Photo by Kate DowningI have something to confess. This summer I'm struggling to find my way. This is true professionally, personally, and it's certainly true of my relationship to this blog. The reasons I started this blog are legion, but I do believe I was guided by my own passionate belief in the transformational power of relocalization. I am an earnest person with solid convictions and I believe--almost above all else--that most of us are going to need to fix our gazes and focus our efforts on our immediate surroundings if we're going to thrive. It was my intention to create a mostly upbeat space to promote relocalization by fostering discussion and providing real life examples, as well as counter-examples, of what a local focus has to offer. I also hoped to educate others, as well as myself, about the complexities of our current situation.
But I now think that I have to admit to something else. I started this blog because I feel profoundly disconnected from most of the people around me, and I believe it's difficult to begin discussions of relocalization with others. I'm an introvert. I may be able to hold my own in one-on-one conversations, but I still feel awkward. Group discussions are even more challenging. So, for someone like me to begin asking other people to think about how much their quality of life might improve if Wal-Mart folded, if we looked to ourselves and our neighbors for a lot of the products and services we currently buy, and if we ate only what was in season and locally or regionally available, is, well, a really tough assignment. In this country, people like their choices to be nearly infinite. We expect it. But as good as it feels (temporarily) to get what we want when we want it, the psychological as well as cultural and environmental consequences of such entitlement are real and damaging. I guess I have the hope that through this blog I can connect with a few kindred spirits out there, but also contribute in some small way to cultural healing.
This is a tall order. Perhaps it would be easier and feel better for me to carry out this work if other aspects of my life were in better order. I recently had the privilege and delight of marrying the person with whom I want to spend the rest of my days. My relationship provides a supportive foundation where much else is shaky. It is a gift for which I am most grateful. But like everyone else, I have a lot of struggles with which to contend: health, family, and the depression that comes with work that is an un-fulfilling necessity. Most days I would trade a kidney for a stable, affordable living situation. Like most people, I am struggling so much with getting by when I'd much rather be going about the business of living. Modestly and happily. Building community and creating thriving local economies. But I can't do it alone. And right now, a few months into this blog experiment, that's how I feel. Alone.
I want to continue to build this blog and to fill it with ideas. I want to share it with you and I hope you'll share something of yourselves and your ideas in return. The Prodigal Blogger is limping along, but she's back.
3 comments:
There was an article recently in the NY times I believe about how often something not so local can have less of an environmental impact than something more local: for instance if local trucks have horrible gas efficiency versus a new ocean liner, or if fertilizer is shipped from afar to use on local crops. It gets pretty complicated. I'm all for local stuff but it seems focusing on efficiency in all things may have more positive impact than an insistence on local products. I find many liberals don't ever make the leap in thought to figuring out how to sell their ideals to more conservative thinkers, like emphasizing money savings in regards to using environmentally sound business practices. Just some food for thought, not trying to argue with you... take care!
Thank you for your comment. I saw the article you refer to, although I think it was an editorial piece. I agree wholeheartedly that local will not always win the battle of efficiencies. Not every locale has access to efficiencies in geography, infrastructure and technologies that leave smaller footprints. It's a complicated issue.
That said, there is still a great deal of evidence that a local consumption focus can allow more people to "tread lightly," and there is no question that local consumption strengthens and invigorates local economies.
For the record, I do not consider myself a liberal. I do not fit easily into a box or category. I'm not religious and am not interested in other peoples' sex lives. I believe in equality and that there is a deliberate system of stratification and oppression that denies many while entitling a few. I recycle and I want peace. Does that make me a liberal? I also believe people today are short on ethics and civility. I believe in hard work, staying in place, and the supremacy of domestic life over a professional life. I believe in conservation. I would love to be left alone to farm. I believe that I am defined by my convictions, not by what I do for a paycheck. That said, I believe that, if we are to feel more personally satisfied, we should try to align our work with that which has meaning to us. And, I believe that most people are just as complicated and hard to pin down. Polarizing people by terming them liberal or conservative does nothing to increase the sum of human happiness.
Hey there, I wasn't labeling you a liberal, I do label myself as liberal as a short hand though I can be conservative in some aspects, I was trying to bring up my frustration with the way people end up preaching to the choir on these issues. I think the ideas you bring up in your blog are important and I would love them to see a wider audience! By using terms like liberal or conservative I am not polarizing, simply using terms, terms that mean something specific to most people but like all terms have fuzzy borders.
My larger point, or concern, is that people with strong convictions like yourself can make great choices in their own lives but fail to have a larger impact because they never learn to communicate outside their own group, whether you want to call that group liberal or not doesn't concern me a bit.
The whole debate about using local versus global is a big one and not something I am an expert on and I do admire your resolve and interest in doing something so important to you.
I do have to say that your last sentence: "Polarizing people by terming them liberal or conservative does nothing to increase the sum of human happiness." is something I do take umbrage with, the sentence itself seems much more polarizing; or negative in tone, than anything I wrote.
I was simply trying to make a statement about widening the discourse to try to get these ideas into the world more successfully because many of your convictions I share, don't let the message get lost because the word liberal hits an emotional trigger for you, and sorry that it did, not my intention at all. Take care, and good luck with all your endeavors, I do believe we'd be in a better world if more people held convictions closer to your own.
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