The Doing It Ourselves Culture

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Sep 26, 2005

"We were four miles from the beach at a neighbor's brick house. It was clear out, no breeze, nothing. Then all of a sudden the water came down the street like someone was dumping a big bucket. Thirteen-foot-high tidal waves were coming straight at us."

It was then that Donnelly let out her first scream.

Griffin looked outside the window for the highest ground he could see.

"We aimed way over here to get to a house over there," Donnelly said while pointing in two different directions. I thank God that that house was sturdy. We always wanted to see that big house.

"We held on to the porch post," she remembered. "We held onto it for more than five hours."

A story straight out of the December 26, 2004 chronicles. Or so eerily familiar for one who first-hand experienced the tsunami exactly nine months ago today.

But it's actually a Katrina survivor story.

I'm standing outside in the spectacular crisp fall day in front of the Swedish American Hall yesterday somewhere near where the the Mission and the Castro areas blur in San Fran, the edge of think for yourself independent streak lifestyles. I'm continuing my conversation with Niti Bhan who has walked over with me to the site of Webzine 2005, the epitome of DIY culture (DIY, btw, is Do-It-Yourself). It's not ususual to encounter Webzine attendees have pulled up their own sleeves to help with Katrina, whether that's to uncover the truth and set up computer and communication networks or to distribute and coordinate local shelter resources.

I'm telling Niti one of my first thoughts when the eminent danger of the tsunami was over and I'm sitting surreally at a stunning clifftop hotel restaurant with my injured leg sprawled on a white patio chair waiting for what was next was (and no idea what that would be): "I realized I'm in a foreign country injured - with no money, no ID. So I'm screwed. No one will help me without money." (This is a few hours after the tsunami when information was non-existent.)

Yup, no one will help me without payment was my conditioned response. The post-apolcalyptic scenes in NOLA would jibe with this instinctual "I'm on my own. It's now every man or woman out for themself now." We may watch out for our own family unit, but our mind doesn't register the elderly black woman living alone in the corner house.

It was only in talking with Niti that I realized this thinking is deeply systemic as she points out. And I think Dave Rogers hinted at the same thing with respect to consumer culture. The McGyver mindset ("There's nothing you can't do if you have a Swiss Army Knife, a roll of duct tape, and your wits") might be prevalent today if it weren't for The Gap and MTV. The community-bound intrinsicly-motivated pioneer spirit that founded America wasn't going to cut it for the industrial age's mass sale of consumer goods. Over time, we've learned to rely on keeping up with what the Joneses are wearing and doing, our insurance premiums, our social security, our paychecks, our 401Ks and our expectations and purchases of a guaranteed safety net and the illusion of control.

Through all her agony, a wishful Donnelly continued to believe that someone was going to save her...

"I was imagining FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) coming up in military trucks for survivors," Donnelly said. "I was expecting people to pick us up." - "Katrina: A Lifetime Ago", Greenville, Mich. The Daily News

There is no 911 equivalent in most parts of the world. And there is no pension. Niti witnessed a neighbor family struck in an auto accident in Delhi, India and she grabs them into her car and rushed them to the hospital. "There's no ambulance coming," she says, "and if the police come they're just as likely to rob you as help."

A European woman whom speaks English and a little Thai swooped down to the Ko Phi Phi beach I'm at with a first aid kit about 45 minutes after the tsunami. She leads the 20 or so dazed tourists up the hill to the scenic clifftop restaurant to get us high and out of an impending rumored second wave. Later she signals a small boat with a distress flag to fetch the injured. She leads us down the torturingly steep stairs towards getting us to a hospital on the mainland.

She is no official. Simply a private citizen with her wits about her making things happen, Doing It Herself.

Even if resiliency and resourcefulness sometimes foisted on you rather than a choice -- as you can ask programmers who have lost jobs to Asia or entrepreneurs wiped out by the dot-com crash can attest -- living spontaneously, grounded in the midst of mystery, and from the inside-out is an emerging trend. And as we mature individually and societally, we realize self-actualization ("What must I do?") doesn't come in a sixteen-ounce convenient package but it's something we ultimately face and create for ourselves.

