Musings from Mark

It is coming up on two years since leaving Carleton, and already it seems so much longer than that. I feel old now – not as though I am aging (though losing my hair doesn’t help) – but old in the sense that I would feel awkward at a Carleton party or a gathering of undergrads. Carleton provided a limited number of choices: which three classes to take the next term, what to major in, which comps topic to consider, but beyond that the structure was set in place, so that any possible combination of those choices would lead equally to success, or at least to learning, intellectual stimulation, and satisfactory progress toward graduation. Now it seems that there are an infinite number of options available, most of which are not specifically made known to me. And while I have more or less enjoyed the things I have done since graduation (BLM job in Wyoming, part-time homeopathic mint packing, prescribed burn work, bird surveys, prairie plant surveys, and now molecular biology in pursuit of biological hydrogen), I have not yet found the thing that matches my soul desires. Partly, I don’t know exactly where to look, and partly our modern society has partitioned tasks into ever-smaller subsets and specializations such that very few jobs contain sufficient variety that I would enjoy them in the long run. I will find out in the next months whether I enjoy molecular biology work, but I already know that I will not want to make a career of it.

While I am excited about alternative energy, I am less excited about working in a lab indefinitely. Perhaps my career will be related to energy, perhaps not, but anything that I am to enjoy doing for many years must satisfy all of the following criteria (the first twelve are about work, the last five are about where I live):

1. Low-stress/non-competitive. I have had enough of stress and competition in school and college. I am tired of having to prove myself in order to get recognition/admission/grant money/etc.

2. Discrete, reasonable time requirements. The work cannot require an unreasonable time commitment such that I am unable to lead a balanced, somewhat self-sufficient life. Ideally it will be structured such that there is a clear delineation between work time and my own time, so that I do not feel pressured to work during my own time.

3. Environmental benefit. I will absolutely not work in a position that is harming the planet, and anything I do needs to make a noticeable difference in regard to improving the natural environment or our relation to our environment, ideally both.

4. Tangible product. I need to be able to see what I have done, at least some of the time. This rules out positions that produce only ideas or involve transfer of abstractions (e.g. banking). My Arb guide was perhaps my best example of this, and I thoroughly enjoyed that project.

5. Permanent or first-time product. I do not enjoy fighting entropy. Of course some maintenance is always necessary, but I do not want the majority of my work to be renewing something old that must be renewed on a regular basis (e.g. road construction). There is no creativity in that.

6. Not in a category. I do not want to fill a position that places me in a grouping of more-or-less interchangeable people all doing the same thing. This criterion alone rules out ~90% of available work. Basically this means I do not want to work for someone who hires me to do a specific thing, and who could hire anyone else with a similar skill set to do the same thing.

7. Variety. This means either a variety of tasks or discrete projects, or perhaps the same task applied to situations sufficiently different. At least some of the variety must be unpredictable. A good way of ensuring unpredictable variety is to work outdoors part of the time, since the weather is ever-variable and provides interest to even the most repetitive work. There is way too much repetitive labor in this world. This includes, among my experiences, vegetation surveys and mint-packing.

8. Community. The environment in which I work should be brought together by common interest and managed as a collaboration between all involved. No bosses. No employees. At least not in the normal sense. No hiring people simply because they possess a skill set. Certainly different people will bring different skill sets, but the understanding must be that everyone has the capacity to be creative and to think for themselves. Ideally, financial compensation will be equal for all or at least based on a criterion (such as seniority) that does not value one type of work more than another. An ideal situation might be an intentional community united around a common goal.

9. Fair compensation for a meaningful contribution. I am rather tired of being poor. My needs have always been met, so I have been happy with little money, but I would like to be able to afford my own home and reliable, green equipment and appliances. I would also like a little extra to set up a zero-impact energy system based on solar panels, batteries, and possibly hydrogen storage. That all takes money. I see money as society’s payment to me for my services for society. Therefore my services must be valuable enough to others that they feel satisfied paying me and do not feel that they are overcharged. This means not being paid out of tax money (not working for the government or off of government-supported science grants) and contributing something to society that others find valuable and are willing to pay for.

