Civilization
Permaculture Design movement:
It’s easy to mistake this for an organic-gardening or homesteading movement, and many people do, but that’s a serious oversight. Permaculture is a movement and a set of design principles for the functional design of human settlements, of every aspect of how we live. There’s a need for more functional design in every industry and sector right now, and permaculture people have an important role to play.
• Books: Introduction to Permaculture, by Bill Mollison and Reny Slay; Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability, by David Holmgren; The Permaculture Way, by Graham Bell. I treasure each of these books for different reasons. Mollison’s because he is considered the father of permaculture; Bell’s because it is short and practical; Holmgren’s for its focus on energy, which goes into everything we do and everything we make.
• Google permaculture guilds in your region. Austin Permaculture Guild in Austin, TX is one that’s particularly active. They offer classes, as well as organizing land-restoration workdays and other community projects.
• Huge international permaculture email listserv, divided by subject (cooking, etc.): permies.com
• Search for permaculture on YouTube and you’ll find enough to keep you busy for a lifetime.
• Take a permaculture design course. It really is life-changing!
Transition movement:
Cities and towns that are proactively retooling themselves for a post-fossil-fuel age. The first Transition Town was Totnes, England. Now there are several hundred Transition Towns in countries throughout the world. Transition groups organize skill-shares, work to create affordable low-footprint housing, and all sorts of other wonderful things.
• The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience, by Rob Hopkins
• U.S. Transition Towns: transitionus.org/transition-towns
• Transition Town Totnes: transitiontowntotnes.org
Bioregionalist movement:
Bioregionalism emphasizes becoming a steward of your place, getting to know its natural characteristics (watershed, native plants and animals, geology and so on), rebuilding ecosystems, and establishing right relationship between humans and other species. The artist and poet in me feels a particular resonance with this movement.
• “What Is Bioregionalism?” excellent article by Peter Berg, Planet Drum Foundation: cascadianow.org/about-cascadia/cascadia-bioregionalism/what-is-bioregionalism/
• Attend a Bioregional Congress in your region, or attend the national or international ones.
Creativity; Right Livelihood
In the past few years, I’ve noticed the emergence of a chorus of what I’ve dubbed “Creative Cheerleaders” or “Creative Champions”: writer-artist-entrepreneurs who are calling on all of us everyday people to step up and make our creative mark on the world. Some of the people and works that have inspired me most:
• Seth Godin is my #1 pick in this category. Linchpin and Poke the Boxare my two favorite of his many fine books. Godin urges us all to “Go out and make something happen; don’t wait to be picked,” and “Ship! Ship!” His blog sethgodin.typepad.com is packed with wise advice and real-life examples of people who have carved out unique niches for themselves.
• Do the Work, by Steven Pressfield. “That’s what we’re all waiting for you to do––to do the work.”
• The Flinch, by Julien Smith. Beware the lizard-brain. Resistance is your enemy.
• Die Empty, by Todd Henry. “The most valuable land in the world is the graveyard. In the graveyard are buried all the unwritten novels, never-launched businesses, unreconciled relationships, and all of the other things that people thought, ‘I’ll get around to that tomorrow’.”
• I owe special thanks to several “writing cheerleaders” whose books, email newsletters, blogs, ebooks, etc., lit a fire under me to write this book: Stella Orange “Shut Up And Write”; Jeff Goins “Tribe Writer”.
• And extra hearty thanks to Sean Donovan, author of The Book Book. My favorite quotes: “It’s wrong not to write!” and “GOYA (Get Off Your Ass)”. I credit The Book Book for removing my last shred of excuse for not writing DEEP GREEN, which is my first book.
Getting Your Mind In Order
• The Power of Now, book by Eckhart Tolle. I read this back in 2000, and it was a turning point for me in learning to drop worry and regret, and just be in the present moment.
• Nonviolent Communication, a Language of Life, book by Marshall B. Rosenberg. I read this in 2004 and got helpful tips for verbalizing my needs in non-combative language. But I also realized that even if I used nonviolent language, I would still end up transmitting violence energetically unless I also worked to heal my inner violence (unresolved emotions, etc.).
