Idea #7: It Is Better to Give And Receive

You could get this card from here I think.

It is so easy for me to forget my affluence.  Especially this week after switching to cash.  Counting out exact change at the till made me feel poor.  I can't really explain it, but I wanted to say something like, "I could charge this whole store if I wanted! I just don't want to...." Why does cash at a grocery store feel like food stamps to me?  Weird, right?

Anyway, part of the Occupy Me gig is an effort to remember and live in my affluence as way of undermining the Big Booming Voice that says "STILL NOT ENOUGH...!!"  Tonight, as young kids knock on my door and demand free candy and I keep having more to give away, I'm enjoying the feeling of having more than enough and I think there's a lesson there.  Again.

It's is a lesson I've learned so many times, but apparently don't retain: giving things away makes me feel like I have more than enough. Every. Time.

I figure that that big bad guy, Corporate Guy Out There, spends all of his time crafting ways to make me feel like I don't have quite enough, and thus pushing me to consume.  Consume what I can not afford, what I do not need, what does great harm in its very manufacture and distribution.  And so often, I'm falling for it. Over and over, I'm all like, "Yeah, you're right! I do need that!" Moron.

Giving away is a great big F*%k You to Corporate Guy Out There.  In one fell swoop, it is my statement that I have more than enough and that the receiver can get what they need without buying into the system.  So amazing, right?

Now in case you missed it, cause I'm subtle like that, here's the tricky bit:  to make this work, we all need to not only give what we have away, but receive what is freely given.  The first half of the equation is so awesome because we get to feel our affluence and the warm fuzzies of being a provider.  The second half? Not so much.  Buying what we need is kind of empowering: "I'm captain of my own ship! Tally Ho!"  Being given what we need, for free? Kind of like cash at the grocery store for me.  It is an admission of my own finite resources, of my own need for the generosity of others to sometimes step in and provide what I can not, for whatever reason. 

That is exactly where the power of this one lives: when we live in the ebb and flow of giving and receiving to and from our neighbours (the people we run into who need what we have to give, and have to give what we need), the structures that have been built to get us to Buy More! Have More! Get More! become useless and unnecessary. It's magic. 

And so, Idea #7 is a two-pronged one:  I will start to listen more carefully for the knocking at my door, when my neighbours arrive and ask for what I have to give.  And equally, I will make known my need and receive what is offered, believing that both actions undermine a system that I believe to have done us all great harm by convincing us that we are our own providers.

Occupy Me.


IDEA #7 Response:
What have you given that reminded you of your own abundance? When have you last received something you would have preferred to have provided for your own self?

Links To Good II

I like how many people like to fix things.  I like that I know them, espcially the ones with sewing machines, since I am sew-stupid when it comes to the repair and life-lengthening of fabric goods.  I got two great links for this:

From Brian: Learn the 4th R, Repair
From Ryan, a fixer of many things: iFixit

I also like that many people have found their own end-runs around unfairness.  I will note that these were all American examples, and that it is easy to point at the US and say that they're so much worse than we are and thus excuse ourselves from action, but Walmart is here and lots of other large retailers who treat their employees poorly in order to maximize profits for the already-rich-people who own them.

From Laura:  The Moral Undergroud

And then this video, which was emailed to me and then posted on my wall, and then posted all over facebook. So simple, so easy, and right up my "I'm not tenting with 2 preschoolers" lane...

From Mary: Keep Wall Street Occupied

And then a link to a holiday destination that passed one reader's Good For You, Good For Me evaluation - fair wage, fair work, decency of all sorts.

From MK:  Point-no-Point Resort

A Picture of Why Occupation

These pictures are obvious.  The contrasts shown will come as no surprise to anyone I know who views them. Most know that the second and fourth images ought not to be.  I wonder though if in fact, the first and third ought also not to be - they are only possible because of their opposites.  The awful of the latter images is built on a deeper awful hidden in the former.

I doubt my choice to pay cash at the grocery store will make food acquisition any easier in Somalia. But it will be my own reminder to myself that I need not be wholly owned by a system that pays for my comfort with the struggle and pain of others.

This is the mess.  Those of us who "have never had it better", have it because there are so many who have never had it worse.  If I am silent...  well, I just can not be.

If my protest is judged ineffective by the very system who's measure of effectiveness is it's own growth, I am not concerned. It will be effective if I do a better of job of walking through this life awake, aware that I am not audience but actor on this stage and someone who can Do Something.  Even if it's just a tiny thing. I will not say, "But I didn't know."

I do know.

Occupy Me.

How I Get to Get Rice

How They Get to Get Rice

What Thanksgiving Preparation Looks Like for Me

What Thanksgiving Preparation Looks Like for Them

An Observation (ii)

A friend whom I highly esteem has wondered aloud in the hallowed hallways of facebook, What in fact, is the point of Occupy Vancouver? Vexed by the ambiguity of their self-proclaimed purpose, is perhaps closer to what he said.  He's a writer like that.  Vocabulary aside (and accuracy, for that matter), his question did leave me wondering if I was actually clear on what those tenters downtown are saying and if I needed to perhaps be a bit clearer about my own reasons for participating as I am.

