Freeconomy Blog
Thu
28 Aug
A Year without Money...a social experiment.
| 4 comments |
What is it about the summer that makes us want to do everything we can possibly think of all at the same time? Is it the fact that for thousands of years we have had to harvest during this season, in which case we’ve evolved with the expectation of being busy? Or is it because we traditionally get more sugars and energy in our bodies due to the increase in the food supply? Or maybe I’m just clutching at straws, hoping that we have still retained some of our old habits in our physiological memory.
Either way I’m having a mad time of it, mostly down to my own inability to say the word ‘no’, my excitement about this point in history I seem to have myself landed in, and an extreme case of impatience. I woke up one morning a few weeks ago and had a good hard look at myself in the mirror. I thought about whether I was actually being the change I want to see in the world, or whether it is a half-hearted effort under the self-induced illusion of ‘doing my bit’.
I am very outspoken about money - or more precisely, the human need for it - yet continue to use it myself. Quite hypocritical I believe. I’ve also been thinking more about a revelation I had some time ago. I realised that as long as we humans are disconnected from what we consume we will never stop the environmental destruction that comes from rampant consumerism. Because we have so much waste, we consume so much of our precious earth’s goodness and return it to in the form of pollutants and intoxicants.
Let me explain. If you grow your own food, as I’m sure many of you do, you’ll agree that you don't waste a spoonful of it. If you make your own candles, you blow them out the second you don't need light. If you have to hand wash your clothes, you don't wear 7 outfits a week. If you have to make your own clothes, they never go out of fashion and you always repair them as it is much easier to repair than to make a whole new garment. You have so much respect for what you use because you know how much real energy went into making it. Which has led me to believe that until we reconnect in some way with what we consume, all the problems we face environmentally today will remain the same.
In the last six months I’ve been trying to learn more and more about self-sufficiency – or what I call interdependent-sufficiency, as I believe ‘independence’ to be an illusion – you eat food therefore you are dependent at least on bees, micro-bacteria and earthworms. And for the last couple of years I’ve been trying to reduce my reliance on money. But it’s only been in the last few weeks that I realised that they are also the two sides of the same non-monetary coin, both the same path.
So being the impatient bugger that I am I’ve decided that I’ve got to stop being a hypocrite as soon as humanly possible and start living out what I believe. So I have decided to do ‘A Year without Money’. No prepayment of bills, no storing up of food, no using the plug socket in the library. I will be completely off-grid, using what I call ‘transitional tools’ such as the laptop and phone (which I use to communicate to this global world I find myself in) only in as much as the sun can power them.
Everything I consume I will either get from growing or making myself or by building a mutually beneficial relationship with someone in my local community – infrastructure excepted. In the last month I have examined every single part of my life and what gets consumed in it, and the further you dig the more insane this experiment gets. For example, how do I light the fire for my wood-burner, or how do I get the paper I write on?
As I have always said, I see the period we are in now as a transitional period, a chance to use the materials that are already around us to set ourselves up to be interdependent-sufficient. So I will be putting in place the infrastructure I need to make it happen in the coming months, mostly through Freecycle and second hand stuff, but also some with the dreaded ‘m’ word! I feel the same about money as I do with oil – I think if we have to use it (which we don't and which our climatic conditions ask that we don't) we should at least be using it to build real security for the next seven generations.
I have set no deadline as when to start this, though my nature probably means it will be sooner rather than later. However much work needs to be done and a million things I haven’t thought about will arise as I investigate this further.
The reason I do it is not because I think my way is right and that using money is some sort of evil. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The reality is that this is a very difficult society to live in without it, and seemingly difficult even when you earn quite a bit. I also realise that without a family to rear I am in a very privileged position to try it.
All I want to do, however, is to at least make people think about the whole issue and to question the role money plays in their own life. Like ‘why do I buy my shoes from china from the supermarket when the woman down the road can make them, and why do I use a lighter when I can make a fire with a bow and hazel drill?’.
This is to be a social experiment, a potentially exhausting one at that, but one I feel is worth it. I also realise that I am setting myself up for a lot of criticism again, especially if it fails, but that’s to be expected when you do something publicly. That dilemma arises again - I could do it privately, but at this crucial point in history would that be responsible? Maybe yes, maybe no.
I have one dilemma though which I am hoping you all can advice me on. I am planning on still doing my ‘Transition Experiment’ (i.e. organically and locally grown or foraged vegan non-plasticated food experiment) at the same time. However I do want to highlight the issue of waste and so would also like to include elements of freeganism, like eating waste food regardless what country of origin is on its label. However if I do that I will also come in for criticism, given that sixty million people can’t live off dumped food. And I want this experiment to be a solution that everyone can undertake if they choose to, that’s essential I think. So any advice is much welcomed, feel free to leave a comment below!
