The Transition movement (to a sustainable lower-fossil-fuel economy, that is)and Occupy are like two legs. Together they'll carry us further and more stably than we can hop alone. In a nutshell, Transition has a stronger, more developed analysis and Occupy has greater energy and imagination.
Personally I've had much more experience with Transition but the conversation there hasn't grabbed hold of people like Occupy has. It hasn't got them into the streets; it hasn`t challenged the power structure directly with talk of direct democracy. Occupy provides a visible problem - gross wealth disparity in a time of widespread monetary pain - that a lot of people, even if not quite 99%, relate too. Many feel the financial pain now, or are worried that they are going to feel it soon. When someone stood up and spoke to Transition at an Occupy meeting in the rural area I live in, she was greeted with respectful nods and assent, but it didn't seem to me that Ttransition was where people were living and breathing.
Transition's analysis speaks to our need, as individuals and as a collective, to reduce consumption to sustainable levels and build local economies that can survive the limited external energy inputs we'll have in the future. Most people can't relate powerfully to that yet; though it might seem true, it seems abstract and far away. Even though resource depletion, ratcheting oil prices and falling supply are hidden stories behind our daily news events, they lurk in the shadow. The inevitability of our needing to live within our means hasn't struck home. But for many Occupy does strike home. And it makes friends every day by its continually open come-as-you-are policy to newcomers.
But Occupy's numbers and enthusiasm provide a perfect growing medium for the ideas that Transtion's bringing forward so clearly. Transition needs Occupy's energy; Occupy benefits from Transition's smarts. Personally I see the need for both in my future, and I imagine that the two are going to walk a long way together, to their mutual benefit.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Sunday, January 9, 2011
The darker side of relocalization
We're looking at serious challenges, collectively and individually – an illusory economy, very real resource shortfalls. As a society, we're well-conditioned not to deal with these long term problems. So how can we personally address them without getting mired in muck, without playing by someone else's rules?
How can we deal with the darker side without losing sight of the light?
Although I've written about the sunny and dark sides of change I've been playing it safe with the darker one and not shared much about it personally. It's the harder one to live and write about.
I got a good lesson in "dark side living" last month. As some of you know, I've been living in a small off-grid cabin in eastern Ontario, getting to know the land that I bought at the end of July. Apparently December is usually dark and gray but I'd never noticed this from years when power came out of a socket. Low sunlight resulted in my small solar power system, the one that served me perfectly during the fall, not charging my batteries. As a result, quite a bit of the month was spent without lights or computer and I missed them both, the computer especially.
My pride was dinted too when wealthy city visitors dropped in on my very modest 9 x 15 shed-cabin-tiny house-hovel with too many things to fit. Many of us will experience (or are already experiencing) radical downsizing, and it won't always feel great. As relocalizers know consciously, and many others dimly suspect, we're facing a sharp turn in the only way of life we've known. Just how sharp and when it turns, and how we'll know it's turned, are unknowns. That dimunition of lifestyle, and even the threat of it, isn't easy for us.
Living with less is challenging physically and "the simple life" can take up a complicating amount of head space. Swearing off electricity from the grid and other conveniences means making up for it with personal resources and work.
Not only does descent to a smaller footprint change the way we interact with the world physically - how we get food, clothing and shelter - it challenges our psychological and "spiritual" make-up too. Much order and security have been provided for us by the systems we live in: reliable energy, stable government, high-paying jobs, relatively unchanging currency, endless distraction - even the stable climate. As most relocalizers already know, none of these are sure things any more. They all have a best before date stamped on them, one that's difficult to read in the dwindling light of the empire.
This degree of uncertainty requires a high degree of maturity for us humans and many of us just aren't there yet. We struggle on, coping, enduring but at a subtle or not so subtle cost to our pride and sense of identity. That's why I'm a big proponent of the value of groups where it's OK to be doing how we're really doing – and to imagine what we can build together. At their best, when people sense they can risk telling and hearing others' truths, good local groups can provide community and critical insight beyond the sunny-side-only (denial) and the gloom only (cynical) modes we'll be tempted into.
Intellectual understanding of coming challenges doesn't alleviate the anxiety. Part of us knows we'll have to walk it step by step. And "walking" doesn't quite cover it either. Just walking is relatively easy - when you know where you're going. I took a lmonth-ong canoe trip years ago and though it was very challenging, I had the rare-for-me luxury of knowing where I was headed each day (downriver) and how I was going to get there (paddle and sail). That certainty isn't given to us in building a relocalized future. We have to make decisions and perform actions that used to be done for us automatically.