10. Non-repetitive travel. There is very little that I enjoy more than plotting out a course to new territory and setting out to find it. I also enjoy having a firm connection to a “home,” so I don’t want to be always on the road. But I would like it if my life’s work regularly took me to new and unfamiliar places, perhaps to teach something, to demonstrate or install something (alternative energy device?), or to collect data on something (not as good since I am not contributing).

11. Intellectual challenge. I enjoy thinking about problems and finding novel or optimal ways to solve them. This needs to be balanced with hands-on work, so that I am not over-working my mind. School and jobs related to school (e.g. professorships) provide intellectual challenge but without appropriate balance.

12. Outdoor work opportunity. I will not take a job that involves working in an office/lab/factory/other building all day every day. I have worked jobs that are outdoors all the time, and while I can do that I would prefer a balance. If the work is mainly indoors, it should at least have frequent opportunities to step outside to maintain a sense of connection to the changes in the weather and the cycles of nature.

13. No cities. I am not a fan of unnaturally large groupings of people, and I like to have my personal living space to garden, have bonfires, watch the stars, etc. Working in a town or city is fine so long as I can get there from my home in a reasonable amount of time (half hour or less ideally), and my home is in a rural or semi-rural setting.

14. Progressive, environmentally-aware, spiritual culture. I would like to live among others with similar ideas and lifestyles, in a community based on sustainability, trust and mutual respect. This could be an island within a predominantly different culture (e.g. a neighborhood or intentional community), but ideally it will be a larger community. The presence of others with similar spiritual beliefs would be a big plus, and open minds are a necessity. There are a number of such communities across the U.S. Many are in big cities where I would not choose to live, but there are quite a few small, progressive towns with farmers’ markets, hippie-types, contra dances, community choirs/opportunities to make music together, bike commuters, etc. The first ones that come to mind are Asheville (NC), Ithaca (NY), Boulder (CO), Eugene/Corvallis (OR), Bloomington (IN), and Santa Cruz (CA). There are probably many more, including some small ones like Crested Butte (CO). I suspect that more places will fit in this category as society moves in this direction (hopefully), but for now I am attracted to such places.

15. No oppressive heat. I do not enjoy being outdoors in 90+ degree weather. Folks in southern climes survive by living in air conditioned habitats. I would rather not do that. A few hot days are OK. Phoenix is not. I would prefer a climate without long winters devoid of life, but that is not a deal-breaker. I still have a love for the experience of deep cold and windblown snow.

16. Rain. I need to be surrounded by living things, and to be able to grow things. I enjoy visiting deserts but not living in them.

17. Wilderness/natural areas nearby. I need to be able to set out alone to undisturbed lands with no people, in order to reaffirm my connection to nature and to the energies of this planet. That is, some would say, my version of going to church.

So, how does my current situation stack up? All five living situation criteria are satisfied. That is good, and as expected since I chose this semi-rural spot on the edge of Corvallis precisely because it met those criteria. #14 is only partially satisfied, since I would like to be more integrated into a community of like-minded folks. #17 is also only partially satisfied, since I would prefer to have a natural area on my property (e.g. at the valley house) or a short walk away (e.g. the Arb), making it easy to visit these places daily or regularly. I can envision a living situation I would like better than my present one, but it will probably have to wait until I have more money (#9). For now, I am content where I am.

