Deep Economy: One for all

Recently I've been reading Bill McKibben's Deep Economy. It discusses many things that I agree with, but tend to shrug off as impractical in our efforts to save the world from peak oil, global warming, and evil corporations and their republican brethren. This book was pushed and prodded into my hands by my hetero-life-mate and future China and India traveling buddy Ted as "the basis for our trip". Our many conversations on the topic always end up pushing in the same directions; with him going local and shunning big green energy (I'm beginning to hate the word but...) solutions and me going straight economist and fighting the good fight to beat dirty oil at its own game: price.

For some time now on a personal level, I've felt a barely perceivable (but sometimes more obvious) disconnect with things around me. It would manifest itself in ways like not being excited about going out like I used to, forcing it a little when meeting new people, and being perfectly happy staying in a playing video games on a saturday (a feat that I was rather proud of actually).

It all started (or made itself evident) when I recently uprooted myself for the...fifth time as far as I can tell. After building a strong group of friends, a good support network of close confidants, loosely connected acquaintances, and a set of spots we all liked to hang, I took the move from Taipei to Kaohsiung almost on a whim and with a bit of sudden gusto. It had all been considered, with all the set pieces agreeing with my move, but that last weekend of Chinese New Year had me as surprised as everyone else that I returned from my trip down south a week late and with a new teaching job and a new place to stash my stuff.

Bill McKibben takes an unrelenting, yet impartial look at the effect Walmart has had on communities. Although this is not a new idea, he insightfully points out that the devastation wrought on local businesses and communities can be valued as a positive for the individual in two important and measurable ways: more selection and lower prices.

It's this "hyper-individualism" that really struck a chord. The new home designs featuring secluded internet nooks (including one of my own design that I'm sitting in right now) and private offices away from your spouse or your kids, city living (not so different than my own suburban childhood in this respect for that matter) where I recognize almost nobody in the elevator, and the stifling addiction to portable electronics that invades every conversation and precludes many more.

Coming to Kaohsiung inspired great personal achievement for myself. I started my blog with countless more hours than I'd ever imagined spending, sparked an idea with a friend for a trip-of-a-lifetime tour around China and India, and, most importantly, solidified serious future plans by getting into the grad program of my choice. All this I partly attributed to my new lack of community and all the time I'd saved by staying in at night.

McKibben touches on the lack of care we have for the place we live when that local connection has been severed. This manifests itself in small communities as increased crime rates, walking right by everyone on the street without so much as a nod, and even shopping at Walmart over the corner mom and pop store. Taken on a larger scale it can create global warming and political policies that push a vast wealth disparity. But what drives it home is that after all the constant entertainment, low prices, and GDP growth, the individual simply isn't getting any happier.

My pride in being able to stay home on a weekend night after years of antsily shooting out the door to find the party may seem misplaced in this light, but it's not, not exactly. For years I believed (and probably later convinced myself), that the urge to go out was youthful exuberance, being a good friend, and never wanting to miss running into that soulmate this is floating out there somewhere. There is some truth to all of that, but the bare snippets of conversation over loud music, random and infrequently repeated acquaintances, and frankly way too much booze just got old after a while, and my hermitage reflected not my will to be alone, but rather the lack of obvious options our "hyper-individualized" society presented me.

The constant thrum of bad music mixed with "What? Did you say from New York?" is the mobile version of sharing dinner over 2 iPads and the inevitable follow up of trying to think about work (real work, blogging, researching, planning the trip, etc) with the gong erupting in my head and my stomach turning knots on a sunday morning is about as fulfilling as making friends on Facebook. Even our physical time together consists of mainly virtual connections. My move to Kaohsiung also put a strain on the deep connections I had made in Taipei with bartime replacing real conversation. Where I would spend hours with a single friend on a Wednesday night before, each visit up north became a Twitter-like update when I see everybody out at the bar for my one night up.

But sacrificing my playtime gave me worktime, and therefore success, didn't it? And herein lies a fundamental question regarding divisions in 2012. How did people build communities, connections, friendships, without sacrificing success before our time? How do they do it now? The Roots hit it years ago:


I tell you one lesson I learned
If you want to reach something in life
You ain't gonna get it unless
You give a little bit of sacrifice
Ooohh, sometimes before you smile you got to cry
You need a heart that's filled with music
If you use it you can fly
If you want to be high


You HAVE to sacrifice, but you have a choice.

I sacrificed a great BBQ when I could have sacrificed 2 hours on Facebook. I rejected invitations to great bonding bike rides when I could have cut 3 episodes of Boardwalk Empire. All this just like I maintained my friendships in Taipei while economizing my study time instead of my internet addiction. I see these same choices being made by everyone around me, and they are not more connected, not better informed (I'll allow for a possible exception here), and not happier, just busier.

I'd like to believe that this helps me understand Ted's perspective a little better. What it is, and what it should be for everybody, is a deeply personal introspection of how I relate to my world, my community, and the people around me, and also how I want to. Economists may say (and correctly), that Walmart benefits the community, because macroeconomics and broad societal analysis is not wrong, it is only a tool misdirected. We must alter the definition to fit our motives. We want to make the world better, not just faster, bigger, and more wealthy. Does this mean McKibben is right in thinking small with local farming and strong communities being the answer? Does this mean that large scale production of solar panels is the answer? Yes. To both. But the solar panels should be locally owned and the local farms need to be part of a global movement.  We have many tools at our disposal, and we need to put them all to work.