but first we need to tea, er, eat

I started to write the headline, "but first we need to tea." Whoops, that's a typo. Or, perhaps, a Freudian slip. So I've left this so-called typo in. I'd just concluded reading TwitterPOET's "Saving Web 2.0 From Itself (A Proposal)." And for some reason I was riveted to his last line, "But first, we need to eat."

I know Paul didn't intend it that way, but it evoked that starving artist syndrome, even though now we are speaking of starving would-be social media innovators (certainly artists when they are following the muse foremost, and not the purse.)

And it reminds me of the sticker plastered to the pane of the newspaper stand at 24th and Mission that reads: "Give Me An Art Grant." What? Are you waiting or something? If it's yours to do, come hell or high water, you'd have to do it anyhow.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Go read Paul's proposal in its entirety (and I totally concur that Web 2.0 train is running amok with tons of Gaggoo companies - those me-too's vying to be bought out by patron Google's and Yahoo's of the age) or this snippet (substitute "everyone in the ___ world" with arts, media, food, etc. too):

"Now imagine if everyone in the tech world could afford to pursue their own personal projects, taking risks and innovating on the fly, without ever having to worry about paying the bills, feeding the kids, or keeping the lights on. With the simple introduction of a universal guaranteed baseline income (paid for by restructuring our tax code), we could all spend a little less time working at shitty jobs, and a little more time experimenting and sharing our discoveries with the world without worrying about monetizing it.

Because when you get right down to it, that’s what web 2.0 is about: creating applications which change the world. It’s not about VCs, angel rounds, and getting Techcrunched. It’s about using technology to empower people to contribute to the social good.

But first, we need to eat." - TwitterPOET, "Saving Web 2.0 from Itself (A Proposal)"

At this particular moment, I'm supporting two artists, including myself. Our expenses are less than $1000 a month in San Jose, CA - yes, you read correctly San Jose, California, USA, and not San Jose, Costa Rica. San Jose, "the capital of Silicon Valley" happens to be a city that the U.S. Census Bureau claims brings home the highest median income in the USA, so I'm atypical of neighbors in my zipcode.

I'd been accustomed to close to a six-figure income, and facials at the spa and the brand-spanking newest hardcover books and gee, isn't it the season for eggnog lattes. These days I've made a resolute commitment to buy if and only if it's a "connective transaction" - and not to mention, I'm also on a "fast" of sorts to clear ALL toxins from my life (subjects for another post).

By being thoroughly mindful and consciously alert of whom I'm patronizing and why I'm transacting, I've found it easier than I ever imagined to live prosperously on what most Americans might consider to be poverty level.

Funny, I don't feel improverished. As long as I have a pen, and a scrap of paper - and am using the two to string words together, I am a writer. And even if those two things were wretched away, simply I am would be glorious too.

What many would deem a paltry sum has not stopped me from pursuing my own personal projects on, oh, about roughly 100% of my time. In fact, I'd say it's made it ever easier.

Even if you have a shitty job you can create after hours (and sometimes during hours). Even if you have a shitty income you can create - ever hear of found objects? You'll find that necessity really is the mother of invention. Very often, with money galore at your disposable what is the obvious thing is to throw money at your problems, thus you miss the quirky, the original, and the show-stopping solutions.

Once I was on the founding team of a start-up that had $1.4M in seed capital from very prestigious venture capitalists -- and we whined that it was just not enough. That was the hubris of 1999. Now I know we were just spoiled.

"The following is something to ponder...

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep... you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, spare change in a dish someplace... you are among the top 8% of the wealthy.

If you woke up with more health than illness... you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week..." - Author Unknown
(via  Elyse Hope Killoran's November 7, 2007 newsletter)

Perhaps it's not an accident that I wrote "but first we need to tea" originally. There was a time in April 2005 that I was experimenting in freedom. (Oh, that's really my continuous exploration.) I didn't want to dip into my 401K then, and my post-tsunami irrefutable wake-up call said "no" to any corporate gig (my integrity to my heart and soul couldn't be compromised readily any longer), thus I found myself surviving on quite a lot of toast and tea. I have to tell you, unexpectedly, it became one of the most sublime and sensual episodes of my life. For instance, I'd spent the better part of an hour discovering the nuances and textures and tastes of a piece of toast. And I wrote exquisite pieces in my journal while being serenaded by morning doves.

