The bullying ticket

Okay, so January -- I just wrote a blog post, my longest one ever, and then put it aside for now -- analyzing how civilization maybe organizes around the invention of granaries and how granaries tend to attract bullies, and how bullies attract henchmen with sharp objects, and you get the whole multi-level marketing scheme that has privatized food, water, heat, travel, etc. called class. That a dollar bill is a promissory note that could be called a bullying ticket -- with a dollar (or any currency) you get to bump somebody out of line just because they don't have one.

Hence the interest that some teachers, such as Jesus, Shakyamuni, Francis, Merton, Tolstoy, Gandhi, etc. had in voluntary poverty. Staying, to the extent possible, away from money helps one back away from directly supporting the world-building delusions of authoritarians.

This analysis is obviously not helpful to those living in their cars right now against their will, and maybe some effort put into regulation -- low-income housing, say -- will be helpful in the short run, but there it is: the nonprofits and agencies doing that work are swimming upstream in the stomach acids of the beast.

So you see how thinking about things like food and water can get really "political" in a social-media hurry. Everything is political, but there is no faster way to have those who might need to hear a thing cover up their ears than to sit down across from them and start talking current events and policy issues -- who is getting to bully whom just now, and how that came about, and ways to mitigate perceived abuses.

Which your unwilling audience knows is a time-waster to listen to, because ain't gonna happen any time soon.

So I've tossed that voluminous, extensively thought out and heavily annotated screed, at least for now, and will just make this suggestion: look into democratically managed cooperatives. They're not a magic bullet but they can be hard on the plans teflon-coated bullies may have for you. Also if you can give away something someone might otherwise be forced to buy, please do consider it.

:::

I like to eat off the neighborhood fence lines and the home place to the extent possible, given my cranky body and the deteriorating weather patterns. What do we have here right now?

Lettuce has flourished right through the darkest part of our Northern Hemisphere year. But we didn't put in all that much of it, so we have reserved it as treats for the guard goose, Suannah, who is now twelve years old and walks with a bit of a list, like I do.

Most kale has gone to the chickens, but there's still enough for substantial additions to soups and stews.

We could have fall-planted more chard than we did, but we're not complaining.

Beets have held up well, but I think we direct planted them too close and neglected to thin. I think we do a little better with them in four inch pots, one plant to the pot, set out at six inch intervals.

The red onions bulbed up fine but they are not my thing -- I react to them, but I do okay with just the greens.

To me the star of winter in the beds is the leeks. 

While I for one could sort of take or leave the flavor, I appreciate how they vanish into whatever I'm doing with roots and grains and so on, and it's good to be able to have fresh alliums in the winter, I think.

Winter stuff looks a little ragged when you bring it in, and has to be washed and picked at a bit before it's ready for consumption. But I find it rewarding just to be able, even for one meal, this one morning, to go on strike against the bullying ticket.

Do not arouse disdainful mind when you prepare a broth of wild grasses; do not arouse joyful mind when you prepare a fine cream soup. Where there is no discrimination, how can there be distaste?

— Dogen (tr. Tanahashi)

Also it is no less

Lest anyone practicing other practices be concerned, I don't, or I hope I don't, push Zen as a religious faith. I like facts. There seems to me to be some facts around Zen. So I'm looking into them. I think of myself as kind of an investigative reporter.

I'm of the notion that the present moment is all-inclusively authentic, and can be made to appear to be inauthentic only through delusion, or the will to inauthenticity (which takes place within authenticity -- a form of self-abnegation, if you will).

A flower is a flower, you are you, but also you, beholding a flower, are both you and the flower (also not you and not the flower but that gets needlessly complicated for a blog post).

If you bow to the flower in a ceremonial way, in this moment the bow is authentic and alive, like (and inclusive of) you and the flower. That's my provisional ontology, subject to revision or refutation as evidence arises.

And as there is (IMHO) only ever the present, there's no way you can bow to the flower without the whole universe also doing so, for the universe has a different shape than it would have, were you not bowing, and this is true in both directions: the universe at its inception is the one in which you (will) bow, and at its end is the one in which you bow(ed).

Here's the thing: pick a religious observance, such as the Christian communion. The glass (perhaps containing port, or Welch's grape juice -- I grew up with the latter) is raised, the pastor or priest or whomever quotes "drink this in remembrance of Me" and, well, down the hatch.

This too is a living gesture in the present that has no beginning and no end, and includes you, the other communicants present, all other communicants, the street on which the church building is placed, and the homeless person in the alley behind the church. It transcends (tricky word but let's go with it) what we call time, such that we are present at the original Last Supper, and also at the last Last Supper.

So, that's part of my current take on why I am attracted to interpath dialogue.

But also (again IMHO), secularity is no escape from this ontology; some of us woo-woo types sometimes say things to the effect is "nothing is sacred and everything is sacred" -- often with a little laugh, perhaps hoping not to be burned at the stake -- but, though we may fervently apply Occam's Razor to our fullest Hitchensian extent, a flower may be no more than a flower, but also it is no less.