As for my work, #3, 5, 6, and 11 are fully satisfied. Given that we are so far from having a useful product, #3 is not always immediately evident. #1, 2, 7, and 9 are partially satisfied. The stress level is much lower here than at Carleton, but there are still expectations and professor-student inequalities. The time requirement is largely up to me, which is better than Carleton but will require time management skills to achieve a good balance. Most grad students work too many hours. #4, 8, 10, and 12 are not satisfied. We may have a tangible product in the future, but it is at least a few years off. The other three will almost certainly not be realized as a grad student or worker in this field. Hence my statement that I don’t plan on doing lab work forever. But at this point I can’t say I have a good idea as to what sort of career would satisfy all of my criteria, and what steps I need to take to get there.

~Mark

Academia – for all its movement toward sustainability – remains steeped in the old model that nature can be reduced to objective phenomena and that, by including environmental harm among those phenomena and fitting the best computer model, we can achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. It is interesting to see the options unfolding and to see that, while scientists tend to view them all as equally beneficial, I see some as perpetuating the model of big industry and corporate energy while others quite literally give power to the people. Many who share my views do not believe that technology and complexity can solve our problems. I disagree, but only in the case where technology creates something simple that does not require energy/technology to produce and sustain. Genetic engineering has a unique potential in that regard, in that the end products are alive and can be grown indefinitely without need for technological input or knowledge. Some see it as irresponsible to interfere with life in that way, and while I can understand their perspective given the ill-advised creation of herbicide resistance and the control of genetically engineered crops by large corporations, I also feel that the way forward must not continue to rely on menial production labor and raw-materials extraction, and that the only way around that is to take advantage of the self-constructing ability of living things. So while others try to re-create photosynthesis using complex organic chemistry and rare-element catalysts, I maintain that living cells are the best answer.

It’s not too often that someone else says exactly what I would like to say better than I could say it, but my old friend Chelsey Huisman found this last week and sent it on to me. It is a graduation address given this year at the University of Portland by activist Paul Hawken.

http://www.charityfocus.org/blog/view.php?id=2077

Has it really been over a month since I updated this blog? It certainly doesn’t seem that long. Weeks have been filled with reading up on recent research related to photosynthesis and hydrogen production, trying to zero in on some specific projects that I would like to focus on in my time at OSU. Weekends have been filled with explorations and garden work – the garden is now mostly planted, with only tomatoes and a few other warm-season crops left to go in.

Last weekend, the four of us in my house drove across the Cascades to the Wizard Fire – an area that burned last fall. We traveled in search of the elusive morel mushrooms, and while the mushrooms were good the pickers were out in force – about 25 people combing the area while we were there, with some commercial pickers systematically sweeping the forest floor to get enough to sell. We tried to avoid the picked places, seeking out steep slopes far from the road, and even then we could not get away from footprints and cut morel stumps. But we came home with 74 morels, most of them tiny – enough for one good meal. On Sunday, I helped Ali set up transects near Marys Peak for his research, and we found copious quantities of oyster mushrooms. Sadly, most of them had maggots, but there were enough good ones to add another wild mushroom flavor to our morel dish.

This weekend I plan to make a foray to another fire – this one down by Roseburg – to do some wilderness hiking and morel hunting.

And as for the magnolias, they are still blooming on campus, along with a complete rainbow of azaleas and rhododendrons. In the woods we have bleeding hearts, trilliums, and pink calypso orchids. This place really blooms in the spring!

I had two projects yesterday: cut and split the wood gathered earlier in the week and haul four loads of composted horse manure from our neighbor’s stables to our garden beds. We seem to have found plenty of uses for that little trailer I bought, and so far it has proven to be sturdy. Ebba and Ali have agreed to help me paint the boards this spring if they can paint them bright hippie colors. So it may soon be a hippie trailer.

I have started attacking the mildew on our vinyl siding – a long but very satisfying project. When it is finished I will post a before/after picture.

We had a delicious Easter meal of maple salmon (from me), stuffed mushrooms (Ali), and delicious Middle-Eastern rice (Ali). I took one piece of salmon back after I found a parasitic worm in it – the deli man kindly threw in an extra piece for free along with my replacement.

