Where We have Been, Where We are Going

I've been writing for this blog for about a quarter of a year now, and feel it's time to take a breather and to reflect on the work so far and on how it ought to proceed. First of all, a thank-you to all my readers, regular and irregular, nearby and far away. It humbles and inspires me (really) to think that people, and especially people who do not immediately know me, see enough in my work to give it the gift of their time, to read it and maybe discover some angle of insight that they otherwise would not have known existed, or find in it some inspiration to do something they might not otherwise have done. I trust that at least at times we have connected. That's the important thing here. As the novelist E.M Forster said, "Only connect. Only connect."

But there's still so much to do! So many ways in which the blog could be improved, particularly I think in terms of sharpness of focus and steadiness of mission. At times over the past few months, working on these posts--saying to myself "what's this blog really about, what am I trying to do?"--I've felt a bit like a man waking up out of a drugged sleep, and coming to consciousness in the bowels of a mysterious sailing ship. He looks at his shoulders and sees the gold epaulets and knows he is supposed to be the captain. But what sort of vessel is he on? What is it carrying? What are its ports of call and final destination? Only bit by bit does the evidence present itself, although eventually, painstakingly, his mission and his methods do make themselves known. 

And maybe that's where I am now. I've spent several months now feeling out the parameters of my mission, tallying up my resources, learning the ropes of the scheduled blogger's routine. I feel much more nimbly in command. I'm ready to proceed.

Coming up now are four brief points. Brief point one and brief point two concern themselves with 9-Volt Nomad's mission, brief point three with 9-Volt Nomad's methods, and brief point four with motivations for the project. So: mission, mission, methods, motivation.

Mission One: Defining the Sustainable Lifestyle

This is the most important work of the blog. I want to define and describe a lifestyle that, without wishful thinking and in all dimensions of experience--from the psychological to the ecological--can truly be called "sustainable." A lifestyle meaningful and rich, yet one that when multiplied by billions of other human lives lived much the same way, would not impossibly strain the planet's living systems.

Some caveats and provisos here, especially for those who believe that technology and public policy alone can usher in the age of sustainability: I don't agree. I believe that, when it comes to this great labor, garden-spades and cheesecloth will prove more important than this or that subsidy for solar panels or wind turbines, the actual flexing of the individual human hand more powerful than the fantasies and fortune of Elon Musk. We can't manufacture our way out of a manufactured mess. We can't consume our way out of the trap of consumption. 

Mission Two: Discovering Joy

Of course sometimes sacrifice is just sacrifice, and costs just honest costs. Still, let's never count out the possibility that, even as we strip the motto "more stuff, more power" from our lives, we gain a great deal. Giving up certain material expectations and setting aside fantasies of technological control can amount to a surprise investment in sanity, community, and inner humanity: real civilization, in other words. Simply put, living green doesn't have to mean living the melancholy blues.

But first we have to take up the challenge, or at least see someone who has done so, and hear their stories and reassurances! If you have not yet learned to cook, how can you know the pleasures of being self-reliant in that way? Or if you've never shared your tools with a neighbor, how can you really know how your sharing will cultivate a sense of community? So I intend as much as possible to use myself and my home Sunny-side as illustration; not because I have achieved the perfect lifestyle--not at all!--but because we at Sunny-side are trying to move that direction one do-able leap at a time, and because I want our work and the blessings we discover in it to serve as the reassurance that people need. Then readers might just decide such a venture is possible and make a leap or two themselves. 

Regarding Methods: Consulting my Past and my Life Abroad

As it happens I grew up in India and New Guinea, and I want to make use of that fact in my posts. Those were more elemental times and places. So much more was done by hand, and there was so much more of a sense of time spent slowly on the earth. And since I believe the human future belongs to the human hand and the earthly elements, well then my memories of those times and places may well speak to how it might feel to move that direction again; the how-to's involved in that project as well as the rewards. Also, if such memories are honest, they may serve to inoculate me and my readers against impractical idealism and foolish mis-estimation. Not everything was perfect back then and over there. Not hardly, as they say here in Indiana. 

And here I can't leave out my mother, and my memories of growing up under the influence of her strong character. She was a woman who wanted food for the hungry, justice for the poor, and competence in cooking and cleaning for everyone, including her sons. She hated waste of any kind and had a deep sense of the value of the domestic arts. It made her impatient to think that anyone would not know how to fry up an onion, or would think themselves too good for the job of brushing out a toilet. If you follow this blog, you will learn more of her, guaranteed.


So: 

• 9-Volt Nomad is about defining "sustainable." Honestly. Without wishful thinking. 
• 9-Volt Nomad is about discovering joy.
• 9-Volt Nomad seeks in past times and even foreign places a guide for us here in the difficult present.

Finally, Regarding Motivation:

Here I want to return to the metaphor of the sailing ship, and ask what propels this whole project forward? To be honest, it's the winds of worry and concern: the lowering of water tables and the erosion everywhere of ton after precious ton of topsoil, the logging off of rain- and old-growth forests, the rising of the seas and the measurable and ominous acidification of their waters (another cost of carbon pollution), the extinction of thousands of plant and animal species, the effects on the human body of air and water pollution, not to mention the spiritual emptiness that so many of us feel because of our urban separation from the voices of the earth: all of these compel and propel me in my work, both as a householder and a blogger.

It's my conviction that, for any thinking, feeling, informed citizen of the earth, the present path of industrial civilization is simply out of the question. How can we bear to see the life of the planet suffer this way and not change our behavior? How can we simply continue these habits of waste and consumption? How can we shy from change, especially if by changing, we could invite into our lives and homes so much that is so joyful, sociable, and true?

Until Tuesday the 1st!

HB