• The Avatar® books and The Avatar Course, by Harry Palmer. Awakening personal responsibility; rising above victim-consciousness; strengthening the “will muscle”; managing one’s attention; freeing oneself of limiting beliefs. Setting and achieving goals that are “Right For You.” Cultivating compassion and expanding one’s capacity to be in service to others. Navigating beyond familiar consciousness.
The absolute best resources I know of for building these essential life-skills are the Avatar® books and The Avatar Course, by Harry Palmer. “As YOU learn to manage your mind’s beliefs,” Harry says, “more and more of the elements of life will come under your control.” Also: “We are rarely, if ever, locked into a reality we cannot change simply by deciding to change our beliefs.” I took the Avatar Course in 2005 and consider it the most life-changing work I’ve ever done (and I’ve done a lot of life-changing work!). The course impressed me so much that I went on to take the Master Course to become a licensed instructor of Avatar.
The Avatar Course is attached to a social movement for the evolution of human consciousness and the realization of an enlightened civilization. I can honestly say that without the Avatar Course, I would never have become a leader in the permaculture and green movements. And this DEEP GREEN book would not exist! To find out about Avatar, visit www.avatarepc.com (Avatar® is a registered trademark of Stars Edge, Inc. All rights reserved.)
To all my personal eco-heroes, too numerous to list them all but here are a few—these folks truly walk their talk! Starr Benton, Cedar Stevens, Rainy S. Day, James Campbell, Alan McGill, Ken McKenzie, Brandi Clark, the Green Gate Farmers (Erin Flynn, Skip Connett, Avery Connett, Ethan Connett), Nova Marie, Joseph Jenkins, Scott Pittman, Larry Santoyo, Chris Carson, Chris Searles, Mark Sardella, Sun Ray Kelley, Kirby Fry, Dick Pierce, Selwyn Polit, Markus Ottmers, Andy Buckingham, Rick Wright, Jim O’Brien, Frank Meyer, HeatherJo Flores, Bill Oliver, Howie Richey & Linda Anderson, Norm Ballinger, Koreen Brennan, Erica Klopf, Jungle Jay, Andy Firk, Soo Se Cho, Laura Smith, Chris Searles, my cousin the artist Jim Kay, Grandma and Grandpa West, Harry Palmer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jenny Nazak is a freelance sustainability educator, community activist, and artist based in Daytona Beach, USA. Over the past decade or so, she’s become “micro-famous” for having a low-footprint, high-quality lifestyle. She’s dedicated to preserving dense, walkable, low-footprint urban environments and wild nature. To read more of her writing, and to contact her, visit her website www.jennynazak.com
This chapter is definitely from the “Having my cake and eating it too” department. Originally, I had this material in the main body of the book, in a chapter titled “Tidbits” that immediately followed the Riot chapters. But I decided that some folks might feel overwhelmed with the extra content-dump.
I also thought some folks might enjoy this extra stuff. So I got the bright idea of making an out-take chapter. If you feel like you’re done reading, then that’s okay; skip this chapter or save it for another time. If you feel like nibbling on some mini-rants, little insights, and other tidbits, read on!
Incidental Greenness
Some of my footprint reduction is a byproduct of another goal. For example, I wanted to reduce my mindless internet usage, so I started doing “modified Internet intake.” This meant having internet only at work. When I want to do things online I arrive early at the shop where I work part-time and use the internet there. By not sitting on the internet for hours, I reduce my electricity consumption, but more importantly, I improve the efficiency of the time I do spend on the internet.
Lately, I’ve been taking aim at my “free wifi habit” by refraining from accessing wifi at free hotspots “just because I can”; by doing this I’m more present with the people in front of me or the task at hand.
Reduction Is More than the Sum of Its Parts
I doubt that the electricity reduction from my “self-imposed internet reduction diet” is very substantial. The greater benefit comes from my being “unhooked” for several hours a day, mainly in the evening. This turns the evening into unbroken time for walks, writing, introspection, reading paper books (or ebooks already stored on my device), sitting with my cat, and connecting face-to-face with my neighbors.
