I have been traveling more lately and reading such diverse works as The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty First Century by Thomas L. Friedman, an interesting but long-winded testament to the glories of unfettered Capitalism and Technology, published in 2007. Simultaneously I’m reading what could easily be classified as the polar opposite in ideology and practice: Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled World by Helen and Scott Nearing, widely considered as the original book on homesteading and the forerunner of the back-to-the-land movement, published in 1954.

I try to approach each of these works as open-mindedly as possible. I am, after all, a big fan of technology: It provides part of our livelihood and sanity, considering I work entirely online, and my only real sense of “local” community exists only in the cyber-world. Thanks to Friedman I also finally understand why in India, China, Japan, and most of the rest of the world they have cheaper, faster, and more reliable cell phone and Internet service than we poor rural folks in America do, and why that won’t be changing any time soon.

Conversely, I see handy hubby and I have much in common with the Nearings. Like me, they lost their teaching jobs – where I lost mine thanks to Hurricane Katrina, they lost theirs thanks to the Depression. They also left the city for a try at self-sufficient living after many years dealing with the disillusionment stemming from hypocritical American politics and a society rampantly chasing materialistic dreams. The Nearings chose their “experiment,” as they themselves called it, not to get away from working hard, but to embrace more meaningful work which was more directly related to “real” life. They also would have preferred a more cooperative or communal environment for themselves, but found there was none that existed in which they could “happily and effectively fit.” Just like us, when they started their adventure they were far from spring chickens, and had no experience at living such a life.

The Nearings were at odds with the 60s hippie “counter culture” as well as with the ideologies and lifestyles of the locals in Vermont. Still, they welcomed them regularly as guests and lodgers, understanding that a real community is not made-up entirely of like-minded individuals, and if it were, I’d be inclined to add, it would be torturously colorless and bland.

Unfortunately, the Nearings and the very many who followed in their footsteps in the 60s never did become part of the mainstream, or even close to it. Many expected it would, and felt even that it was inevitable. Now, 80 years after they first made their move, American politics has in fact become more war-mongering, and mainstream America ever-more materialistic.

Friedman, on the other hand, makes a very cogent argument regarding the market brilliance of Wal-mart, one apt to convince even me that I may have unfairly boycotted them years ago. Still, I won’t go back, as long as I can help it.

So, what exactly is my point? To be honest, I’m not exactly sure. But, when I think with my head, I see maybe there is good reason why we need the world to become flat again, and allow the materialism and corrupt values of the American lifestyle to infiltrate the world, since that is what they seem to be screaming for. But when I think with my heart, I’m glad we’re whittling down the ways in which we are collaborators in this insanity.

Not many people know this because there are those loved ones who think I shouldn’t share such personal information with the cyber world. But since I think those loved ones are my only readers anyway, I don’t see why not. So here’s the big secret: For exactly half the month while handy hubby works, I am alone out here. Half the month I go a week or more sometimes without seeing another human being in the flesh, or without hearing an actual voice not garbled by static. I’ve complained in this blog about the ever-growing list of challenges to my recently adopted rural life, so it seems strange that until now I wouldn’t write about the very biggest one of them all: Solitude.

I know very few people have experienced anything like it. Consider, before you believe you can relate, just because you feel alone in your head or at your desk, or maybe you imagine you are not really registering the dozens if not hundreds of personal human interactions you are having each day, but this is something entirely new for me. I was always one to appreciate solitude, but I see now it was because I didn’t have that much of it. Imagine for a second, a married woman totally alone half the month, no children, only virtual colleagues, very few neighbors, no real schedule, no real boss, no employees. Almost complete flexibility. Almost no responsibilities. Almost total freedom. A long time pursuit of mine achieved prematurely par hazard. It sounds so easy but nothing and no one could have prepared me for the toughest part of it. It’s unbearably lonely sometimes. Not only are there very few people, there are only a handful who would ever choose to be in such isolation, literally or figuratively, even if given every opportunity.

If I have one physical human interaction in a week it’s because I found some excuse to go to town or to visit the neighbors. The internet is my only lifeline to civilization. My truest connection at the moment is to nature, and I think we are really starting to understand each other. Maybe I am facing my fears, because since childhood my worst dreams always centered around losing virtual connection – the perpetual busy signal, or for hours a line where I can’t get through for some unknown reason, or I can’t remember or find the phone number, or the number’s been disconnected, the buttons won’t push, there’s no dial tone, or oh my god, the line’s been cut! Nowadays the dreams are more often a screen that won’t respond or storms that take out the satellite.

