Energy Efficiency Requires Community

As you know, I love simplicity, and for me that means seeking to own a minimal amount of possessions. As such, I am thinking a lot about the home that I own. It's a bit much, and the energy costs alone are a bit daunting. Beyond just downsizing, I often think about living off the grid completely, and finding alternative sources of energy.

A conversation with my youngest brother was most helpful on this topic, and gave me something new to consider. I was trying to get to the bottom of some specific metrics for energy efficiency, and I was asking him questions about it. He is in engineering school right now, surrounded by some of the most capable people for solving energy efficiency problems, and has been there for almost two years now. Here is what I asked him.

"Do you think it is possible to create a recommendation for the most efficient way to live off the grid, including specific energy source with exact model specs, ideal square footage of house, room sizes, ceiling height, insulation type, and even land size for food production?

His answer to me:

"Well possibly, but I think you may have a problem. Efficiency for energy cannot be achieved in isolation. Efficiency for producing energy is achieved much like other things in the economy, through specialization. If a person tries to be completely self-sufficient, he forfeits the value of specialization in the market, and forfeits efficiency in doing so."

Of course. It's not what I wanted to hear exactly, but then again I think it was exactly what I wanted to hear.

Part of me wants to be completely self sufficient, not depending on anyone. Another part of me desperately wants to depend on people, all the time. Off-the-grid is not the answer for energy efficiency. The grid is what makes it efficient!

It is important to acknowledge that not every grid is efficient just because it is a grid, and that many cities and towns are using 100 year old systems that are not efficient. I get that, but my point is that isolation can never truly be the most efficient way to live. We need community. We need to share.

Trading, Gift Giving

An idea has been percolating for a few weeks that is a bit controversial. I'll say it as a statement. The barter system increases one's quality of life.

Trading for things, giving gifts, doing favors for other people is better than buying things with cash. This is a very complicated argument, which I don't intend to tackle fully with this one blog, but the idea can be boiled down to something fairly simple. Cash removes any obligation between the two people who are exchanging things.

Instead of explaining why that is, think about the things that you own. Now think about the things you paid cash for (which may be everything that you own). But now try to think of something that you traded for, or something that you received as a gift. Think about how that impacted your relationships. Now think about how it would feel if everything you owned, including your house, was a part of a trade of some kind. 

What if you had to borrow all of the tools to finish your basement? What if people traded their time to help you in the basement for a meal, or something else you gave them?

What if your lawn care was a trade? 

What if your child care was a trade?

Cash makes our exchanges less personal, and therefore decreases our quality of life.

For me personally, there are very few things that I own that I traded for. I intend to change that in the future. I am actually going to look to trade things first, and resort to cash as a secondary option. It's a lot more of a hassle to be sure, but I think it might just be worth the hassle.

Capacity to Nurture

First of all, baby number two has not yet arrived. The baby is 34 weeks in development now, which is the minimum I was hoping for before the baby arrives. We are happy about that. Mom has had lots of help from family friends and church. She is still looking forward to being able to eat and do things normally after the child gets here, but she's also happy to give the baby as much time as possible.

My awareness for nurturing is strong right now. When I hear someone say, "He was like a father to me." I  hear, "He nurtured me." When someone says, "She has always been there for me no matter what." I hear, "She nurtured me." It just seems to be a key concept in parenting, and friendships too, and it's at the forefront of my brain often.

Nurturing another child is intimidating to me. Last week I asked my dad how he nurtured seven children. I didn't want to know how to nurture little children, I think I learned that part by being nurtured by him when I was young. I wanted to know where he found strength to keep going.

Life is not easy right now. There were a lot of what I refer to as "meltdowns" in my house in 2013, and heck, there were meltdowns last week. I'd like to say that these meltdowns are all from the toddler, but it's the adults that are overwhelmed in our house much of the time. My wife and I have always had good days and bad days historically, but there is something about having a child that challenges us further. I think young children have a way of keeping adults at their emotional limit. Kids bring out the worst of me, and make me more in need to nurturing, and I think the same is true for Katie.

Facebook posts don't usually offer this perspective. Facebook captures the special moments of children with beautiful photos. Other people's kids seem so easy for them to nurture. My daughter does make me smile and laugh almost every day. But the truth is that I hold onto those moments and take beautiful photos of those moments because I'm trying to survive. Many days my only goal is to survive for the next five minutes, until nap time, or until bedtime.

My dad did give me some good advice, as did my brother who has three kids of his own, and a friend who also has 3 kids. They confirmed that my situation is normal, and that young kids do tend to push people to their limit. They also encouraged me take care of my self, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Practically speaking, they encouraged things like reading the Bible, listening to spiritual teaching, and taking 45 minute breaks away from the family to workout, or read, or do something for myself.

