I don’t want to tempt fate, so I am knocking on wood and crossing my fingers as I type (not easy) – but I think I may actually make it to the end of this voyage without running out of anything vital – like toilet paper, Larabars, or functioning iPods.
I’ve been doing regular inventories since before halfway, and monitoring my consumption of various essentials. A tin of butter lasts me about 10 days, a jar of tahini 12 days, and so on. Where need be, I’ve rationed. Wet wipes, which I use for toilet tissue, looked to be a scarce commodity, but the Indian method works just as well, and I have infinite amounts of water while my watermaker continues to function. So now I’m feeling cautiously confident that I will make it to landfall without any serious decline in my standard of onboard living.
It makes me wonder why we’re not better at doing this collectively and globally. Given the finite nature of certain resources – fossil fuels, minerals and precious metals, endangered species – why aren’t we husbanding them more carefully?
I suppose the big difference is that there is one of me, but 7 billion of us worldwide. While I am on board Sedna, I have no competition for my limited resources. If I use them up too quickly, the only person who suffers is me. But globally, we seem to be in some kind of insane race to get our hands on scarce resources before somebody else gets to them first. It’s a zero sum game – I win, you lose.
Except, ultimately, we will all lose, unless we start thinking more holistically. And that is going to take one heck of a shift of consciousness. Pigs may fly before we achieve it. Mind you, I used to think that flying squid sounded improbable…. so you never know.
Other Stuff:
Things calming down out here. There was no need for me to pump out the deck lockers this morning, which made a nice change. The downside is that, despite a hard day’s rowing, my mileage was less than impressive. But at least it was all in the right direction.
Mum is out of her cast – hurrah!! She is now getting used to her newfound freedom. There have been many similarities between her plight and mine – it made me laugh when Mum pointed out that we both needed two sticks to get around – and although I am now envying her liberty to walk about, in about a month from now I, too, will be rediscovering the joys of walking.
Quote for the day: “God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.” (John Muir)
Sponsored Miles: Thank you to Tom Grimmett. Larry Grandt sponsored Roz, but is sadly no longer with with us.
Two men were out fishing in the Indian Ocean, when they found an ancient oil lamp floating in the water. One of the men picked it up and while attempting to clean it, rubbed it just right, causing a genie to fume from the lamp. Unfortunately, it was a very low-level genie and could only grant one wish. The men, being Brittish, thought for a several minutes and decided to wish for the entire sea to be made of the best beer in the world.
With a poof! the wish was granted. All of a sudden, one of the men got really angry. “Doh! Now we have to pee in the boat!”
The easiest thing a guest at this gathering can do is to look up a good joke to share with Roz…
Although I am new to belly flopping on your blog, Roz, I am not new to belly flopping in general. I really appreciate that you take big calculated risks and that you have such a great overall message. Taking risks could also mean being wrong. I was watching this TED presentation about being wrong or rather, being fixated on the “correct” stance so much so that it prevents change and taking the next step. I think that as a whole, we may all be in that same boat, at least the quorum is. I think that we all have bought some part of this -being correct theory- while growing up. Now we have to re-think some wrong assumptions.
There are so many parallels to you, your message and this video that I could not wait for you to hit landfall before sharing it with the rest… I hope that it will become good fodder for discussion over caffiene or hops upon your return, (once your are on dry land, how about another live web chat over the internet similar to the Hey.com ones, but this time, topic oriented in an effort to be idea and solutions based avenue of exchange?) …
http://youtu.be/QleRgTBMX88
Kathryn Shulz: On being wrong
and this one is rather long but considering today’s blog, it is very appropriate as it has everything to do with negotiating from a perspective of cohesiveness
William Ury: The walk from no to yes
http://youtu.be/Hc6yi_FtoNo
Row Roz Row!
~Jay
It can be quite discouraging to conserve when people around you are not. Why should I bother, no one else is doing it. When I see a small creek running down the gutter from a neighbor washing a car it makes me cringe, and water saving spray nozzles are free from the water company! I won’t back slide, but it’s helpful to be in touch with a group that understands. Thanks Roz and all you bloggers.
Hey Roz,
Nice to catch up with your blog today. I am home from a second surgery, recovering and gaining trust (again) and strength. Looks like I’m keeping on. Good for that, I say.
Reading about and thinking about you and your trip and about my ravaged home state of Vermont has kept me going too. Water, your path, has also shown itself to be a powerful destructor. Most roads and bridges in Vermont were badly damaged after the Hurricane Irene aftermath. Huge destruction, stranded towns. The communities have pulled together as they will in these cases. I feel so sad that our lives routinely include such events. Cancer. Floods. Hurricanes.
Just know you continue to inspire me on my little dry (for the month) path.
With love and in admiration,
Laurey in Asheville
Laurey, thoughts with you and all Vermonters.
I’m a bit under the weather today so I will keep this short.
Congratulations Rita! so good to hear you’re out of the cast and can hobble ’round a bit more easily. Yay!
Roz . . . good to hear you are most likely not going to run out of essentials!
Okay now . . . back to bed.