Regarding connection vs. connectivity, here’s one of my new favorite quotes; it’s from my friend Paul Furlong’s book, Paul Furlong’s Bohemian Road Trip: “I swear, the more I accept the miracle of universal consciousness, the more I see electronic connectivity as a kind of booby prize.”
Another reason why reductions are more than just the sum of their numbers is that we’re not just reducing; we’re helping to NORMALIZE a gentler and saner way of doing things. What are you normalizing with your choices today? There’s a lot of power in asking yourself that question.
The Cost of Comfort
Did you ever wonder what the addiction to constant comfort is costing you besides just money (and the time it takes to work to make that money)? What about your peace of mind; your sense of self-reliance and independence? What about the time you can never get back? How comfortable is our state of American comfort, really?
Transcending Politics
Greenness transcends all political and class boundaries. Someone who is following a low-footprint path might actually be a card-carrying member of the Green Party, but he or she could just as easily be a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Communist, anarchist, independent, or apolitical. I’ve met deep-green people of all political stripes. Yes, ALL. No one party or affiliation has a monopoly on green-ness (sorry to break the news to you, Democrats and Greens!).
Overtaken By Events, in a Good Way
Many environmentally minded people (including myself at times) have been angry, frustrated, and hopeless for so long that our vision has become obscured. In many cases, our negative outlooks are literally being overtaken by positive developments that are happening all around us.
All across the USA, mayors and cities are making their own climate-change policies, overriding the lack of conscience or political will at the national-government level. Convenience stores are setting up quite gorgeous recycling stations on their premises (Thanks, Wawa!). A tiny West Texas town, Spur, is billing itself as “the first tiny-house-friendly town in the USA” and proactively recruiting the kind of residents who will make a truly livable community.
Food-gardening and raising chickens are wildly popular in some places, to the point of almost being mainstream. This is something I’ve really noticed just in the last 10 years. The State of California is basically doing its own thing, with environmental regulations far more rigorous than anywhere else in the country. Contrary to the predictions of naysayers, the state is watching its economy boom as a result. Like battle-hardened soldiers peering up from the trenches and seeing that the worst of the war is over, we environmentalists can take comfort in the fact that our sad Lone Ranger or “Chicken Little” attitude is obsolete in many ways, and we can abandon our lonely outposts and join the current.
Helpful Daily Habits
The following are some little daily habits and attitudes I’ve found helpful; adapt this to your needs.
• I try not to watch or listen to too much news. Not having a TV helps a lot. I control my news intake by reading selectively. And although I did not consciously set out to do so, I realized that nowadays I am more creating the news than consuming the news. By this I mean being out there engaged in civic activities, such as: City Commission meetings, neighborhood planning meetings, design charrettes; reaching out to potential allies, and teaming up with neighbors to form a steady presence in our neighborhood park and discourage drug dealers and prostitutes from roosting there. (Aside: Just because I don’t have a TV doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy watching TV on occasion. I got to see the 2016 Summer Olympics on wide-screen TV at my favorite beachside pub, Jimmy Hart’s Hall of Fame at the Mayan Inn in Daytona Beach.)
• I don’t focus too much on the threat of environmental disaster. I give myself a “booster shot” of a reminder maybe every month or two; that’s all I need to keep my edge.
• I strive to minimize my footprint but I don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. When a friend took me out to dinner many times over the course of a few weeks, and I wound up with styrofoam carry-out boxes for the leftover food, I didn’t beat myself up. I did notice that styrofoam is getting a lot thinner and lighter these days!
• I try to put as much energy into cultivating compassion and kindness as I do to minimizing my eco footprint. One of my ongoing struggles is to keep myself from flipping the bird at drivers who abuse me for being on a bicycle. I try to see their viewpoint (they have trouble passing in a narrow lane; they’re from the suburbs and they’ve never been around people who cycle for transportation and they expect a cyclist to ride on the sidewalk). I usually end up feeling at least somewhat more peaceful and understanding. An unkind word or a rude gesture ripples out into the world; it’s a form of pollution.