この法は、人々の分上にゆたかにそなわれりといえども、いまだ修せざるにはあらはれず、証せざ るにはうるこ となし

"This Dharma is abundantly present in each human being, but if we do not practice it, it does not manifest itself, and if we do not experience it, it cannot be realized." (Dogen, Bendowa tr. Nishijima and Cross)

The unlimited accumulation of wealth

Guest post by Plato (428-438 BCE approx., The Republic, Book II, Jowett tr. Emphases added).

[Socrates] .... let us then consider, first of all, what will be their way of life, now that we have thus established them. Will they not produce corn, and wine, and clothes, and shoes, and build houses for themselves? And when they are housed, they will work, in summer, commonly, stripped and barefoot, but in winter substantially clothed and shod. They will feed on barley-meal and flour of wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reeds or on clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds strewn with yew or myrtle. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and hymning the praises of the gods, in happy converse with one another. And they will take care that their families do not exceed their means ....

[Glaucon] Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts?

But what would you have, Glaucon? I replied.

Why, he said, you should give them the ordinary conveniences of life. People who are to be comfortable are accustomed to lie on sofas, and dine off tables, and they should have sauces and sweets in the modern style.

Yes, I said, now I understand: the question which you would have me consider is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created; and possibly there is no harm in this, for in such a State we shall be more likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also to see a State at fever heat, I have no objection. For I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler way. They will be for adding sofas, and tables, and other furniture; also dainties, and perfumes, and incense, and courtesans, and cakes, all these not of one sort only, but in every variety; we must go beyond the necessaries of which I was at first speaking, such as houses, and clothes, and shoes: the arts of the painter and the embroiderer will have to be set in motion, and gold and ivory and all sorts of materials must be procured.

True, he said.

Then we must enlarge our borders; for the original healthy State is no longer sufficient. Now will the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of callings which are not required by any natural want; such as the whole tribe of hunters and actors, of whom one large class have to do with forms and colours; another will be the votaries of music --poets and their attendant train of rhapsodists, players, dancers, contractors; also makers of divers kinds of articles, including women's dresses. And we shall want more servants. Will not tutors be also in request, and nurses wet and dry, tirewomen and barbers, as well as confectioners and cooks; and swineherds, too, who were not needed and therefore had no place in the former edition of our State, but are needed now? They must not be forgotten: and there will be animals of many other kinds, if people eat them.

Certainly.

And living in this way we shall have much greater need of physicians than before?

Much greater.

And the country which was enough to support the original inhabitants will be too small now, and not enough?

Quite true.

Then a slice of our neighbours' land will be wanted by us for pasture and tillage, and they will want a slice of ours, if, like ourselves, they exceed the limit of necessity, and give themselves up to the unlimited accumulation of wealth?

That, Socrates, will be inevitable.

And so we shall go to war, Glaucon. Shall we not?

:::

This year’s crop isn’t ripe yet.
Last year’s grain’s all gone.
So out I go to beg a peck;
outside the gate, I was on one foot, then the other.
The husband came out and said, “Best ask my wife.”
The wife came out and said, “Ask the old man.”
Hearts hard as that . . .
Wealth itself is a great misfortune.

-- Han Shan (Cold Mountain, Tr. Seaton)

And perhaps even find yourself happy

This repost is not about economic inequity. It may serve however to alleviate some symptoms of it for some.

I recognize there are compelling reasons why nine out of ten of us are still in town and that's not likely to change much ("Lord knows, I tried," weeps the country blogista), so let's talk about urban simplicity.

Let's assume that you have work. Big assumption right now, I know. If you're running out of unemployment, it might be time to think about making some work. Grab a copy of Small Time Operator and start selling something you can make or do. Because rule one in spending less than your income is have an income. Even if you're a vegetarian selling hot dogs.

Aside from disasters (and you've done your minimum preps for those, right?), debt is likely to be your big issue. It's what's holding you back from heading for the country, if that's what you wanted, or from living the "American Dream," whatever that is. A shortage of disposable income and freedom because of, you know, the student loan, the car loan, the mortgage, and the credit cards. And you're not as happy as you thought you were going to be.

There are lots of strategies for debt reduction. Seek and ye shall find. We've used doubled mortgage payments ourselves, effectively. To make such things work, though, the first thing to do is bring outgo below income. Bring frivolous outgo to a halt and you are on your way.

"Voluntary simplicity" is touted as a proper response to modern malaise, but common sense suggests this is what people talk about when they're afraid to take the real plunge and go for the gold: voluntary poverty. Maybe it's anything but voluntary, letting that word "poverty" slip in there, but if your goal is to rise up from slavery (and debt is exactly that), it can be necessary to redirect our pride.

In the reality we've been brought up to, validated not by our own good sense but by a lifetime barrage of television and other advertising, we're supposed to aspire to "more" -- a shinier house, a shinier car, bigger and brassier parties, endless gadgets, and smarter and smarter phones, all of which which we're dumber and dumber to get in hock for. The trick is to voluntarily take pride in, not these ultimately empty and unsatisfactory acquisitions, but the opposite: de-acquisition.

