Vacation
July 23, 2004 | Life
Well, after a busy week of (mostly) proposal-writing and fire drills, I'm taking a two-week break. The first in Wolfeboro, NH sans electricity or running water, and the second of unknown destination.
I haven't yet written emails to all the great folks I met in Chicago. That's a goal for when I return. I'm exhausted. I hear vacation is good for that. See you in a while.
Sunday Evening 8 PM
July 18, 2004 | Nature & Environment
Front yard, looking South.
The mist is rolling in, the weekend almost ended.
Music wafting in the background, a busy week ahead.
Giving Conference Photos
July 18, 2004 | People & Society
I have posted 183 photos from the Giving Conference. Thanks to Charles Maclean for taking such great photos!
You can view the photos on the web here. If you want to download them to your own computer, you can grab this 40 MB archive. After using something like Stuffit Expander (free) to de-compress the archive, you should be able to view them on your computer without a network connection. Start by opening the "index.html" page in your web browser.
I also posted some notes over at the wiki about creating the web photo archive.
(I also used iPhoto to create a really nice 40 page collage album, but the PDF is 658 MB (!) so I have to figure out how to make it smaller before posting it.)
Organic Professionals
July 17, 2004 | People & Society
NY Times: Going Up the Country, But Keeping All Your Toys.
This story rings true from my rural Ivy League observation post. Our area has a lot of people working in, say, financial services, that built or renovated comfortable country houses and earn city incomes telecommuting.
Excerpt:
"I think a lot of people are assessing their lives," Mr. Devine said. "What was missing was a spiritual component. It's part of a national re-evaluation."
One might call them organic professionals, or oppies. Ms. Stone and Mr. Devine are in the vanguard of this urbane dropout movement of former yuppies, who have embraced an "organic lifestyle," with organic at times simply interchangeable with "eco-friendly" or "green." Less a government label on groceries, "organic" to them is a state of mind. These one-time urban professionals, some not so young any more, are choosing to downshift their lives, but to do so ideally in, say, a spiffy new Ford Escape hybrid (nearly $3,500 more than a similarly equipped conventional model), or with a picturesque country house from the reign of George III that has been "future-proofed," that is, wired for eco-sensitive climate-control technologies not yet invented.
Unlike a previous generation of back-to-the-land types, they've taken all their nice things with them.
[....]
What oppies are practicing, some critics say, is a kind of conspicuous anti-consumption. "People who are buying weekend houses, say, in Columbia or Dutchess Counties are putting as much of their land into conservation easement as possible," said Louise Harpman, an architect with a New York office who also teaches at the University of Texas. "They're saying, `no matter what sort of extravaganza I've built, I'm preserving as much land as possible,' which is good for the earth. But it also protects the view."
She wonders if there is not a degree of yuppie guilt in all the talk of green living. "People we see, they realize it is the right thing to do to be as kind to the earth as possible. But on the other hand, they're not going to not have their Jimmy Choo shoes. Is this the penance we pay for Prada?
[....]
Already, the land rush in the Hudson Valley has started to take on the frenzied overtones of the real estate market in New York City. Mr. Peele, the money-managing farmer, said prices for land like his have skyrocketed 50 percent in the short time he has lived in Ancramdale.
"You can't even park in the train station, there are so many commuters," said Mr. Lindsay, the Rural Gourmet owner, referring to the Amtrak station in Hudson, from which the trip to Manhattan is two hours. "You can't even get into Rhinebeck anymore, there's so much traffic."
He lingered a moment over coffee at a sun-drenched picnic table outside the Rural Gourmet. "The quality of life is distinctly different here, but I wonder if we haven't lost what makes us distinct."
Presence
July 13, 2004 | People & Society
In my mailbox after I returned from the Giving Conference was "Presence - Human Purpose and the Field of the Future" by Peter Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers.
I read the introduction this morning. The book is a snapshot of a theory-in-progress on organizational learning. By considering multinational corporations (or school systems, or other large human institutions) a species, we can find ways to help them become self-aware and therefore more integrated with all life. The first diagram in the book separates 'reactive learning' from 'deeper levels of learning.'
I am sure that I don't fully understand Presence yet, but it seems like the perfect read after my deepening at the Conference.
Reflecting on our Open Space for Giving
July 12, 2004 | People & Society
I've taken the day off, save for mowing the lawn and doing a few loads of laundry, reviewing email, and reflecting on the amazing reverberations from the Conference.
The most striking thing I notice reviewing the proceedings, is how many sessions I wished I'd attended, even though I have no regrets at all about the sessions I DID attend! There were so many good topics, ideas, and futures I'm still reeling.
The most memorable aspect were the people, who attended on a whim. What an amazing group of warm, thoughtful, friendly, and smart people. I think I made some new long-term friends, and I know that I have some fantastic memories of collaboration, open space technology, and co-creating a vision. Thanks to everyone for being so open. Thanks especially to Phil for initiating and Michael for facilitating.
I hope to have a lot more to say in the next few days.
