by Ben Hewitt
Unlike my previous experience with him piloting an automobile, Erik drove ploddingly and he seemed unaware of the fact that his windshield wipers were swishing uselessly across a dry windshield. We passed a chicken, meandering aimlessly along the road’s shoulder. We passed a young child on a bicycle, meandering aimlessly along the road’s shoulder. The leaves on the trees were just emerging from their buds, and the whole world seemed ready to explode to green. We passed Heidi’s house, where the lawn had been almost entirely converted to garden space. A gaggle of ducks quacked and waddled about inside a square of fence. Two others were splashing in a shallow pool that had been dug by hand. The intent was to grow rice in the pool. Growing rice in Vermont . . . I tried to muster surprise, but could not.
As he drove, Erik talked about the bicycle tour he was helping organize. It was called the “Solar Rollers,” and his participation in both its orchestration and actual undertaking were part of his efforts to help shut down Vermont Yankee, the state’s only nuclear power plant. For the bike tour, he’d created a whimsical promotional poster, featuring a quartet of wild animals—a fox, a raccoon, a turtle, and a bird that might have been a blue jay—piloting bicycles against a backdrop of green hills. The making of the poster had been somewhat stressful for him, primarily because it had necessitated a fair amount of computer time. “When I’m at a computer, I feel like my life’s wasting away. I mean literally, viscerally.” He made a fluttering motion with one hand, like a bird taking flight.
Still, his efforts in protesting the nuclear power plant seemed to have abated, at least temporarily, the gnawing sensation he’d experienced the previous November. “I think I have to go beyond the lifestyle,” he’d told me then, after a sleepless night spent wandering the streets of his small town, wondering if his limited participation in the commodity economy was enough to affect positive change in the broader world. True, he hadn’t managed to shutter the nuclear facility, and he acknowledged the work was frustratingly lacking in tangible progress, but the mere fact that he was doing something was enough to stem the tide of self-recrimination. “I couldn’t live with myself if I wasn’t trying,” he told me. He repeated it: “I couldn’t live with myself.”
Meanwhile, his avoidance of money had, if anything, picked up steam. Just a few weeks before, in April, he’d paid a visit to the local health clinic to have his teeth cleaned. The clinic structured its fees on a sliding scale in relation to income, so Erik had completed an income statement at the outset of his visit, and handed it to the receptionist. “This can’t be right,” the receptionist said, when she examined Erik’s paperwork. “It says here you’ve only made $300 so far this year.”
It was, of course, correct; in the 3 months that had passed since the start of the New Year, Erik had made a mere $300, occasionally working at the wilderness day camp he’d long been a part of, and also at a friend’s fledgling nursery. “But I have to find some more work soon,” he admitted. “I don’t have much money left.” I cast my gaze around the interior of the Honda, and wondered how long it would take him to realize he had at least $1.68 in spare change sloshing around the car. Heck, it was probably enough to last him a week.
A dozen or so minutes after we left the cabin, we pulled onto the same steep gravel road we’d visited the year before, and beelined for the same reliably prolific copse of dead elm trees where, 12 months earlier, I’d harvested my first-ever morels. With the benefit of a full season of mushrooming under my belt, I felt none of the uncertainty I’d felt the previous year: I knew what to look for and if they were there, I’d find them, damn it.
Except, they weren’t there. We scoured the ground beneath the elms, finding nothing but a layer of leaves shed the autumn before and gone brown and brittle. The leaves crackled and crunched under our feet, as if we were walking on a thin sheet of glass. We moved on to another spot, a bit deeper into the forest. We climbed up a sharp rise, then across. I could feel the pulse of my blood moving through my body. It felt good. I could smell the arrival of spring, the sweet muskiness of the decomposing organic matter that carpeted the ground and, floating on top of it, something lighter, almost floral. The expanding buds of the trees, perhaps, opening to see sun for the first time.
Still, we did not find mushrooms. “Maybe it’s too early,” said Erik. He scratched an armpit. “The weather is so screwed up this year.” We poked around for another minute, to no avail. And then, just as I was preparing to climb farther up the hill, to the abandoned apple orchard that lined the path Erik once walked daily on his way to and from the cabin in the woods, he spoke again. “I’ve probably got to be getting back. Do you know what time it is?”
Funny, I had no idea.
* * *
42 Naturally, these are the individuals and corporations that contribute the most to political campaigns.
43 In the United States, asthma is the fastest-growing chronic disease, claiming 4,000 lives annually.
44 This would turn out to be a used clarinet, which I should not have been surprised to learn Erik played with surprising skill.
THE CONSCIOUS ECONOMY MANIFESTO
$ IN A CONSCIOUS ECONOMY, there is widespread recognition that one’s time is, in truth, one’s life. This cultivates a degree of self-respect and self-reverence that is largely absent from the unconscious economy, where so much of our life is spent at jobs we despise, or in mindless passivity.45
$ IN A CONSCIOUS ECONOMY, no one believes the idiom that time is money. This is not to say that no one works for an hourly wage, only that one does so with the presence of mind that it is not merely one’s time being sold, but one’s life. As such, purchases are made with utmost consideration for not merely their commodity value, but their worth in relation to that which is their true cost: a percentage of one’s finite waking hours upon this earth.
$ IN A CONSCIOUS ECONOMY, material objects are valued for both their utilitarian capacity and the personal connections they represent. The resources they embody are acknowledged, and from that acknowledgment comes respect and gratitude for the gift of these resources. Furthermore, there is widespread awareness that the consumption of nonrenewable resources means that others cannot benefit from their use. As such, we enter into a new era of consummate materialism, rooted in quality, rather than quantity. Maintenance and care of material objects are part and parcel of this materialism.