Last night I went to a fun potluck with grad students from botany, zoology, and other departments. I may be one step closer to finding some friends outside my house.

Pictures posted:

February-March

Spring break:
Hot springs loop
Whale watching
The road to Bend

March-April around the house

or find them on my Photo Essays page.

I just learned that I didn’t get the NSF scholarship I applied for. Ali didn’t either. My friends Jenna and Liana from Carleton both got it – I sent them congratulatory notes. Oh well, it’s not like I really need it given my funding situation, but of course the extra income would be nice…

I have a number of website updates in the works – they should be up in the next few days.

People ask what I think of the stimulus bill. I don’t really have an opinion, except that I would like to see the economic system fail to the point where intelligent people stop trying to fix it and think about redesigning it from the ground up. We can “invent” money to throw at the problem and build up a multi-trillion-dollar deficit, and all of this seems very real, but ultimately we are just six billion living beings trying to enjoy life, and the global recession has nothing to do with anyone’s ability to work, live, create, or experience – it is a false, human creation that we all collectively believe in and that is therefore capable of hurting lots of people.

I am not a fan of capitalism, in which human greed and the desires of the rich are hidden beneath a thin veneer of the “land of opportunity.” I am equally not a fan of socialism, at least in the sense that it has existed so far in the world, because with socialism a gigantic entity (the government) determines salaries and exerts undue control in the lives of everyone. My preference might be called egalitarianism, in that all people who contribute to society are guaranteed a comfortable income, but not because the government says so – simply because those who lead at a local level insist and believe that all occupations are equally essential to the functioning of society and equally worthy of pay.

The ultimate problem with our economy – one that no stimulus bill will ever fix – is that it long ago became divorced from its foundation as a means of compensation for goods and services. Since then it has grown out of control, but with so many stakeholders banking on its continued existence that no one will ever dare to question it unless it completely collapses – which is why I am hoping that such a collapse occurs at some point.

What would happen in a complete collapse? This is my vision: At some point, people would awaken from the money trance and realize that nothing has changed. We still know how to grow corn, drive trains, build cars, teach classes, offer counseling, fix power lines, and whatever else is our occupation. Someone in a position of authority would then realize that they could insist that the system operate in the absence of money. And for a few magical days, everything in the world would be free, and we would breathe a collective sigh in knowing that we can all contribute to a functional society without credit, debt, savings, IRAs, stock markets, and economists. Of course this would not last forever, and those economists would hold a giant meeting to discuss a way to structure a system of monetary exchange that serves to maintain equal exchange and trade while providing a firm link between necessity and compensation.

It has always been strange to me that every step in technological progress has proclaimed to make life better and easier, and yet we find ourselves less happy and working more than pre-industrial societies. Too much of this blame lies on a capitalist economy. Take, for example, a trip to the grocery store. We all know that raising livestock can be enjoyable, for some more than others, and we know equally well that most livestock is grown on awful farms manned by immigrant workers and packaged in awful plants manned by immigrant workers. And we know that truck drivers hauled the meat across the country, that ten people scanned the barcode, and that stockboys put it on the shelf. And we know that every one of those people would rather be doing something else – perhaps raising their own cattle or hiking in the mountains, or sitting on the porch knitting sweaters for their children. But they need money, and in order to get it they have to choose from what society makes available. All of this because of money and its utter and complete disconnect from anything human, emotional, sensory, or ultimately important.

We live in a society in which it is a virtue to “create jobs,” because that will provide an opportunity for people to earn money. Never mind that they will have hardly any time to spend that money. Does that not seem like an utterly unintelligent idea? Perhaps 1/3 of all work done in the modern world is nonessential from the perspective of meeting basic needs and desires. We file papers that no one ever sees again. We make new clothes and send perfectly good old clothes to the landfill. We hire lawyers to sue other lawyers to try to extract money from somebody else. We build TVs so that people can put one in every room and replace them when they are five years old. And we do this because if people will buy it, it is good. Such is the gospel.