Roz, apropos of today’s theme, earlier this morning I happened to see a comment (see below) on one of your Facebook fan status posts yesterday: “We want our manufacturing processes to be circular, not linear, but our lives to be linear, not circular.”
The link is to a wonderful animated video “Re-thinking Progress: The Circular Economy” on http://www.earthsayers.com page “Transforming Our Economy.” Here is a tiny link http://bit.ly/oclOLK to the page.
Ruth Ann Barrett : Ellen MacArthur fellow seawoman is on same wavelength: http://www.earthsayers.com/special_collection/Re-thinking_Progress_The_Circular_Economy/13/20673The earthsayers page includes the following:
There’s a world of opportunity to re-think and re-design the way we make stuff. ‘Re-Thinking Progress’ explores how through a change in perspective we can re-design the way our economy works – designing products that can be ‘made to be made again’ and powering the system with renewable energy. It questions whether with creativity and innovation we can build a restorative economy.Find out more about the circular economy at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and follow them onTwitter.EarthSayer Ellen MacArthur
About this Custom CollectionInspired by the Capital Institute’s Third Millennium Economy initiative, this collection highlights those voices – ecological economists, sociologist, finance professionals, environmentalists, community developers – advocating a restructuring of our economy to transition to a truly sustainable economic system.
Great comments, UncaDoug. If you haven’t already seen it, this is good too:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/william_mcdonough_on_cradle_to_cradle_design.html
McDonough has a punchy, irreverent, take-no-prisoners, and compromise-my-a** attitude. His work is amazing.
Hi Roz,
I just wanted to say that I have been using your adventure to try and inspire the children in my swimming classes here and many are convinced they can see you on the horizon, so I might have been telling a few white lies about your location! Anyhow when you wrote about finding a water bottle that was a fantastic point to show where all the rubbish thrown into the sea here ends up. Although sometimes it feels like a losing battle as everytime we have a beach clean up the next day it is covered again, being able to explain that every bit of rubbish we take off the beach is one less piece to end up in the middle of the ocean really helps so thank you!!Thank you also for making me feel that life is not quite so tough when I am struggling to get things achieved here I can read your blog and all my problems pale into insignificance and I feel much more capable!RachelIn the Maldives where we keep waving to you!
Hurrah Rita….no more cast 🙂
True Brits have real grit !!…you are one heck of a Brit Roz :)…Row your way to home soon ….David Church. UK
Hi Roz,
You have something most of the 7 billion on the planet don’t have: A clear idea where you’re from, where you’re at, where you’re going, and approximately what it takes to get there.
Cheers,
Eric
What do conservatives conserve?
What do liberals liberate?
A root meaning of “liberal” is generous! This is commendable when one is generous with ones own resources. In politics it generally means being generous with other peoples resources.
A root meaning of “conservative” is preserve. Sometimes we preserve the wrong things. It is said there are two main reasons people oppose change. #1 We’ve always done it this way. #2 We’ve never done it that way. Change for change’s sake is not good, neither is the refusal to change for the sake of keeping the status quo as such.
Sometimes the labels seem opposite to the reality. As Roz responded to me yesterday, “the real point of “environmentalism” is to keep the ecosystem exactly as
it is, or even better, as it used to be – and if that isn’t
“conservative”, I don’t know what is.”
The old, but modern concept of “enlightened self-interest” coupled with careful examination of all ramifications of our choices would serve us well. I recommend “Economics in One Lesson” by Henry Hazlitt. I quote,
“Economics, … is a science of
recognizing secondary consequences. It is also a science of seeing
general consequences. It is the science of tracing the effects of some
proposed or existing policy not only on some special interest in the
short run, but on the general interest in the long run.”
Glad to hear that. A “fresh” perspective. Thanks!
That was a powerful and positive video, Bruce. Thanks for sharing it!
~Jay~
*S*p*L*a*S*h*!*
Row for the shore girl! … stop in the Maldives if you can… images.google.com says you should not miss out! Rita, sending you good vibes via facebook! Hurrah! 🙂
The reason we’re not better at living within our means and persevering scarce resources is because we either have forgotten or never knew what “usufruct” means.
“Usufruct” is a bit like “conservation” is today, although usufruct goes much further. Usufruct describes the legal right of one to hold and use land (or a resource) for their enjoyment and profit so long as they do not diminish the value or quality of the land for future generations to use, enjoy, or profit from.
Permaculture would be an example of usufruct, while oil extraction and consumption would be the antithesis of usufruct.
Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison in 1789: “I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, “that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living”: that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.”
I love this blog and this community ;-D
Interesting idea, Bob. The problem I have is in the phrase “…for their enjoyment and profit so long as they do not diminish the value or quality of the land…” What I consider severely diminished land value the cattle ranger or logging corporation considers land improvement or, worse yet, the dreaded “R” word–reclamation. That phrase is a slippery slope.
You say that pigs may fly before we develop holistic consciousness. I can only hope and pray that Katherine Hepburn was right (in “The Lion in Winter”):
“There’ll be pork in the trees come morning!”
I read this somewhere, maybe it was on you blog, not sure, but I like it. Stay strong.
“Why is willful damage to man made property called vandalism, yet destruction of wilderness called development?”