$ IN A CONSCIOUS ECONOMY, it is understood that the health of the economy cannot be accurately assessed by numerical metrics such as gross domestic product because such metrics are a product of commoditization. Instead, the “economy” component incorporates numerous elements beyond the realms of money and finance. These include, but are not limited to, self-assessed measures of happiness and contentment, job satisfaction, physical health, soil health, access to nourishing foods, and the overall well-being of the environment.
$ IN A CONSCIOUS ECONOMY, it is clear to all that the money-as-debt model is inherently unstable and unsustainable. The capacity to loan money into existence, to be repaid with interest, creates a dynamic of ever-increasing claims on our underlying resource base: our “true wealth,” if you will. There is widespread awareness that this type of debt fails us on every level, from the moral to the structural vulnerability it generates in the systemic arrangements we depend upon for our day-to-day survival.
$ IN A CONSCIOUS ECONOMY, money is only one of many tools that allow us to conduct exchange and store value. Furthermore, it is understood that money’s value is merely representative, and that it always represents the underlying resources, be they of nature or humankind, to which it ultimately lays claim. As such, money is not seen as a means to an end, but rather a medium through which to obtain these resources.
$ IN A CONSCIOUS ECONOMY, the true costs associated with all forms of production are diligently sought. These costs include but are not limited to: the energy embedded in products and services, environmental degradation, and the humanitarian toll often associated with the extraction of natural resources an
d industrial manufacture. As an honest accounting of these factors is sought, these processes will become increasingly regionalized, so that accountability cannot be diluted by distance.
$ IN A CONSCIOUS ECONOMY, there is a clear distinction between “value” and “worth.” The former is used for items and services that exist in the commodity marketplace and must by necessity be priced against a dislike metric; the latter applies to items and elements that cannot be readily assigned a market value. It is broadly understood that “value” is subject to external forces beyond individual control, while “worth” is more autonomous and, therefore, more secure.
$ IN A CONSCIOUS ECONOMY, personal interconnectedness and interdependence are embraced, and the prevailing ethos of self-reliance is shunned. To rely on others is not considered shameful, nor does doing so result in accrued debt. Because of the increased social engagement demanded by interdependence, there is less anonymity and more personal accountability, and as a result social pressure ensures that few exploit this “system” of generosity. It is from this emerging culture of interdependence that a portion of our needs are met outside the scope of the dominant money system, and our concept of “social security” evolves to include the strength and resilience of our relationships with those around us.
$ IN A CONSCIOUS ECONOMY, we are wealthy in what matters, and poor (or at least, poorer) in what doesn’t. It is generally understood that what matters is nature, relationships, community, freedom, spiritual fulfillment, and overall contentment. Likewise, it is generally understood that what doesn’t matter is the accumulation of money and the collection of anonymous, homogenized goods that, despite all promises to the contrary, only demean and dilute our relationships to that which does matter. This will require many of us to accept a lower “standard of living,” as defined by the unconscious economy. However, while divesting ourselves of the accumulated abundance in Things That Do Not Matter is likely to foment a degree of emotional unease, this unease will ultimately be offset by the embrace of Things That Do Matter and the simple pleasure of inviting them into our lives.
$ IN A CONSCIOUS ECONOMY, there is no “too big to fail” among the institutions that provide the goods and services of contemporary American life. This is because there is no dependence on vulnerable institutions that are allowed to attain such power and influence in the first place.
$ IN A CONSCIOUS ECONOMY, we can afford to pursue our passions and discover our true gift to the world. And because we are no longer consumed with the accumulation of monetary wealth, we are freer in emotion and intellect. Not only does our time (life) become our own again, so to do our thoughts and feelings.
$ IN A CONSCIOUS ECONOMY, there is no separation between “us” and “nature” or between some of “us” and others of “us” or between the physical and spiritual representations of “us.” As such, there is broad acceptance of the truism that our well-being is dependent on the wellbeing of elements that are commonly viewed as distinct and separate from the physical embodiment of the human form and all its thoughts and actions.
$ IN A CONSCIOUS ECONOMY, it is understood that the contemporary view of life and death as divergent and autonomous states is a contrivance of human emotion, and it is acknowledged that, in accordance with the law of nature, each is dependent on the other. This is important because often it is our fear of personal decline and inevitable death that creates a sense of panicked vulnerability. In an unconscious economy, this vulnerability is often treated with consumption, accumulation, and other compulsions. As we move toward an economy in which we see life and death as being not just two sides of the same coin, but events along the continuum of human existence, we become less vulnerable and less fearful, and therefore more able to fully appreciate whatever time we are allotted.
When taken as a whole, the Conscious Economy Manifesto might seem overwhelming or perhaps idealistic. But its true power lies in the fact that it is more process than prescription, and that adopting even a single tenet can have a profound impact in how one views the world and the choices one makes to align one’s life with that view.
To those who doubt that individual choice can affect the sort of change that so desperately needs to happen on a national and even global scale, I ask that you consider how your actions might influence others. I ask that you remember how Erik, with the quiet activism of his personal decisions, has managed to so profoundly impact my life and the lives of many around him. Already in his young life, he has dropped many pebbles, and those pebbles have generated many waves.
Maybe it’s time for you to drop some pebbles of your own.
* * *
45 Needless to say, the role of television and media in the conscious economy is greatly reduced.
Mention of specific companies, organizations, or authorities in this book does not imply endorsement by the author or publisher, nor does mention of specific companies, organizations, or authorities imply that they endorse this book, its author, or the publisher.
Internet addresses and telephone numbers given in this book were accurate at the time it went to press.
© 2013 by Ben Hewitt
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any other information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.
Book design by Amy King
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the publisher.
ISBN 978–1–60961–408–9 hardcover
eISBN 978–1–60961–409–6
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