Just on that, we’ve been bust organising a compaign here in the UK called ‘Eat the Change’ (still work in progress!) where a load of people around the country sign up, for one week, for the experiment I’ve been undertaking for the last six months. If you fancy trying it for a week (it really is a lot of fun and very educational and you can’t die in a week!), then sign the pledge!
One of the people organising it with me, Fergus 'the Forager' Drennan, is coming over to Bristol to launch it with a wild food forage around Bristol as part of the next set of ‘Freeskilling’ evenings the Bristol Freeconomy Community has organised here. Fergus is planning to re-start his ‘year eating only foraged food’ next March, and so we are seeing if there is a way we can team up and support each other, both morally and in terms of documenting it. Both experiments have almost identical philosophical foundations and the timing so similar that it is almost uncanny.
Let me know your thoughts on all this. I do realise some of you will be sceptical, some really supportive and some of you think I have no respect for those who live on the streets through no fault of their own. Either way let me know, all opinions valid and accepted. But to be honest what I am trying to do, whether you agree or disagree, is change a way of life that puts those people on the streets in the first place, and more importantly one that makes it socially acceptable to walk past them at 12pm at night in the freezing cold.
Much respect and love to you all.
Comment on this Post:
Malcolm / Five Senses comments ...
Hi - thanks for the message. Do keep in touch.
Yes summer daylight is the time for being busy - it's just that man made light - electricity - generated remotely and without direct effort, unlike gathering oil or wood - keeps us slaving away through winter too. Reclaim the night and winter by embracing the dark. Learn to rest.
I too have been troubled by the "self" as in self-sufficiency. I spend hours each day grappling such issues and figuring out how to motivate people for positive change - hence my focus upon positive psychology. I also know we need to transition and thus use the existing world 'set up' to get to a new economy. This is not about being a hermit or self-sufficient farmer. It is about something we have not yet seen in history.
However, interdependent-sufficiency is a mouthful. Can I suggest something more catchy like "inter-sufficiency"?
If any of your guys down in the south want a break, up here in Orkney, in the fresh air of the open seas, see me on Couchsurfing.
Also, you suggested I post a link to my website.
For those interested - you can find me at:
http://www.allfivesenses.com
or my blog is
http://play2survive.wordpress.com/
Linking to these is very welcome.
Jane comments ...
You write:
"And I want this experiment to be a solution that everyone can undertake if they choose to, that’s essential I think".
I'm not sure that you need to set such strict criteria for yourself, and I also have to say that this is not necessarily good logic.
We will all have different means of living with less, consuming less, wasting less, but due to the amount of us we could not all follow the same path without exhausting it.
If we all foraged locally around the city every day, there would be nothing left to forage. Imagine 400,000 people, the entire population of Bristol, foraging around the city greenspaces just once a week each. Phew!
And you are right, we could not all be freegans, otherwise the competition for dumped stuff would be too great.
We can not all have allotments in the city as there is not enough land. We can't all live in caravans as many of us are so entrenched already in the systems of debt this world has created, and if we have dependent children we could not keep uprooting and experimenting without messing up their lives.
We could not all live off the Bristol second hand clothes shops as there are probably too few, and they would be empty in no time.
You don't need to be too tough on yourself all the time. If you try desperately not to touch money but are forced into it sometimes, it would be better to say "I was faced with a circumstance this week where I had to use money, here's why it was unavoidable"....
That makes your blog real and something people can aspire to themselves. The point is surely is to highlight potential weaknesses and expose them, thus finding ways around them in the future, for yourself and others.
To try to acheive 100% success is setting yourself up to feel like a failure, even if you are trying your best.
I will be doing the 'eat the change' with the attitude of trying hard and highlighting where it was not possible for me.
If you work hard to touch money but have to occasionally...so what? If Fergus the Forager has a sandwich sometimes and says that he gave in to a craving...so what?
The point is that you are carving a particular path, and that it is only one of many.
Good luck with your next experiment!
jane comments ...
I agree entirely. We need to get back to how things need to be. How do you pay for the phone by the way? I'm looking forward to chucking mine in the bin, why do You need to tell everyone about it? Just do it and keep it to your self, no need to blog, no need to bore everyone, lots of people are already out there doing this, without being on the net. We need real connections in order to be interdependant, not virtual ones!
Good luck, happy foraging,and freegleing.
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