A few weeks ago, while sitting in a cafe on Maui, I met a few cafe dwellers who joined in on a friendly, spontaneous conversation while having breakfast. I had driven to this dry land region to visit a nearby farm reputed for its adherence to certain "permaculture" principles. We spoke about the endemic problem of drug use and addiction in neighborhoods and in rural areas. I had just reported an incident involving drug use and trafficking while living and working on a small commercial farm in Hana. In this economic crunch, small farms have been particularly vulnerable. At this site, there was a collusion of illegal workers from Europe, welfare fraud and drug pushing. One visitor shared his own experience while trying to find stable tenants for his rentals in an affluent town in California. I was struck by the fact that the problem of addiction, reckless, abusive behavior permeates all of our communities.
Our conversation continued for a while. I learned that this visitor worked in the technology industry as a system specialist. He was convinced that in the near future we would have a "cyber" stadium where spontaneous conversations such as the one we shared could take place via the internet. My perspective has always been that with rapid, universal sharing of information, the humanoid, in its daily grunge, has not been able to evolve, adapt and respond fast enough. The humanoid has needs, and we know that when these needs are not met, the humanoid behavior often takes an irrational course.
I decided to join the Twitter tweeting crowd after giving my vote to Twitter co-founders as the Nobel Peace Prize recipients instead of to this President. THE COMPOST PILE, originally entitled The Food Bowl, was conceived in the worst of hardship after having taken a stance of conscience. I found myself wanting to direct thinking back to the source of regeneration rather than a source of external nourishment. Given the juxtaposition of seamless digital information systems linking finance, energy and telecom with the disintegration of humanoid systems that have lost their connection to what makes sense, THE COMPOST PILE provides personal experiences that describe the inter-relatedness between the evolution of beings and vast systems of information that shape perception, commerce and security.
This past weekend, I had a phone conversation with this visitor who has since left Hawaii.
While sitting in another cafe, I queried about current policy shifts with regard to commerce and advertising with social media network sites. I mentioned that the Federal Trade Commission is considering how to manage conflicts of interests by advertising stakeholders with social media networks such as Twitter blogs. He acknowledged the need to have these types of discussions since articulated policy should direct "infrastructure" of information technology and that policies should consider more than just the dollars derived from choices.
When speaking with a journalist from Gannett today, tried to describe the frustration and destruction done to a small economy when the operational realities of information technology results in terror crime patterns occurring with wire fraud. Hawaii is known to have a problem with international drug crimes, and drug crimes are known to co-exist in the most corrupt financial systems.
Currently, the term "sustainable" has been popularized into mainstream use. I read an article
in a Hawaii magazine about the three pillars of sustainability: economic, environmental and social. This magazine features a food gallery of luscious, sumptuous photographs of meals and food products. Their feature editorial brags about using non-toxic ink on recycled paper with a local rather than foreign publishing company for their 5-star menu food gallery tastes.
In Hawaii, where rainfall is abundant in jungle areas where small farms have struggled to exist for a number of years, public officials are trying not to ask the obvious questions about why they have not implemented policies that optimize natural resources such as as rainfall, sunshine and plant life to create conditions for locally-owned micro-ag enterprises
I contacted this magazine to voice my concern that some of the "small family farms" advertised in their publication did not reflect sustainability while at the same time they use the concept of sustainability for their marketing approach. In fact, it was on this farm where I worked and lived
for a little over 2 months I experienced one of the worst examples of humanoid patterns of unsustainability possible.
An unsustainable pattern of human relations includes communication that is intentionally hostile and falsely derogatory when a power dynamic is assumed. Another pattern that emerges is seen with abusive impulse control problems where addictive behavior interprets all messages as a
means to victimize them. Drug abusers who are deprived of their substance feel victimized by those who do not have this dependence. Lies, lies and more lies becomes the basis of relationships in which the underlying denial is one of powerlessness.
A serious look at our systems will reveal that these types of unsustainable relationships use more time, attention and resources than relationships that seek to sustain mutual respect and exchange through clear boundaries. Another look will reveal that when system are impacted by humanoids patterns of unsustainability to such a degree that mistrust is the underlying premise of all humanoid contact fear becomes the tactic of control.
My own choices after having worked for over two decades in health and social services have left me vulnerable to systems that induce poverty as a means of control. My choice to leave this area of gainful employment was a statement of conscience outside any political affiliation. There was a point when compromise seemed to me a mechanism to aid and abet broad practices that intentionally deprive and imprint mistrust. I will not live a lie, nor will I perpetuate lies that are inherently abusive and counter-productive to cultivating individual, group and organizational participation in our systems.
Funding for environmental and economic sustainability leaves out the critical dialogue about self-honesty within humanoid relationships for a reason. The picture is not pretty. But telling the truth about humanoid patterns of unsustainability in the production of food, energy and spirit leads all discussions back to the evolution of what makes sense in a society where immense amounts of wealth do not provide the basic needs for their population to prosper and thrive.