Step back for a minute to examine the big picture. We are all highly evolved, intelligent animals inhabiting a beautiful planet. We can’t seem to agree on why exactly we are here and whether we persist as individual entities when we leave, but we universally desire to live our lives in a manner consistent with that which we find meaningful. As curious creatures with ample gray matter, we have deduced most of the laws by which the physical world operates, and we have devised plenty of ways in which to improve upon the teepees of yore. We live in houses, we extract natural gas to heat the houses, we use electricity, we drink beer, we sit at computers to connect to rest of the world. Does this fit in with a harmonious existence? Well, plenty of folks enjoy building houses, people enjoy working in the gas fields, linemen take pride in maintaining the electrical grid, brewers love to brew, and computer engineers and programmers generally love what they do. So far, so good. But we do much more. We buy what is cheapest at the grocery store, we constantly find new clothes, we buy insurance, and we eat at fast-food restaurants. And in doing so, we choose to maintain a system of underpaid workers in unpleasant jobs, often in distant places, when the alternatives – buying local food, sewing or reusing clothes, providing free health care to those who cannot pay, and cooking for ourselves – are really not that different. In fact, we could make all of these changes and find that our lives were much the same, while many other lives would be much improved. Why, in all of our intelligence, can we not collectively choose to make two very important changes: 1) construct a financial system such that it is optimized when all needs are met, not when all people work 40 hours a week (this might require only 30 hours or less of work per person), and 2) Attach psychological valuation to money such that it costs far more to pay someone to do an onerous task than to do something they enjoy. Some folks would still choose to work in the sewers for a year or two, because these necessary, onerous jobs would fetch the highest dollar, but most would find themselves working less and doing more meaningful work, and all would find that their quality of life, as measured by their ability to follow their passions while having their needs met, would be improved.

Life, for me, is not about work. Work is a necessary part of a physical reality – something required to ensure that we have food, shelter, and comfort – and I have never quite been happy about exactly how much work this reality of ours requires. Perhaps that will become less as technology advances, as already much has been achieved. But to require that everyone work 40 hours a week through their most productive years seems anathema to life, especially since so much of this work is unnecessary. We have created religions that claim to reward hard work and diligence in this life with eternal pleasure in heaven. This is utterly asinine, as evidence for the existence of heaven is scant outside of a large, highly overvalued book containing a collection of mostly fabricated tales. I have no desire for “eternal pleasure” in spirit, where I cannot touch the earth, plant the seeds of a new garden, and smell the fresh moss of spring that brings foretellings of fragrant blooms and memories of awakenings, earthly and spiritual, that plant a spring in my step. Life, for me, is about raw, pure experience, and nothing that society calls work – getting paid to carry out a task – has ever provided that sort of experience for me. I will do work, and I have chosen my current line of work because I see promise in the potential to work with plant life to power our needs, so that we might be able to explore our beautiful planet and heat our homes without simultaneously destroying our environment. But even so, it is work, and I have no desire to spend 40 hours a week in a lab, surveying birds, cutting buckthorn, watching marmots, or doing anything I have ever done for pay until I am 65 and can “retire,” assuming I live that long. I might complain about having few friends, or feeling ill, or feeling anxious, or having too much to do, but whenever I step outside and smell the scent of the Earth, I am reminded why I love this life. Life is not some long suffering to be tolerated so that we might rejoice in spirit. I believe that Spirit – the original conscious energy present before the Big Bang – created life so that it might more fully engage with its own creation, so that it might no longer look upon the universe as we might upon a finished work of art, but instead become part of the universe, feeling the heat from its stars, the wind upon its planets, the crash of its thunder and the soft scent of new leaves. And I, as an aspect of that spirit, ask only that I may do such work as is truly of service to society in return for the comforts that society furnishes to me. And I ask that when that work is completed, I am not expected to devote my life to a task, an occupation, or a cause but am instead free to experience the simple joys of existence on this, our chosen home.