If there are more than one of you, it might take a very, very serious "family meeting" to all get on the same page, but it can be very focusing to open the meeting with, "here's one thousand dollars a month we can count on for the time being; how do we get by on nine hundred?"

Sounds unrealistic, I know. Maybe your line in the sand is three times that, or more. Goodness knows, a buck is not a buck anymore. But that's going to get worse, so ... well, here's a story.

When I had my mid-life crisis awhile back, I moved (with family permission) temporarily to town for over a year. They depended on my income, so I got a budget of four hundred a month (in 1998 dollars). Here's how it was done.

First, we did research on rent. The best deal (cheapest housing) was, as it happened, two blocks from my university library job. It was what is known as a quad: a room with a vanity sink corner, sharing, from a tiny common hallway, a bathroom and kitchen with three other such rooms. They are intended for students who can't afford an apartment but don't want to live in the dorms. With heat, electric and dumpster fees, a set of shelves, a bed, two chairs, and a table, it was under three hundred a month. 

 

So I moved in.

 

I  took along a bicycle with a rear rack and basket. I had found the bike, a decent old ten-speed that still knew where six of its speeds were, leaning against a driveway fence with a sign taped to it: "Free. Take me." Best bike I ever had. With it I brought along my bike helmet, cable, padlock, and key.

 

On the bike I rode to the discount grocery store, stopping to top up the air pressure in the old leaky tires at a filling station along the way.

Inside the store I grabbed a shopping cart and sought out a twenty-five pound bag of quick oats, twenty-pound sack of white beans, another sack, same size, of long-grain rice, a ten pound sack of yellow onions, a ten pound bag of russety Idaho potatoes, a pound can of salt, and a family-sized jar of Italian seasoning. I also splurged for  a head of Chinese cabbage.

You might think all this would not go home on the bike in one trip, but it can.

I now had more than a month's food, purchased for under fifty dollars, rolling home beside me as I gripped the handlebars.

Sure, people looked at me funny. So? In most places, it's how you roll.

Back at the apartment I set up the steamer on the "dining room" table, near the wall, and loaded it with water. This was a little Sunbeam with a forty-five minute timer -- much better ones are available, but as Goodwill steamers go, it was not bad. Its plastic rice dish was long gone, but I could put a cup of rice or beans or diced potatoes and dandelion greens in one of the bowls, add the appropriate amount of water and some salt and Italian spices, set the timer, and, by and by, take out the bowl and there was dinner -- or breakfast, or lunch.

Waitaminnit! says the careful reader. Surely not rice for breakfast!

Why not? And without coffee or tea, usually. Didn't miss them at all.

Reader: But -- but --

Or beans. Or potatoes. Usually with a few wild onions. And a glass of tap water.

Reader: But you couldn't --

Yes, I could. For months on end. I lost a little weight, but in my case, that was a good thing. None of this required refrigerating, if managed carefully, and though I was charged for it, I never haunted the communal kitchen, which was a howling disaster area non-maintained by my three unmet student roomies. There was no need.

 I should mention our town seems to have a good supply of unattended cherry, apple, pear, plum, and Asian pear trees and no end of blackberries, dandelions, lamb's quarters and such free for the picking, for all of which the bike baskets came in handy. And over time I got to learn how to ask grocers what they were about to throw out. When company came, I felt I was in a position to be generous.

Wind in the Willows. Arthur Rackham. Children's Imaginative Illustrations

Reader: And the rest of your time -- ?

No problem. I slept, or bathed, or ate, or thought, or went for walks or bike rides. Of course, if you are at all like me, it helps immensely to do this sort of thing in a university town. A university town has, in effect, a functional commons. I went to town meetings, galleries, museums, free concerts, free plays, and lectures. I read many books; all those on hand several times and all I could carry back from the library. I spent long evenings in that library, which closed in those days at eleven p.m. (it was only two blocks from home, remember). I had access there to not only books but music, videos if I wanted them (I generally didn't, and kept no television at home), magazines, newspapers, and of course the Internet. I worked on my volunteer project, at my own desk after my colleagues had gone home for the day, and produced first drafts of this, this, this, and this. I was also in school (full-time employees could take classes for next to nothing), and when I could I would take the bus and go do a stint of parenting and farm upkeep.

Reader [weakly]: On -- on $400 a month?

Yes, with change left over. One family goal was to pay off the country place ASAP. I couldn't spend too much on my mid-life crisis because we were making double payments. It was a twenty year mortgage and the idea was to clear it in less than fifteen. Which we did.

And I want to emphasize that I am telling you this because if you think things through, and have a bit of luck to go with it (I had no major illness during that time), you can live on far, far less than you may currently think you will need, and perhaps even find yourself happy.


盗人に取り残されし窓の月
ぬすっとに　とりのこされし　まどのつき

The thief left it behind:
the moon
at my window. 

-- Ryokan (Stephen Mitchell, tr.)