• I strive to maximize my HANDPRINT by putting myself out there in the world and using my talents to create useful things for people. I go to City Commission meetings. I make art. I have a Little Free Library in my front yard next to the sidewalk that gets a lot of foot traffic. I teach neighbors how to collect rainwater. I give demos of my solar oven and share sun-cooked food.
Attention Management Is Key
The real name of the game is managing our attention. Attention management is what will determine our success or failure. While acknowledging the reality of the obstacles, we need to keep most of our attention on the desired outcome.
Oversteering and Horizons
When my father was teaching me to drive, he told me to direct my gaze some distance out in front of me rather than what was immediately in front of me. To keep my eyes on the road where I wanted to go, not keep my eyes on traffic cones, the side of the road and so on. By keeping our eyes on where we want to go, we avoid being panicked and swayed by every little news item that hits our inboxes.
Conversely, sometimes we panic over something that’s too far away to worry about. Some of my fellow permaculturists (and I share this tendency with them) have been known to worry every time we put a jar into the recycling bin. I couldn’t make a new mason jar if I needed one! This mentality results in a lot of cluttered cabinets and dusty garages. We don’t have to know how to make a mason jar at the household level. We can trust that the glass-vessel-making industry will retool as appropriate and adapt to keep up with the prevailing energy mix. I don’t have to worry about not being able to weave clothing. Truthfully, there is enough overstock to keep us all well-clothed well into the next century.
All of that said, learning how to weave or blow glass could be an enjoyable and useful way for you to entertain yourself, educate yourself about history and energy, and connect with likeminded people. And it could give you a skill to teach, thus providing you with a “right livelihood” and a way to increase your handprint.
Along those same lines, why not be the first glassblowing artisan who becomes known for being powered by renewable energy? In fact, I imagine that artisan already exists, but you could become the first in your local area.
Ditto for a bakery, a handmade-clothing boutique, or a leather-goods repair shop. Become known as the green, low-footprint one!
Things Are Not Always What They Seem
Recently as I was sitting down to write, the peaceful early-evening air was shattered by the ear-splitting snarl of a weed-whacker. As the sound went on and on, I found myself working up quite a lather. “When will people get it?? Those things ought to be outlawed!! Who’s doing that???”
I got up to look, and saw that it was my neighbor catty-corner across the street. A guy who hardly ever buys food from a supermarket because he catches in the river or grows in his yard most of what he eats. A guy who gets around by bicycle and hardly ever burns gasoline, except occasionally when he rides in the car with his father to help out with the family business, a commute of about five miles.
As long as buying my food is an option for me, I may never be as green as that neighbor. I took a deep breath and relaxed about the weed-whacker.
Lately I’ve been having more and more moments like this, and as you become more centered in your own pursuit of your version of a deep-green life, I bet you will be having more of them too.
Your Mission, Should You Choose To Accept It
Consider yourself mobilized! With the Riot for Austerity, there’s no government mandate making you do it. You determine your role and how far you want to go. It’s the People’s Green Mobilization! We could call it Green Mob or XLF Lifestyle Tribe for short. Plug into what you care about most, find your people, and go to town!
You know the saying “If you can’t beat them, join them?” We complain at how much power and influence the corporations and advertisers have. Well, what if we use some of their methods to promote our positive activities. Who wants to help me make some World War II-style green mobilization posters?
Perception Is Everything
How we think of things (“credit-card debt” vs. “business investment debt”; “doing without air conditioning” vs. “preferring an open-air environment”) not only makes a difference in our own ability to “walk our talk”, to translate our convictions into our daily personal practices. How we refer to things in our own minds also makes an enormous difference in how we talk about them to other people. This has an impact on how persuasive and attractive our lifestyle is. People adopt what’s attractive and useful. Human beings are “Monkey see, monkey do.” If you’re doing something that’s working, and you recognize that fact and radiate it to the world in your attitude, people will sense it and copy it.