If you’ve traveled seriously you know what I’m talking about, at least to some degree. You have to get used to some degree of loneliness as a traveler. It’s not as challenging today as it once was, now that it’s so much easier to stay connected. What I most remember about my stay with a French family in 1984 is the loneliness. I was a hyper-self-conscious 15-year old with little means of communicating on an isolated family farm for the first time. I cried so much the family was probably shocked I stayed. I came home a different person, a better person, a stronger person I instinctively felt.

In the Peace Corps something similar happened. Along with the regular symptoms of occasional purposelessness, emptiness, lethargy, there bloomed something more. But in the thick of it, it was bitterly lonely and that’s all I could feel. It wasn’t friendships, or a lack of them, it was a lack of deeper connections.

The inner and outer journeys share the common instinct of exploration, that’s what drives the explorers among us to pursue them. They also share the common features of surplus time and adequate means and ample courage. Just like those lonely days as an exchange student and PCV, they set a precedent of self-reliance, they open new worlds, they teach humility. Without these travails I wouldn’t be who or where I am today – someone with excessive time, enough means, and compounding courage in order to thoughtfully observe loneliness, no doubt the fear of which helps induce us to adapt to many of the laws and various unpleasantnesses of civilization.

We love to brag about the outward journeys, sometimes keeping track on a map with little pins, different colors for the places we’ve been and those we still plan to visit. The green pins on Paris and London and Prague for “Been There”; the red pins on Moscow and Istanbul and Buenos Aires for “Going Soon.” But where do we keep track of the inward journeys? From whom do we gain bragging rights for the trips through Pain, Failure, Rejection, Loneliness? Where are the pins to stick on future stops at Loss, Disease, Humiliation? I guess we don’t celebrate those because we don’t want to go there so much. But then again, maybe if we had less fear of life’s travails then we might find both our travels and our connections would become far more meaningful.

Some are so disturbed by what they find on those journeys inside or out that they instinctively retreat and only go back if absolutely forced by circumstance. How do you comfort these poor cowards of love and life? I can only offer this advice: If you embrace solitude and heed nature’s voice now, you’re sure to avoid pricey therapy later. Otherwise, prepare to live the rest of your days among those sad civilized individuals in perpetual fear of the wild side.

I told handy hubby yesterday I didn’t have any ideas for the blog post this week and I didn’t feel like coming up with one.   Being the ever-supportive man that he is, he said I shouldn’t worry about it, and just post a “Gone Fishing” sign.   And that really got me thinking about all those folks who can’t go fishin’.   Which of course got me thinking about BP: Certainly not the first to pollute our waters, and I suspect not the last.

My oh my, has the Gulf Zone had a string of really bad luck lately, or what?!   Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Ike, and now this, all of them major disasters occurring within five years– not enough time to recover from the previous disaster before the next one slaps ashore.   I wonder how many times a region can get kicked down before they can’t get back up again?  And when that happens, will everyone just keep continuing to point fingers?

We always try to push blame.  I’m not talking about BP executives here, or the various parties involved in the drilling operations, or even the local or federal governments; we should expect that anyone directly responsible there won’t take any real responsibility.   I’m talking WE, as in you and me.  WE, as individuals, are the ones that keep them all in business.  WE need them, or so we have come to believe we do.  We are the ones who have allowed our dependence on these companies to become so consequential that we consider them ALL too big to fail.  It is not new news that drilling is dangerous, ugly, and destructive work, it has been that way forever.  We have decided, and sent the very clear message, that we are willing to pay that price.  WE, you and me, are not willing to suffer the consequences of reduced oil availability or increased prices, and therefore WE are the ones responsible for this disaster and every other one past and future.  Not only are we allowing them to do it to us, we are encouraging them to, every time we make a choice on a dozen decisions big and small every day.  We are willing to let our planet suffer, our children suffer, and our natural environment and all living things in it suffer, so that we won’t have to change.

So this week I am going fishing, in a way.  I’m going to throw some ideas out and fish for some replies.  In what way would you be most willing to reduce your reliance on oil if you could?  Would you:

Buy a hybrid car?  Choose locally raised food?  Work from home?  Fly less often?  Stop using disposable plastics?  Support research for alternative energy sources?  Purchase fewer imported products?  Make your home and lifestyle as sustainable as possible?

Have you, would you, do any of these things?  What else might you consider doing to show BP, and all the rest of them, that you don’t really need them as badly as they think you do?