No, I'm not trying to sell you on the penniless lifestyle, my point is if you YOURSELF are not absolutely committed, another's patronage so that you can eat is not necessarily going to light a fire under you.  However, maybe it's time to confront head-on the real issue: root fear of starvation -- among other basic "I won't survive" fears. Because this fear will come back to haunt you in some domain at some point at some time if it's not faced once and for all.

Once you've committed and have a willingness to meet your basic fears of survival (which really are fears of separation), there's no problem finding others that will want to chip in. Myself, I've found I'm only interested in helping those who already invest in sharing their gifts as best they can. I enjoy giving them a leg up. I enjoy witnessing expansion. BUT - if you're waiting for me to give you the push out of the nest to begin your project - and you only need begin, begin anywhere, no matter how humble - then maybe It isn't calling you enough for anyone else to be thoroughly enthralled and engaged in watering your seedling project either.

I know enough VCs to know this is pretty much exactly how they think too. I know a filmmaker that shared this secret with me. She told me this was the Universe's matching grant program: If you take a step, the Universe takes a 100 on your behalf.  

These words from Wayne Dyer that I came across recently in my sorting and re-sorting process (part of the move) spoke to the depths of me, and to this topic:

"It's my effort and my goal to live to God realization as I possibly can - oneness. To have conflict, you need two-ness. You need two people, two ideas, two things that go up against each other. I don't go up against anyone or anything. I feel very connected to the Source from which I emanated - a source of perfect abundance. I just never got separated from it, so I've always known that I am that, and it is me. This is something that's with me wherever I go because I never doubt it. Thinking in terms of conflict or being conflicted about the abundance that has come into my life is just not a concern of mine.

I don't believe that I am famous, because fame isn't located in me. Fame is located in other people. Fame is a component of the ego. The ego says, "I am what I have; I am what I do; I am what others think of me." I try to live in a spiritual consciousness, which says that who I am is a divine creation of Source that lives as a divine creation of Source. When you stay in that awareness, then you create what I call the power of intention. You create the ability to be just like God. [I'd add: And create just like God.] We came from love. We came from kindness. We came from perfect abundance. If you see yourself that way, then you'll attract that into your life. If you see yourself needing to have other people love you and care for you or buy your books or whatever, then you'll attract lacks, shortages, and needs into your life, and I don't have any lacks or shortages or needs. If people only knew who or what is with them, in them, beside them all the time, they would never worry about anything." - Wayne Dyer, "Spiritual & Health", December 2005

ART credits Day, by James Griffin; a still from the film The Fountain (2006); The Fountain, by Kent Williams.

Comments

[arkieology]

Well I stopped commenting cause every time I read what I had written it sounded like a smothering mother, but I must. Salmoney and Jaspers Box are all about a basic income liberating humanity. Spiradex is another iteration. The book I sent you "Redeeming Money" is about how money is supposed to function as a tool of mutuality and commonality and has been captured and perverted by pure greed. What I first loved about your blog was that it combined a recognition of the central role of commerce and how it must be tied to our highest aspirations as human beings and souls if we are to fulfill our purpose. The greatest spiritual medium in the world is the medium of exchange, money, and its potential for good is only matched by its potential for evil. The love of money is the root of all evil, the right use of money is the root of all good. Salmon Fortunatus Aquarius

P.S. Join us at USBIG United States Basic Income Guarantee conference in Boston in March. We need all the help we can get.see the announcement at usbig.net
Stephen Clark

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

There's a new Ark (I was born in New Ark) and that's what I'm boarding. I speak of the abundance and fecundity of infinitude, to which money is irrelevant. Not that this post is ABOUT money per se, it's about the ways we limit ourselves from expressing what wants to be expressed as if money could stop you once you know yourself.

Anyway, I am doing PERFECTLY fine, really, amazingly fine. No mothers, fathers needed for this Child. I want to speak of the All That is (the word God overloaded with concepts and connotations of separation). Churches, scriptures, gospels, priests, prophets are NOT necessitated to be All That Is. The same goes with abundance, prosperity, whatever name we give to the plenum. Money is not an absolute given to reach abundance. Church is not an absolute given to reach All That Is. The kingdom of heaven is spread before us and we do not see it.

Any system of "exchange", in my experience, propagates separation, duality. I'm work at a different level, using alternative current-sees, if you will.