When you choose to define something as “retro” rather than shabby and old-fashioned, it becomes cool. The little white folding step-ladder in my kitchen, which even a tall person like me needs in order to reach the high kitchen shelves (vertical space being an essential in the modest-sized kitchens of yore), might look shabby to some. But to me it evokes nostalgia for the World War II–era look of my grandmothers’ kitchens. In fact, the four-plex house in which I occupy one rental unit was built in the 1920s. What are some examples from your own life? Can your “cramped” apartment actually be “minimalist urban chic”?
Getting Real Freedom
I recently witnessed a little boy crying in a car. The Dad, exasperated, outside trying to get the little boy to come out of the car. “Honey, I’m sorry but when we went to the park there were no parking spaces and no one was leaving so that’s why we had to come home instead of going to the park!”
In a Riot world this would not happen. Dads and kids would walk or cycle to the park. Or if there were no park close by, they’d make the whole neighborhood their park. The much-touted “freedom” of the car so often turns out to be the opposite.
The Power of Purpose
A recent issue of TIME magazine reported on a study that found that people with a sense of purpose literally sleep better at night. Those who reported having a strong sense of purpose were 63% less likely to suffer from sleep apnea and 52% less likely to suffer from restless leg syndrome than those whose “purpose scale” score was lower.
A Minimalist Clutterbug
I get a lot of credit for being minimalist and having a small footprint; however, as much as I hate clutter, I am still a clutterbug in certain ways. My clutter takes the form of small bits of jewelry, art supplies, paper scraps “too good to throw away”.
I consider this pattern a direct physical manifestation of my old pattern of hanging back and withholding effort. Recently I read a book called Die Empty by Todd Henry. It’s about putting out to the world all you’ve got every day, so you don’t die with a single thing undone, a single bit of energy or talent unspent. I have several pads of unused fine paper for artwork. I have a set of paints. I have a set of colored inks – I did use them a lot a few years back when a lot of my livelihood was focused on visual art, so I do consider the inks to have paid for themselves, not only monetarily but also energetically. So even if I were to get rid of them now, I could do so without regrets. I don’t feel like I’m done with art yet though.
This is not to make a point that you shouldn’t ever keep anything around, rather that you should be ever-mindful of your own “happy medium” zone that lies between having too much stuff moldering away unused and having nothing to work with. I do enjoy going into my supplies shelf and finding something I had forgotten about!
How To Achieve a Zero Footprint
If you want to achieve a zero footprint and save the world, here’s the 100% effective, surefire way: Don’t move, don’t breathe, don’t consume anything, and don’t ever do anything. This includes having kids. Don’t do that!
You may laugh, at least I HOPE you’re laughing, as opposed to, say, slowly nodding your head in a dawning glimmer of agreement, or jumping up out of your chair and shouting, “EUREKA, that’s IT, the secret of a sustainable civilization is to … kill off all the people!” But laugh though we may, some people actually feel that the human race is so fundamentally flawed, and/or has taken such a wrong turn, that our species is not worth saving, and the best thing we humans can do for the planet is to die out.
Does that make sense to you? Do you believe that the best we humans can possibly hope to do is hunker down and sit still and try not to breathe, so we can be “less bad” for the environment? It doesn’t make sense to me. What a cop-out! Fortunately it’s not the case. At least I don’t believe it is.
What I believe is that it’s possible to restore ecological balance to the planet without sacrificing our own basic human needs. You can be deep-green and still live a full life! In fact, it will be a much fuller life because you’ll be cutting out waste, busywork, and conflict. Then you can use your freed-up time and energy to focus on the stuff that really makes your soul sing.
– 30 –
Want more? Visit me at Deep Green Book by Jenny Nazak on Facebook; and Jenny Nazak on YouTube.
When I first started writing this post, I wasn’t sure if it would be useful to anyone. But I went ahead and wrote it. If it helps even one person, I figure it’s worth posting.
We all have our character defects. One of mine is a reactive temperament. Although I have done a lot of work and made a lot of progress over the years, I’m still too prone to speak harsh words to people, make snappish responses.