Some folks think what we’re doing out here is really out there, so I thought I could put things into some perspective. Extremes exist even among the extremists – the hardcore homesteaders, the survivalists, the simplicity freaks – but the bar is moving even lower these days. Restaurant chefs in big cities are buying into the trend to go low big time, some of them even planting their own kitchen gardens and requiring their menus come from within 30 miles. Now that lowering our carbon footprint is an international movement (being manipulated of course by advertisers to sell new products), I’ll bet within a few years even the craziest of the crazy won’t be considered that crazy anymore.

So I’d like to share some stories of folks who have led the pack in low, even when they might not have meant to do that. My first fascination with self-reliance was observing the Czechs and their various skills during my Peace Corps service, talk about a low carbon footprint, they hardly even produced any garbage in the home! But it was not until a few years later, when I was interviewing a young Czech man for my first novel, that I really witnessed low. His name was Petr, a buff and handsome 20-something who was into historical reenactment.

Maybe you don’t know what that is. It’s a troupe of amateur actors and history buffs who sometimes travel and work at castles recreating scenes and skills for tourists. Most of the time they do it for free, much of the time they don’t even have an audience.

He took us to his “camp,” a few acres among lovely rolling fields and meadows where he and a dozen others practiced their various trades: pottery, metal work, old school carpentry, savory dishes cooked underground or over fire, and of course the crowd-pleasing skills of swordsmanship and archery. It was one of the most far-out things I’d ever witnessed first-hand and relatively sober. This small group of folks, who had full-time day jobs as bank clerks and secretaries, and school teachers, chose to spend their entire weekends and vacations there, way out in the sticks, doing everything exactly as it would have been done in pre-Medieval times. There were no motors or electricity or plumbing, all the structures were built by them with tools replicated from the period. It was as authentic as could ever be imagined by an American – the needle to mend their boots was carved from bone, the thread was home-spun, the boots themselves were cut from leather tanned and fashioned themselves. They bragged that one pair of boots had taken months to produce, and they had only the one pair to show for it, several others having been total failures. I have never seen such pride in achievements in my life, not before or since, nor have I been among a happier group of 20-somethings. They had no clue about carbon, these guys were doing it just for kicks!

There are also the hardcore homesteaders and survivalists I read about and DO NOT envy one little bit. The ones who refuse fridge and freezer top the list (Hello, how do you keep your vodka and paté chilled?!). There are others out there who live without electricity altogether (so how on earth do you connect to the web?!), NO thanks! I will never be one of these hard core types.

But there are other ideas out there that sound crazy that I am dying to try, like the composting toilet. I’ve been researching this one and can’t wait to share all that crap with you here (hehheh). I’m willing to try just about anything, but I know myself pretty well, the only kind of homesteader I can really aspire to becoming would be of the somewhat spoiled diva variety, except I think I might be the only one. I would love no motors, but how would the work get done? I would love handmade tools, but who the hell would make them? We will try milling our own lumber and growing and grinding our own heirloom wheat someday, but for now, it’s still baby steps. Thank heavens.

Our pup Papi hated lettuce, until we started feeding it to the chicks. Suddenly, it seems to be among his favorite snacks, when he can steal it from them. In the kitchen he still doesn’t like it. This makes me consider once again the nature of our natures, and I’m reminded of the parable about the frog and the scorpion.

I’ve always hated this tale, because while I feel I’m perpetually playing the frog, others mistake me often for the scorpion. Being convinced that I am the frog is not because I have delusions that we are not all self-interested beings. I know, for better or worse, it is what has allowed us to thrive – the dog, as much as the frog, or the man, or the plant. I know I’m the frog because I have always been gullible, the scurvy of the optimist.  I’ve always been over-ready to allow words or appearances to supersede actions and sometimes even common sense. I think I’m not the only one.

So, I’ve decided to update the frog and scorpion tale to suit my own life better. The frog will be a chick and the scorpion, a black lab pup. Instead of a trip across the river, the sweet and friendly lab pup begs the chick to play his provocative but seemingly innocent chasing game through the meadow. At long last his charming pants convince them it’s a beautiful day and he clearly means no harm.

That black lab, just look at that face, how could he possibly be the scorpion? Has he not so far obeyed orders, sometimes under great pressure to indulge his instincts? But just the flap of a wing and he is on high alert. It’s so very lucky for those chicks that he is well-supervised now, under constant surveillance. If only they knew, those poor little chicks, how their natural moves provoke him. He cannot help that at all. Any more than they can. He’s still playing the patient watch dog, for now.  I know he is surely not capable of strategically planning his next move, but just you wait, one of these times that seemingly innocent little flap will provoke a tragic end to their already shortly numbered days in the meadow.

The moral of my new twist to the story? A seemingly careless little misstep or two made out of innocence or ignorance are still missteps with fatal potential.

Nevermind.