Just how much is done for us is shown by our use of oil, one barrel of which contains the equivalent of 25, 000 person / hours of labor. At $10 an hour, that's a quarter of a million bucks! As the supply shrinks, those "slaves" slowly cease working for us and we have to do the work ourselves. That's like withdrawal from a drug, one that we're all on. In this respect, "groups" and our own personal work, serve some of the role of AA meetings, a place to get through being oil sober.
So there are these challenges. But at the same time, we live in a Kosmos (the Greek word for the outer and inner universe) with a mind-boggling creative dimension that crackles with possibility and wisdom, a Kosmos that's evolved all this out of itself. Where we're at today and how we respond is part of the evolutionary drama too.
I'll share with you in 2011 what I'm learning about working with both sides of relocalization, along with more interviews and input with those who are doing it. You can see these on the Radical Relocalization site. Also starting today I'll post real time tips and comment on creating the future we want in a time of transition to a new blog, www.TransitionNotebook.blogspot.com. I'd love to see you there and welcome your comments there, or via return email here, whether sunny or dark.
Andrew
How can we deal with the darker side without losing sight of the light?
Although I've written about the sunny and dark sides of change I've been playing it safe with the darker one and not shared much about it personally. It's the harder one to live and write about.
I got a good lesson in "dark side living" last month. As some of you know, I've been living in a small off-grid cabin in eastern Ontario, getting to know the land that I bought at the end of July. Apparently December is usually dark and gray but I'd never noticed this from years when power came out of a socket. Low sunlight resulted in my small solar power system, the one that served me perfectly during the fall, not charging my batteries. As a result, quite a bit of the month was spent without lights or computer and I missed them both, the computer especially.
My pride was dinted too when wealthy city visitors dropped in on my very modest 9 x 15 shed-cabin-tiny house-hovel with too many things to fit. Many of us will experience (or are already experiencing) radical downsizing, and it won't always feel great. As relocalizers know consciously, and many others dimly suspect, we're facing a sharp turn in the only way of life we've known. Just how sharp and when it turns, and how we'll know it's turned, are unknowns. That dimunition of lifestyle, and even the threat of it, isn't easy for us.
Living with less is challenging physically and "the simple life" can take up a complicating amount of head space. Swearing off electricity from the grid and other conveniences means making up for it with personal resources and work.
Not only does descent to a smaller footprint change the way we interact with the world physically - how we get food, clothing and shelter - it challenges our psychological and "spiritual" make-up too. Much order and security have been provided for us by the systems we live in: reliable energy, stable government, high-paying jobs, relatively unchanging currency, endless distraction - even the stable climate. As most relocalizers already know, none of these are sure things any more. They all have a best before date stamped on them, one that's difficult to read in the dwindling light of the empire.
This degree of uncertainty requires a high degree of maturity for us humans and many of us just aren't there yet. We struggle on, coping, enduring but at a subtle or not so subtle cost to our pride and sense of identity. That's why I'm a big proponent of the value of groups where it's OK to be doing how we're really doing – and to imagine what we can build together. At their best, when people sense they can risk telling and hearing others' truths, good local groups can provide community and critical insight beyond the sunny-side-only (denial) and the gloom only (cynical) modes we'll be tempted into.
Intellectual understanding of coming challenges doesn't alleviate the anxiety. Part of us knows we'll have to walk it step by step. And "walking" doesn't quite cover it either. Just walking is relatively easy - when you know where you're going. I took a lmonth-ong canoe trip years ago and though it was very challenging, I had the rare-for-me luxury of knowing where I was headed each day (downriver) and how I was going to get there (paddle and sail). That certainty isn't given to us in building a relocalized future. We have to make decisions and perform actions that used to be done for us automatically.
Just how much is done for us is shown by our use of oil, one barrel of which contains the equivalent of 25, 000 person / hours of labor. At $10 an hour, that's a quarter of a million bucks! As the supply shrinks, those "slaves" slowly cease working for us and we have to do the work ourselves. That's like withdrawal from a drug, one that we're all on. In this respect, "groups" and our own personal work, serve some of the role of AA meetings, a place to get through being oil sober.
So there are these challenges. But at the same time, we live in a Kosmos (the Greek word for the outer and inner universe) with a mind-boggling creative dimension that crackles with possibility and wisdom, a Kosmos that's evolved all this out of itself. Where we're at today and how we respond is part of the evolutionary drama too.
I'll share with you in 2011 what I'm learning about working with both sides of relocalization, along with more interviews and input with those who are doing it. You can see these on the Radical Relocalization site. Also starting today I'll post real time tips and comment on creating the future we want in a time of transition to a new blog, www.TransitionNotebook.blogspot.com. I'd love to see you there and welcome your comments there, or via return email here, whether sunny or dark.
Andrew
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