"I define the Age of Transcendence as an era in which mainstream culture shifts from its traditional primarily objective, materialistic and rational foundations to postmodern subjective, metaphysical, and intuitive foundations." - David Wolfe, author of Ageless Marketing in "Transcending our Primordial Roots"

From consumer-generated media, the rise of amateur photographers, blogging, MAKE magazine, open source software where you can peek behind the hood and tweak and contribute, bootstrapping entrepreneurs bypassing VCs, free agents, the rise in experiential spirituality (rather than mediated by middlemen) from the charismatic gospel movements to meditating at a Zen monastery to the Emergent Church movement, we are surrounded by evidence of the DIY age. As Joi Ito says: "Good amateurs are better than crappy professionals."

I don't know about you but I'm making it all up as I go. And I'm finding plenty of evidence of that I'm not alone. As WebZine 2005 wrapped up, Maheesh Jain, shared that the popular CafePress website was assembled in 30 days flat. They figured they'd focus and sell T-shirts, mugs, and mousepads at first. When orders started to pour in, that's when they scrambled to find out how to actually manufacture the stuff. "We went to a mall kiosk," confesses co-founder Maheesh, "and asked a guy selling these kinds of wares for advice." They were working out of a garage cranking out products for three months before they had a real office. A grand experiment through and through.

If you think this is seat-of-the-pants story is atypical, you've not met many entrepreneurs of late. Or many DIYers.

We have gumption and guts and a reservoir of strength beyond that that which we know. Our mettle was rarely tested in the consumer age. We bought into the illusion of safety - but heroes and heroines don't get forged there. (And we're all heros and heroines of our own lives - check out Joseph Campbell and Maureen Murdock.)

The DIYers are heeding their call.

But doing it yourself is only scratching the surface. My dependence of others after my near-bankruptcy and after the tsunami reinforced how interdependent we truly are, and that was an unexpected blessing. In the midst of chaos, compassion reigned. One of the lessons that stuck for me in the tsunami was this amazing idea of we're in this together, and we're working together.

So I'm just as interested in DIO - doing it ourselves. Not going it entirely solo.

This isn't my story below, but it is so typical of what I learned from the tsunami; it's good to hear this one coming out of Katrina rather than the more publicized anarchic horror tales:

[Evacuees Janet] Donnelly and [her son Tom] Griffin were both exhausted and frustrated when fate intervened on their behalf.

By coincidence, Griffin met one of his co-workers from the local Domino's Pizza. The man was loading vehicles and working despite the tragedy surrounding him.

The co-worker told Griffin to get his mother. He then loaded up the pair and took them 12 miles away to a huge house belonging to Domino's franchise owner Glenn Mueller, which had withstood Katrina's wrath.

Mueller not only owned the local Domino's store, but more than 180 others throughout the Deep South. He is Domino's largest franchise owner in the southern United States.

"We do have a fortunate story," said Griffin, finally showing shades of a smile. "This man (Mueller) opened up his home to us. He was paying his employees. They were giving pizza to police officers."

Mueller even transformed his pizza training center in Gulfport, Miss., into a shelter for workers and their families.

So like hundreds of other Domino's employees, Griffin went to work. The assistant manager and hopeful store manager led a crew of employees making pizza. The only difference from their usual routine was that these pizzas were for anything but a festive atmosphere.

"These guys (Domino's corporate officials) lost a lot and they still helped," Griffin said. "It's going to be hard for me to find another job. Mueller told his workers that no matter where you go, you would always have a job to work at. He even gave me his cell phone" number.

Donnelly and Griffin stayed at the Mueller home for four days caring for the thousands of new refugees. - The Daily News (serving Greenville, Belding and Montcalm County, Michigan), "Katrina: A Lifetime Ago", September 26, 2005

Bonus: Niti talks about being grounded in ambiguity and uncertainty in her Living in Liminality series parts 1, 2, and 3:

From the Greek limnos, meaning "threshold," liminality describes an in-between time when what was, is no longer, and what will be, is not yet. It is a time rich with ambiguity, uncertainty, and the possibility of creative fomentation.

p.s. That's my handmade badge from Webzine. We cut and paste from magazines, brochures, whatever was available to create our unique calling card. It's probably the only badge I might keep a little while longer than the event itself.

Posted by Evelyn Rodriguez on Sep 26, 2005 at 02:09 PM in Innovators and Creators, Resiliency, Start-Ups, The Future of Work, Tsunami | Permalink

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Sep 26, 2005