A harsh word at the wrong time can instantly vaporize a friendship, or snap it like a twig. Not that there’s ever a good time to speak harsh words, but some times are worse than others. And with the wrong words or tone at those brittle junctures, even a friendship that was longstanding and seemingly pretty solid might not recover.
That’s where duct tape comes in. Duct tape? Yes, duct tape! “One of the great cohesive forces of the universe,” I’ve heard it referred to tongue-in-cheek. As one who’s often used duct tape to patch or hold things together, I love this.
Another way I think of duct tape is metaphorical rather than tangible: A way to express the value of keeping my mouth shut instead of letting harsh words come out. It’s remarkable, really, how many harsh interactions I’ve had with people over the years, that would have gone fine if only I’d remembered to bring my mental “roll of duct tape” to tape my mouth shut. It’s in the same genre as counting to ten, taking a walk around the block, and other cool-off buffer strategies.
Yesterday with a friend was one such time. Connection snapped like a twig; friendship may or may not recover.
In some of my friendships that have ended over the years, there were such differences in our core values that there may have been a built-in expiration date all along. But it’s better for a friendship to run its course naturally than to be killed by harsh words.
(Note: I’m not talking about the strong words that are necessary sometimes as we assert our boundaries and call out abusive behavior in a personal or professional relationship. Those are healthy strong words. Here I’m talking about needless harsh words.)
Rather than cry over spilt milk, I’m determined to learn from this and never do it again to another person. I see where I first went wrong by introducing a topic of conversation where this friend and I have many differences of opinion. There was really no reason to bring it up; I was “venting”; engaging in the kind of idle chatter that seems harmless but can quickly stray into complaining and gossiping and other negativity. The Buddhists counsel against idle chatter; categorize it as one type of “wrong speech.”
And when my friend then pointed out something that brought up feelings of shame in me, I reacted by lashing out at her. Another big pattern of mine I’ve become more aware of in recent years: For me, feelings of shame are very intense, and all too often still (even though I’ve done a lot of work in this area, had some great therapists and teachers), I push away the feelings and react by lashing out, instead of being quietly present with those feelings til they subside.
I’ve learned some really effective techniques for being present with uncomfortable feelings; abiding in silence til they pass. I just really need to be heads-up so I feel those feelings coming on, and put that “duct tape” around my mouth and walk around the block or do whatever it takes to avoid polluting the space between another person and me with harsh words.
Another thing I’ve learned, but sometimes temporarily forget til it’s too late, is to become conscious of when I’m feeling chronically put-down or suppressed in a relationship, and either deal with those feelings within myself; talk with the other person about patterns I notice between us; or take a break from the friendship. Sometimes it ends up being all three.
Yet another thing I’ve learned over the years: Don’t assume that a friendship is over; try to apologize or make amends. But also I’ve learned not to assume that, by apologizing, I can repair damage and patch things up as good as they were before I let slip the harsh words. Those times when my apologies have not been accepted, I just move forward and focus on making amends to society in general by changing the problematic behavior pattern. Shifting these problematic patterns is its own reward, as well as being the right thing to do. And oftentimes an alienated friend will end up coming back into one’s life after awhile too, and that’s a bonus.
In my mental purse, I now have a roll of beautiful golden duct-tape, and I aspire to never again leave home without it. Silence is golden, especially when it creates space for anger and tension to subside so harsh words are never spoken.
Tools for communicating nonviolently, and for processing feelings, are essential to human civilization. Below, I’m starting a list of some of my favorites.
• The Avatar® Course. I took this course back in 2005 and it has helped me become a lot more peaceful and less reactive. Though I still have a long way to go, you should see how I was before! The course has been around since 1980. It’s a nine-day course typically offered in person in a group setting, but recently has begun to be available by Zoom! The next course is September 11-20. If you want to get a quick idea of what the course is like, there are free intros and minicourses available via the link above, as well as talks on streaming video by Harry Palmer, author of the Avatar Course materials.