I spent the week in New York City with my sisters and now must recant the bulk of what I professed last post. To resist the overwhelming and constant temptations of city life would require a morale of steel, the stoicism of a soldier, an empty wallet and zero credit. It’s no wonder why so many folks in this country are fantastically fat and/or desperately in debt – the pressure to consume is absolutely overwhelming.

Manhattan is a vast bazaar of offerings, each neighborhood serving a different population or persona, with nothing and no one overlooked. There is a zoo of products and services at every price point. The array of restaurants is spectacular, the fashion ubiquitous, the salons irresistible, the bars buzzing. Anything you desire at pretty much any hour. Not even Superwoman could resist against such an all-encompassing force.

And Superwoman has never even played near my orbit. My statement last week to value time over money is shot pretty much instantaneously upon arrival. Every day was like a safari through the endless world of consumable goods – one day as determined as a mouse in a maze for the ideal shoulder bag, the next day a treasure hunter for discounted boots – the perfect pair finally found at half-price, a mere $350.

My youngest sister is a diva in the Manhattan design world, and so she keeps abreast of it all, in knowledge and presentation. They (her and her not-so-handy hubby) are vegans, are mindful of the planet, even experimenting this year with seedlings to be transplanted into a plot in their community garden. It is an applaudable effort and attitude but has hopelessly little hope of success. I think of the constraints already chaining up all their waking hours – the social life, the family obligations, not to mention the extracurricular career commitments and daily commutes. No wonder they watch ridiculous reality shows, what brain or body power could possibly be left for anything else after all that pressure – to produce, to perform, to consume?

Nothing haunts me more than hypocrisy, especially my own, so thankfully I’ve long ago realized I’ve got to be pretty far outside the mainstream to resist the pull of getting repeatedly sucked into it. While ecology might be trendy, its trendiness is antithetical to the movement itself, because consumption cannot be at the core of a sustainable society. New products for vegans and diabetics and celiac sufferers and vitamin water and aroma therapy and elliptical machines – the message is very clear, get healthy, get green, but don’t stop shopping! I know urban homesteading is getting a huge following fast, but wow, I have to really admire those folks, because there is so very much working against them in the city.

Now I’m back to square one on my conservation question: How to create a sustainable society when there is no hope at all we will ever choose time over money in this country. Consumption is as deeply engrained in us as corn. (Hehe, sorry, pun intended.) For some strange reason I heard the same phrase repeated several times last week in the city: Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

I’m home again at last, far out of the way. Thank heavens one long walk in the woods is as easy and reliable as tapping the refresh key.

The most obvious approach there is to the conservation issue I posed last week is: Start valuing time over money. To me, the value of time over money is a no-brainer. I wish I could say I thought it up all on my own, but I never think anything up all on my own. Because I have an abundance of time, I read abundantly. I’ve also traveled a bit, but you don’t have to travel far to see that generally speaking Americans seem less happy than they should considering our relative prosperity.

To satisfy our natural drive for abundance, we have become addicted to consumption in this country, and it’s killing our bodies and our environment. People who love their work or lead more complete lives don’t seem to have the same need to fill the voids in their lives with food and things. When you value time over money, the way you fill your time changes dramatically for the better.

When I made a conscious decision to stop working so hard at work I didn’t value, something incredible, but expected, happened – "treating myself," which invariably came in the form of buying something, felt completely unnecessary. Suddenly I realized it is the time itself that is the treat. I don’t need to consciously and painstakingly “conserve,” because with the surplus time I no longer need the quick shopping fix or fancy night out to feel rewarded. To quote again from MOTHER EARTH NEWS and GRIT Publisher Bryan Welch's article about creating a sustainable society I mentioned last time, “If we are to lead creative, innovative and beautiful lives, we need some surplus time and energy.” Most Americans are just too damn tired to lead such lives!

Americans typically don’t like their work, but more than any other culture I’ve seen, we define ourselves through our work. “What do you do?” is among the first questions asked in a conversation among Americans. I’ve spent long and pleasant evenings with new acquaintances in other countries where that question is never asked, by anyone, unless there’s another American there. Why? We are our work. Being over-worked is a badge of achievement in this country. Why are we so willing to “trade our hours for a handful of dimes” sang Jim Morrison like 40 years ago, but we are still doing it today, and no better off for it.

Maybe it’s not the same for everyone, but an entire afternoon with no obligations at all makes me feel like an aristocrat. I know it requires a different look at what defines luxury, one that marketers avoid for the simple reason that it doesn’t sell anything. Money to burn might feel equally good, I wouldn’t know, but I’m very certain the path to making that money is totally over-rated.