Just my perspective….

I put up two hanging feeders last weekend, and after a few days the birds found them. Now I have a constant stream of visitors!

I haven’t had much time to watch, so in perhaps 15 minutes total time I have seen at the feeders:
Oregon Junco (many!)
White-crowned Sparrow
Golden-crowned Sparrow (first time I’ve seen this western relative of the White-crown)
Song Sparrow
House Finch
Black-capped Chickadee
Downy Woodpecker
Red-shafted (Northern) Flicker
Starlings (too many – they like my suet – but they are very pretty up close)
Brewer’s Blackbird
Red-winged Blackbird (both blackbirds mixed in with the starlings)
Western Scrub-jay (our version of the Blue Jay – no crest and darker blue)

Not bad for the first week!

Ali and I worked on building seed-starting flats and a little greenhouse today, and I planted posts for a woodpile on the west side of our garage. It’s easy to dig deep holes in our soft, saturated clay soil, but below about 1.5 feet the holes start to fill with water and it becomes a race against inflow. This also makes tamping rather difficult, since liquid muck doesn’t pack. I was surprised to find such a high water table – there must be an impermeable layer below that holds water near the top. I also managed to do some schoolwork, but not as much as I hoped so I will plan on spending more time on that tomorrow.

Our chicks are doing well, though not all are growing at the same rate. We had one “sneezing” chick from the beginning. When it started to appear ill we separated it from the others, and it died a day later. We are hoping that its affliction will not spread to the others, but so far they all seem healthy.

People here claim that it is still winter, and in all reality not much has changed in the weather. It doesn’t drop to 24 degrees like it did on occasion in January – lows above freezing are more the norm now. And our warm days have gotten just a bit warmer – 58.1 last Friday. But with the longer days, nature is fast awakening, and we are now seeing the equivalent of about April 5th in Minnesota. Crocuses are just starting to bloom, and some sweet-scented evergreen shrubs are blooming across town and perfuming the air. Seeing as the spring season lasts through the end of May, I can only assume that this climate enjoys an extended spring – which I thoroughly look forward to.

We are at 0.61″ of rain today, making this the rainiest day since New Years and possibly breaking what has been a “drought” winter here. I say “drought” because even with below average rain the high humidity, clouds, fog, and cool temperatures keep the ground wet and the plants green in the absence of significant precip. But plants here depend on soaking rains in the winter to get them through the almost rainless summer, so farmers are breathing a small sigh of relief today and will be happy to see the rains continue through the week as is currently predicted.

Our chicks arrived yesterday – eight mixed-sex Cuckoo Marans, two Buff Orpington hens, two Black Star hens, and one “free gift” – which has feathered feet and appears to be a Silver-laced Cochin. We ordered ten but they ship a few extra in case some die in shipping. They are now happily peeping under a heat lamp in a large box in our entry room.

Last weekend we set an illegal fire to burn the two large piles of blackberry brambles, tree prunings, old grape vines, and junk lumber in our backyard. Our house effectively hid the fire from the road, but we still held our breath when a fire truck drove by (apparently called to a similar illegal fire a few blocks west). Technically we aren’t supposed to burn until March 1 (don’t know why but it might be air quality issues with all the woodstoves in the winter). But with the long dry spell about to end and the brushpiles sitting on our future garden plots, we decided to go for it. I bought a used chainsaw two weeks ago, and after ordering and installing some parts finally made use of it in pruning and cutting out some small unwanted trees. It subsequently developed a fuel line blockage and is now in the shop getting that looked at.

Along with some chick feed, I bought some bird seed and a hanger pole and hung the two feeders that were left to us by the previous tenants. So with luck I will soon attract in some of our local chickadees, juncos, and flickers.

It’s been continued unseasonably dry, with two beautiful days this past weekend. I just posted more photos at http://www.luterra.com/essays/20090216.html