[arkieology]

Ok, I get the I'm doing fine, nothing needed here, but you are hardly starving. You've gone from the top one percent, to the top sis or eight percent. You've learned that you don't need venture capitalists to give you permission, and this is very good. But you have hardly forsworn exchange. Your $1000 a month for three "artists" would feed whole villages in other parts of the world. Deciding whether or not to dip into the 401k to establish your "freedom" is not a decision most of the world faces. I guess my continuing unease with the your trajectory is that what I saw as great promise for a truly novelle point of view has devolved into a narcissistic aesthitic hedonism that is all too familiar. Your seperation from the rest of humanity on these grounds is far more profound than any seperation in exchange. I googled your last quote from MR. Dyer, to see how far he has retreated from exchange, and well not so much. I think to run far away from venture capitalism's absurd parameters is good, but is the alternative pose of the "artiste" the only alternative? Well I'll quit bugging you unless you wish otherwise, and todavia, te estimo mucho, y eso es porque yo te reganyo como mi hija. Que le vaya bien.

[Princess Haiku]

Having a lifestyle that gives you time to be creative is a form of wealth. I do wonder about your digs in San Jose though. Do you live in a railroad box? On a more serious note, your positivism is uplifting.

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Ark, I didn't say I was starving. Neither is Paul nor any of the folks that say they should be provided free grant money from the government to do social good: DO IT ANYWAY.

I've actually had peeps in the middle of country - not the coasts - tell me they NEED at LEAST $100,000 to live on (no kids either!). Now, this is absurd.

"Your seperation from the rest of humanity on these grounds is far more profound than any seperation in exchange." I think you're making way too many assumptions about how I'm living and what art 'is' and its capacity to engage our hearts and souls. I've not separated from the world whatsoever.

I've only mentioned this on Twitter, but I'm working on a local currency project that I started in the Mission (SF) but couldn't afford to live there... anyhow, it's relocating along with all kinds of communal social art projects I have been storing for the right place/time. I mean art as in art that sculpts civilizations to be based on foundations and assumptions of trust for one another, and that everyone brings something to the table. New Orleans is a much better and willing proving ground for a renaissance in how people live than Northern California for all its talk of community, the flower power left long ago.

People are inherently creative - every one of them - but money tends to snuffs that out so we instead become consumed by survival.

I liked Wayne Dyer's words - they ring - but yes, he's still just another capitalist at the end of the day. And I, an anarchist - communal, social, we come together as equals, as one - who needs higher-archy?

Princess Haiku, Truthfully, making it on $12,000/year for a single - rent, food, clothing, transportation - is still quite a feat in Silicon Valley where cost of living puts the poverty level for a family of four at $77K, as referenced in a recent SF Chronicle story. No, I live in a nice house with nice people. We share. That's how it works. That's the only way it ever works.

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Radical premise: Give freely, with no expectation of return. Use currency as optional thank you notes.

Radical hypothesis: eARTh is the only planet that uses money. If everyone gave of their talents and expressed their unique gifts freely, they would see directly that life provides for life.

Exchange, however, expects something back from the other. Big difference from a gift. A big part of why I'm leaving SV is it is expect in rare instances, the collective is wrapped up on trusting the medium (money) rather than life, and expectation of exchange, and suspicion of gifts.

I don't think I've "charged" anyone for anything (I may have slipped up earlier in experiment but I can't recall right now) in three years.

[arkieology]

I am an anarchist as well, and many of your points are well reasoned and I admire them, but lumping in the notion of a basic income guarantee with the whinings of someone who "needs" a $100,000 to live is not justified. The unconditional gift is the foundation of all things, and I was not accusing you of being a crass capitalist, just the opposite, you have confused capitalist exchange with free exchange, and they are not the same.
You are working on an alternative currency, that is what salmoney is, an alternative currency which has an unconditional dividend distributed to all equally, not just those deemed "worthy" by anyone. Everyone is an artist, and everyone by right of birth deserves a share in the earth's bounty and in the increment of association and the social heritage. Free exchange can just as easily be viewed as a communal act, and it is tbe capitalist manifestation of money that makes it hard to see. Capitalist money is not a current see, it is a latent see. Salmoney is a current see, and a universal alternative current see.

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

there"s always a different way of doing things .so ,and evelyns found one of them,this course leads to freedom too.

[Michael]

Hey Evelyn,
I know you don't need rescuing but the thread here is absolutely a "sucker punch" thrown at you. Do not even bother answering or defending or explaining yourself because you don't have too.