I am hopeful that I can and will be ready to nurture another child, but if you have any secrets to add to that list or just survival techniques, I'm all ears.

The Work Community

I started working from home full time three months ago. Before I took this new position, I had been at a desk in a cubicle for 8 years. People talked about working from home in the same cryptic manner they talk about having a child. Unspecific statements like "It will be an adjustment." were common.

When I interviewed for the job, the interviewers would ask about my time management skills, and whether I would have a place to work that was free from distraction. These were my best guesses on what the adjustment would be. Check, time managment. Check, office upstairs. I was prepared.

Turns out my biggest adjustment was unrelated to time management or finding space away from my wife and toddling daughter. The biggest adjustment for me has been the mental shift. I don't have two communities that are exclusive anymore. I'm always at work, and I'm always at home. There is no line.

When I worked in a cubicle, talking about home while at work would be considered "unprofessional." Likewise, talking about work too much at home would be wrongfully "bringing my work home with me." The end result was two separate communities with two specific locations, with social pressure to keep them separate.

Now that I work at home, I still have colleagues, teammates, a boss, and a "virtual community" that I work with. I don't believe in virtual communities by the way. I argue that the purest form of community must share a common location which is frequently frequented. Being physically at home while I'm working keeps me from ever changing communities during the day. I never make the mental shift of being at work. I'm never "at work" anymore.

I love it. I love the adjustment. I don't mind always being at home. I don't mind letting go of that work location. It doesn't bother me at all. I wouldn't say that I'm used to it yet, 8 years of a cubicle is a long time, but I'm getting used to it. It feels a lot more natural to talk to my wife about a meeting with a client than it ever did at work.

Vulnerability in Community

To be vulnerable with someone is a scary thing. To carry secret burdens is a much scarier thing. Trying to determine when and how to be vulnerable requires a little bit of thought. This blog is going to process those thoughts out loud.

I believe that communities must share a location to actually be a community. If a person wants to count the number of communities that they are a part of, they simply need to count the number of locations that they frequent. If you recently moved out of your city, it's very easy to know how many communities you had. Simply count the number of going away parties you had before you left.

My wife and I have two communities currently, but we just added another a couple weeks ago. We started working out at a different church in town multiple days per week. We don't know anybody really, but we love the community already.

That said, I would not say that I'm vulnerable with any of my communities in Kentucky yet. We do have a lot of trust with people in our communities, and we feel very committed, but we don't necessarily share personal things very much. We don't necessarily hear a lot of personal things with other people either. I'm starting to believe that transparency in community is rare.

As a male, I think vulnerability is more challenging for me than for my wife. It seems that she is more comfortable talking with the women around her about more personal things. Perhaps this is a gender thing.

Talking about problems is a downer. It's not really a community building activity. Sharing a meal, telling funny stories, playing games, and watching sports are much safer and easier ways to build community than talking about depression, failures in marriage and parenting, or being angry deep inside. Staying positive is critical to keeping a community together.

Regional differences exist. Colorado had lots of vulnerability, and very little fun. Communities in Colorado share their problems, but have a harder time laughing together. In Kentucky and Alabama, we laugh together a lot, but rarely share personal things. I think maybe my northern friends have the best balance actually. Those mid-western states may be able to teach us all some things about community.

I'm still trying to decide what this all adds up to. I think vulnerability is important for long term health, but I'm also concerned that the wrong kind of vulnerability would just make the community uncomfortable and unhealthy.

Technology & Community

Is technology helpful to communities or harmful?

Technology advancement has had an impact on everything. The question is never whether technology has impacted something, but how. Communities are no different.

While many people look for impact of technology by focusing on the younger generation and the technology they use, I don't see this as the most important group of people or the most important technology. Instead of looking at cell phones and video games and teenagers, I prefer to look at the industrial revolution, and also the dramatic increase of intellectual jobs in the market. My reasoning is simple. Communities started breaking down before Nintendo, XBox, and iPhones ever existed. Put another way, I think the garage door opener had ten times more impact on the community than the Nintendo did.

Communities are people who know each other face to face, who trust one another, and rely on one another. Some define them as broader groups, but I'm specifically talking about smaller communities. These types of communities are rare in today's American culture, and I think the shift happened during the Baby Boomer generation, not during Generation X,Y, or millenials.

Technology like automobiles, tractors, combines, and airplanes seem to have impacted community much more dramatically than computers. Communities used to be self sufficient with crops, livestock, clothing tailors, and builders. Commuting to work was rare. The obvious example are the Amish and Mennonite communities who have resisted industrial technologies, but who clearly have tight knit communities.

Mennonite communities have a set of values that the industrial revolution took away from the rest of us. Sharing things, and depending on your neighbors is a good thing. Committing to a location is valuable.

While we may not be able to undo the industrial revolution, I do think we can try to undo the independent way of thinking it brought us to.