The Occupy Vancouver website contains the following:

We, the Ninety-Nine Percent, come together with our diverse experiences to transform the unequal, unfair, and growing disparity in the distribution of power and wealth in our city and around the globe. We challenge corporate greed, corruption, and the collusion between corporate power and government. We oppose systemic inequality, militarization, environmental destruction, and the erosion of civil liberties and human rights. We seek economic security, genuine equality, and the protection of the environment for all.

I'm not sure I would call this ambiguous.

But of course, they have yet to describe what specific ends they are pursuing.  You know, using those SMART goals that were all the rage back in the early millennium. And I guess I can see how that is bothersome.

The difficulty is that specific goals and measurable outcomes are kind of what created the mess in the first place. Maybe it's time for a more hard-to-put-my-finger-on-it-but-damn-this-feels-different kind of change. Maybe it's time for all of us to decide that waiting to measure whether or not we're being Just Enough, or Equal Enough, or Integritied Enough (my apologies for the word-making-up, but some days the English language fails me) is in fact just a decision to change the paint on a crumbling building. Sure it looks a bit better, but ain't no paint gonna keep that thing standing next time it gets rocked, you know what I'm sayin'...?

And now, because the change can not be negotiated or bargained or bought, we of the Elevator Speech Generation are getting bored and want them to carry on to their next project.  But instead, they say they will stay.  They will endure cold and wet, the disdain of the many, the ire of the inconvenienced, the misunderstanding of the masses - they will endure all of that so that there remains a physical, hard-to-miss, traffic-wrecking reminder that The World Is Not How It Ought To Be.

I went searching for a quote of Martin Luther King Jr.'s that of course more poetically drew the point I am working at but found another that sent me reeling:

“Not only will we have to repent for the sins of bad people; but we also will have to repent for the appalling silence of good people.” - Martin Luther King

I am mostly certain that I am not a bad person. On my good days, I think I'm probably even good people. However, when I think that my silence might be added to the list of sins that must be repented for by The Saints... my heart weeps.

And so I'll blog on, and I'll put my lot with the dread-locked tenters and their grandmothering lawn-mates who are living together in solidarity with the Least, the Last and the Lost and inconveniencing us at every turn so that we can not say, "But no one told us."  The deepest injustices may not be happening on my block, or even in this nation of ours, it's true.  And yet we benefit and our lives are better because of evil done by others.  If I collude with my silence, I am no better.

Better.  It's an ambiguous goal. It lacks in specificity to be sure.  I can't even say if it's attainable or realistic. But it's worthy, and thus I'm in its pursuit.  I will make tiny changes and have great faith that even getting to A Little Bit Better will count as success. 

Occupy Me. 

The original quote I was seeking, I still think is worth including: “I said to my children, 'I'm going to work and do everything that I can do to see that you get a good education. I don't ever want you to forget that there are millions of God's children who will not and cannot get a good education, and I don't want you feeling that you are better than they are. For you will never be what you ought to be until they are what they ought to be.” 

Idea #6: Fix It

I grew up in a disposable world where objects are not meant to be kept. The time and money required to fix things makes throwing them out the more reasonable option.  My in-laws have had the same toaster since they were married in 1957.  We've been married since 2003 and are on our third. I think this is probably a bad thing.

This month, an object lesson for me:  The year that our second was due to be born, I asked for a watch for my birthday. I was a tad obsessive about keeping track of breastfeeding and having a timing device within sight at all times seemed required.  I wore said watch for about 14 months before something sad happened and it kind of gave up.  Over the next months, it moved from the Find A New Battery pile to the Someone Should Put That Shelf to the I Can't Throw It Away Drawer.

Last week, I found it.

For almost two years, I had managed without it but when I saw it, I remembered how much I liked it, and how handy it is to have a watch on.  I remembered how much I use "What time is it?" as an excuse to check my phone which most often turns into quickly checking email, and then facebook and then a quick round of brickbreaker and What? you want dinner??  Yeah, that happens.

Maybe a watch would help. I should get a new one, I thought. Until I remembered the part where I'm trying to be more thoughtful about these things.

Turns out there are watch repair people who do more than change batteries.  One of them is tucked away in the corner of the Bay, and helpfully told me a quick fix of the hands was all that was required and we'd be back in business. Thirty-five dollars and seven days later, I've got a me a new watch.

Except it's not new. It's the same one as before, obviously.  But fixing it was new.  To me. 

My in-laws' toaster hasn't lasted 50 years because it's so awesome and has never broken.  It has lasted because when it breaks, Pops takes a day or two to figure out what's wrong with it, and then he fixes it.  Sure he's retired and has time and (insert reason why he can do what we can't here), but he fixed it when he was working. He fixed it when he didn't know how.  But he found time and he figured out how, because it was still mostly fine and that's the kind of man he is.