I lived a luxurious lifestyle in the 80's and early 90's until my bubble burst; I got told that I could not be an Investment Banker making deals and tons and tons of money. Though I would never get over it. Well I did and you never know when your health is going to take you out of the game baby and that's what happened to me; even my right to play in that game is governed by trustee law and that put an end to my career at 36 right after losing everything in the crash of 1987. Remember?

I speak from experience and can tell you nobody can tell you what to say do or think except you. You are the master of creating your day and as for the sucker punches and then getting into it with them, this is not the way to go.

You are free Evelyn and fuck all those who step in your way and leave their toxic waste on your door step. Get rid of the toxic people and get rid of the notion that you have to defend yourself. I can prove this too you because I wouldn't respond to any negative people at all. If people are really sincere about helping you figure things out then they should keep their mouths shut unless they offer encouragement and inspire you to be YOU!!!!

Good for you girl for standing up, but now don't you think its better to just be YOU and keep on doing what you love, do it to the best of your ability and have fun.

Life is too short.

Kind Regards,

Michael Pokocky

[Michael]

whoops, got carried away and used a profound word...so you may remove it or leave it in.
Kind Regards and sorry for the profanity,
Michael Pokocky

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Whew, I just got back from four plus strenuous days in Salt Lake City to clear out a storage locker that had 17 years worth of stuff. I'll catch up on this thread when I resurface tonight.

Ark, It sounds like maybe we are in violent agreement. But, I still don't think we need to exchange, there's something tacit in "exchange", whereas there needn't be in gifts (although Japanese do have penchant of using gifts as exchange - one is always expected to reciprocate with same person, not even a "pay it forward" model).

P.S. Someone is using my name in the last comment in this thread - but it's not me - I didn't write: "there"s always a different way of doing things .so ,and evelyns found one of them,this course leads to freedom too."

Just sharing my two cents from my life. Your mileage may vary.

Freedom isn't about how much or how little you make. It's totally an inside job.

[arkieology]

Yes, sometimes too much miles, high water, low bridge. Good to hear you weren't mad at me as well. You kept me going through two very difficult projects in the past year in which I needed to keep creating, without permission and support. This is what I admire in you. But I'll speak for myself here, I have been privelaged, my horizons have always been far into the distance and painstakingly beautiful. I do believe there are people in the world who have had their horizons cut short and concealed. As Tolstoy said, "What then must we do?" One thing is to encourage brave creation and the other is to extend a helping hand. I don't believe I have a monopoly on either. Que le vaya bien amiga.

Here's a poem I wrote about twent years ago, and I'd just like to share it with you.

Living for the Fat of the Land

By Stephen C. Clark

Well I was walking in Portland
A broken down empty man
Rolled the dice
And I just crapped out again
Strolling down Burnside
Where the ladies all stand around
The bars and the bus stops
Are the same in that part of town
Pass a little green
And they’ll be your friend for a day
Preacher stares at us
Doesn’t look away
Does he want to save my soul
Or is that a rock in his hand
He’s got love on his mind
But I’m not sure of the brand

Living, living for the fat of the land
Living, living for the fat of the land

Outside Baloney Joe’s
Just before the bridge
Card board boxes are the houses
Where the people live
I thought I bottomed out
No place to go but up
I passed a blind man on my way
Put my last dollar in his cup
Walked out on the bridge
And I Heard that Siren’s song
Began to wake up from the nightmare
The one I had been dreamin too long
It’s the same nightmare
That we all dream every day
If I had a million dollars
My troubles would all float away

Living, living for the fat of the land
Living, living for the fat of the land

Turned North up Broadway
How I love those city lights
The Fancy restaurants
How they pack em in every night
Business dinners,
Power lunches,
Afternoon rendezvous
The waiters in their jackets
Dare not tell us bout what they do
Towers of stone
Skyscrapers built
To worship our new Gods
And to soothe our guilt

Living. living for the fat of the land
Living, living for the fat of the land

I saw a dog eat dog world
It made me mad as hell
I stashed my anger in my pocket
And I stood up to the wishing well
I found myself a penny
And I threw it in
A crystal ball appeared to me
Washed me clear of sin
I left it all behind
And found a new place to begin
The people gathered round
and they shared with me a guiltless grin

I saw them.

Living, living for their fellow man
Living, living for their fellow man

[Johannah]

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