The First Green Homeless Shelter

The New York Times today reported on Crossroads, a homeless shelter in Oakland, CA, that is being reported as the first green homeless shelter in the US.

Success is Failure

I’ve been thinking a lot about success lately. How should I define it for myself? What is material success in the context of a life of service? Is there security in this context, and if so, what? These are some of the questions I’ve been thinking about.

Recently I read a 1983 commencement address Ursula K Le Guin gave at Mills College, in which she says that success is a macho term in relation to someone else’s failures. That instead of success, she hopes that people begin to make their homes in the (feminine) spaces of failure.

I do not entirely get what she is proposing, however, here are my thoughts. It is not so much that “failure” is the goal, that it is something so wonderful. Instead, it is understanding that if some people are going to live in “success” others must live in
“failure” and that, given those options, that which will be called “failure” is closer to how we should seek to live our lives. Let us take an example to better understand this. A “successful” housewife use to be (and maybe still is) a woman who kept her house, family, and life in such a way that promoted her husbands (material) “success.” Conversely, a “successful” husband* used the work of his wife to promote his ability to gain material wealth. All this “success” takes place ONLY because other people fail, living in poverty and despair. We must orient our lives away from “success”; away from dependence on other’s suffering; away from the subjugation of some people to others.

Instead we must find comfort and fulfillment in the “…helplessness, weakness, and illness, (in) the irrational and the irreparable, (in) all that is obscure, passive, uncontrolled, animal, unclean - the valley of the shadow, the deep, the depths of life (Le Guin, 1983).” Le Guin is right in that we do not really even know what this looks like. We only have vague “pioneers' tales” about this space (one I might recommend is The Fifth Sacred Thing). However, I think one big part of the puzzle is learning a kind of communalism. Doing away with our desperate grasps on our individualism, what we Sufis would call our nefs.

For me, a large part of this is reorienting my life towards being of service and away from being the problem solver, the Important One With Answers. It means viewing my life, and the work I spend it on, as a part of a whole that is larger, smarter, and more capable than “I” (the great individual) will ever be. In other words, whether I become a mechanic or a community artist I am still one person performing one function of a community made up of many individuals performing many different functions. Whether I keep my communities cars running or keep its eyes open to the world, it is all part of what keeps the community healthy. Thus, it is not about being important, but about being connected to a community I can be of service to and from which I can draw upon.

I do not think this is exactly what Le Guin was going for, but I think it is a good start. What do you all think?

“So All May Eat,” What a Good Idea

A good friend of mine and I have this running fantasy of opening a bookstore / cafe / CD store. Well here is a very different way of looking at the restaurant business. SAME Cafe is a restaurant in Denver, where meals is distributed not based on one’s ability to pay but on one’s need of food. The restaurant is funded through donations of patrons. There is also the opportunity for those who want to support the business but don’t have money to work for meal vouchers. Think this can’t work as viable business, check out One World Cafe, which has been going strong for three years now in Salt Lake City. What’s really cool about this is that it is a food distribution model that brings together those who can afford food and those who would normally have to go to a soap kitchen or food bank. For a more thorough article, checkout Worldchanging’s “Eat What You Want, Pay What You Can.”

Alternative Currencies: Local Economies and Local Communities

It is undeniable that our current economic systems puts severe strains on our communities isolating people with busy schedules and no apparent motivation get to know there neighbors. Complementary monetary systems are being developed around the world in order to combat these alienating tendencies of our current capitalist model.
Alana Herro, of Eye on Earth (e²), has posted “Complementary” Currency Helps Local Communities at Worldchanging.com. The article is a good over view of some of the interesting things happening in alternative economics on the local community level.

Some Interesting Stuff

The Orwellian Projects is an interesting post at we-make-money-not-art about several art pieces dealing with surveillance and the loss of privacy. Worth a look!

Neighborhood Survivability over at Worldchanging raises a very relevant question these days: how do/can our neighborhoods help keep us alive and (relatively) comfortable during disasters?

Vision Vessel: Portland’s Mirror to the Future

One of the keys to building better communities is the ability to image them. Portland, Oregon is tackling this problem in an inventive way.

The Vision Vessel is a multi-media recording booth where you can voice your ideas about the City of Portland as it grows and changes in the 21st century. The Vessel creates a living archive of Portlander’s insights, while offering a fresh, practical and innovative approach to urban civic engagement.

This is interesting because the project not only records peoples ideas about the direction Portland should take, but also presents a visual timeline of Portland’s past. The designers seem to recognize that the future and past are inexplicably linked, and that we must remember out history as we imagine our future.