This may in part tie back to the last post on doing work I would prefer not to do. I am part of a generation of people who would prefer not to spend time or money on menial work like fixing things when we can in one fell swoop replace and upgrade.  No broken, no old, no out-of-date.  New! Shiny! Amazing!  We are raising children who won't even know that these things can be fixed, never mind know how to fix them themselves. Isn't this kind of terrible?

So I think I'm going to try looking at things with a longer view. I'm going to give our objects as long a life as I can.  I'm going to find people who know what I don't and can fix what I can't and see if that doesn't maybe just undermine a culture that has made not only broken objects, but broken people and broken relationships tossable.

I'm going to work towards being a keeper-longer fixer-upper.

Occupy Me.

IDEA #6 Response:
What objects have you found a way to keep around a bit longer by fixing them instead of replacing them? Who knows how to fix stuff that most of us throw out?

Idea #5: Do Work I Would Prefer to Pay For

This may be what is sometimes called "self-serving".  You've been warned.  And perhaps let me further warn you that this won't be the last time.  The genius of the human brain is its ability to tell a story that makes said human the hero as often as is necessary.  Today it appears to be necessary.  Or at least "necessary".

Some of you will recall a bit I wrote about Justice Pesto in another forum.  It was inspired by the ten minutes I spent harvesting basil for pesto-making this summer and my rapid descent from "Earthy Super-Mom" to "Carer for The Migrant Worker" to "Cursor at Small Children".  It was real heart-warming.

This afternoon, I had a similar experience doing some painting in the house.  As the wall was changed from white to vellum, my own self was changed from "Sharer Of Household Work" to "Resenter of Hard Work With Carpal Tunnel Syndrome".

I painted two walls.

Earlier in our renovation planning, I had planned to hire someone to do this work.  We feel short on time and have several difficult responsibilities that made this seem wise.  I even went as far to have someone come in and quote to do the work.  This person quoted what was most certainly a fair price for the work, but a price that was several hundred dollars more than I had thought it would be, and thus, more than we could afford.

While I was thinking we could get it painted, I felt quite rich.  Affluent really.  I thought about how great it would be to help a guy out by giving him work.  I thought about how I would probably offer him cool drinks and lunch, and then pay him on time and in cash and be one of his favourite clients.  I felt... well, better off, or something like that.

While I painted, I felt useful.  Then tired and cranky.  But useful.

I think the latter is better for me.

With my body doing all this painting, my brain had perhaps too much time to wander.  And as it wandered, it tripped over this thought:  When we pay for something, do we feel differently about it? Cause suddenly painting seemed like it should worth at least twice as much as this guy had quoted.  As I calculated how much SJ owed me for doing this job (for surely he owed me, right?), I had an hourly rate somewhere near our monthly car payments.

And this got me to the next bothersome thought:  does buying someone else's effort let me de-value them?  The very fact that I can afford to buy that work makes it cheap, right? And if it's cheap, and I don't consider my own self cheap, then I think that I might accidentally start believing that I'm worth more... Oh for eff's sake, as if I needed another flaw to fix.

It's some kind of weird cosmic math that I'm going a poor job of explaining, but what I'm getting at is this: maybe one reason people are occupying Wall Street and all the other streets is because a small group of people have cheapened a large group of people by buying them.  They buy them, trading those people's hard work for credit and fees and financial products of dubious worth.  I'm not sure how it all works, but somehow, in our current way of living together, we've managed to make a lot of people worth not quite as much as a few other people.

I'm pretty sure that's a bad idea. In fact, I'm certain of it. 

But good news! I think we can undermine the harm done every time we say, We will not be bought this time.  And we can say that by choosing independent businesses, or paying cash, or paying a fair wage, or producing our own food.

And we can say it by not buying each other.  At least not all the time. Obviously the world needs for us to exchange goods and services with each other, and pay those who can do what we can not.  But I think maybe it's good sometimes to do what we can (even if we can only do it badly and resentfully, muttering awful things under our breath), and remember why it's so valuable.

I think this is my point (finally!): it somehow increases the value of another's work when I have to do it. So maybe anytime I find myself accidentally thinking myself above another, I'll do their work and so restore their value in my own mind.

Occupy Me.

IDEA #5 Response:
What work do we often pay another for that we might then devalue? What work can we do in an effort to consciously esteem higher those with whom we might be tempted to do otherwise?

Links to Good I

One super-duper thing that is happening is that my friends are sending me all their secret ways around this world of ours that are doing great good.  Or sometimes just marginal good, but good is good and I'll take it where I can find it.  My hope is that each week, those of you reading will forward on your own links to good so that we can pass 'em on.  If everything works out like it does in the movies, this could be a weekly feature!

From Lisa:  NOWBC Co-op  Online farmers market!

From Laura: Better World Shopper  Evaluation of several major shopping categories including some Canadian stores (VanCity wins again!)

From Ali: Credit Card Rate Chart  Shows how much your card costs businesses. Turns out our cash back and Airmiles aren't so free after all...