The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens - Vicki Robin "Money and LIfe's Energy"

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

Show Summary:  On this episode, we meet with social innovator, writer, and speaker, Vicki Robin. Robin unpacks how the machine of community begins. How does being vulnerable, sharing, and being obligated to others create a system that allows everyone to contribute?  Why do we need to learn to begin asking for help? Further, Robin shares how we can begin to take steps toward food resiliency. Robin shares the story of how she only ate food that was produced within a 10-mile radius of her home for 30 days, and how we should all begin to think and act locally. About Vicki Robin: Vicki Robin is a prolific social innovator, writer and speaker. She is coauthor with Joe Dominguez of the international best-seller, Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money and Achieving Financial Independence (Viking Penguin, 1992, 1998, 2008, 2018). It was an instant NY Times best seller in 1992 and steadily appeared on the Business Week Best Seller list from 1992-1997. It is available now in twelve languages. Blessing the Hands that Feed Us; Lessons from a 10-mile diet (Viking/Penguin 2014) recounts her adventures in hyper-local eating and what she learned about food and farming as well as belonging and hope. For Show Notes and Transcript visit: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/21-vicki-robin

You're listening to The Great Simplification with Nate Higgins. That's me. On this show, we try to explore and simplify what's happening with energy, the economy, the environment, and our society. Together with scientists, experts, and leaders, this show is about understanding the bird's eye view of how everything fits together, where we go from here and what we can do about it as a society and as individuals. Vicki Robin is an advocate for social change and innovation. She has her own podcast, What Could Possibly Go Right, and has authored two books, Your Money or Your Life, and Blessing the Hands That Feed Us. She works to inspire others to be financially independent and to take control of their own lives,

to create more meaningful and fulfilling experiences. She also promotes eating local, being the creator and first participant in the 10 10-mile diet challenge in her community where she spent 30 days eating only food produced within 10 miles of her home. These are the types of practices that are currently against the grain of conventional society and I think are going to become more and more important in the future that's arriving, the great simplification. Vicki's experience and voice are a powerful force for spreading these ideas.

I hope you enjoy this week's conversation with this week's conversation with the great simplification. Vicki Robin. Vicki, good to see you. Good to see you, too, Nate. We have one thing in common in the pre-episode chatter. We both have snow coming our way today. You unwashed in me in Wisconsin. Right.

We had snow last night. It's melting very fast right now in the sun. Yeah, no, we have a lot more in common. A lot more in common. I mean, I think we've been barking up the same tree for 20 or 30 years. And no one is listening or very few that are listening, although more people are listening now. No, actually, you're right. You have millions of followers.

Your book, your money or your life is a classic. And it helps spawn a movement towards financial independence, even the acronym FIRE, financial independence retire early. So let's start there. Let's talk about that. What did you hope that that book would accomplish? Why did you write it? What were your hopes for that and what ended up happening? So it's sort of like a self-help systems thinking book that teaches a nine-step program

that was developed by my co-author Joe Dominguez. And we taught it for quite a number of years, basically to people who had a yen for a higher purpose, but were completely clueless about money. So we were trying to empower that subculture. And then in 1989, I went to a conference on the first conference in the United States on sustainable development. And that's where I realized that lowering consumption in North America was probably the most important thing we could do in order to avert disasters. I often tell the story of all of the, you know, there was the World Commission on Environmental and Development. they traveled the world. They got testimony. We're on a collision course between the economy and

the natural world. What do we do about it? And every commissioner who spoke at that conference sort of said the biggest problem is the level and pattern of consumption in North America. And then they would shrug like nobody could do anything about that. And we taught that program as a seminar and then as a tape course. And we taught it to probably about 10,000 people. and I'd surveyed them because I was very interested in the impact. And we found that people on average, if they followed this program within six months, they'd lowered their consumption by 20% and were happier. And that was my data point.

I'm not like a big social scientist. I'm sort of an intuitive person. So all I needed was one data point, two data points. You know, consumerism is ruining the world and your money or life. Well, the program, the nine-step program could change that. And because of that, I got a passion I had never experienced in my life. Like, we're sitting on the solution to the biggest problem on the planet. And so pretty soon we had a contract to write the book.

And the publicist at Viking somehow got us on Oprah. And then right after we were on Oprah, we were in New York Times bestseller. because she held up the book and she said, this is a fabulous book, it will change your life. You know, she has many authors she doesn't say that about. So, I mean, that was the launch. And so I was on a mission for a decade because we decided we're going to lower consumption in North America by we're going to live within the planetary means by the year 2000. That was the goal.

We were, you know, positively insane. and dedicated. And so that launch and also, you know, we were arrogant, but we were great. We decided we're going to write a bestseller. Why, you know, why do this? We want this book to be everywhere because we have to change everyone. And so, you know, we just said it's going to be a bestseller. And it was.

And it still is. Oh, my God. Last week, I checked sales. It was almost 1,500 books last week. Wow. It's just a phenomenon. Well, this is one of the reasons, one of the many reasons I wanted to have you on the show because your money or your life is really an anecdote not just for individuals looking

for financial independence, but for our entire economic system is your money or your life. And so what are some of the core precepts in the book and your teachings that could be applicable to people today, which is a wonderful. was the book written? It came out in 92. Okay, so 30 years ago. I know. But I did an update and I, wait, just say, I did an update in 2008 and that just, that's sword because that's when I discovered the fire community. And back to your original question, the intention was to lower consumption in North America. And when I discovered the fire, and you know, we didn't do that. You ran smack into the superorganism and central banks is what happened. Exactly. Exactly.

Exactly. We did not take into account. I call them the overlords. That's not a nice name, but, you know, I call, you know, the system that is completely resistant to change. Because anyway, yeah, so I think that one of the core ideas in your money or life that really flips it for people is, is we say that, you know, we think of money as scarce in somebody else's control, somebody that eats up our lives. something that, you know, defines our success and our status, you know, we've sort of hooked money to all human needs. You know, I have a need, and it used to be before money, there's, I have a need and I have competencies to meet my needs. And I have a relationship with the world around me, and I have the capacity to do that. And then in the money economy, we have completely hooked people. I say we're drinking milk from a place. poison sow, but it's the only sow in town. So one of the basic teachings is that money isn't what everybody says it is. It isn't status. It isn't control because you can have those things

without money. So it's not an absolute definition. But our definition is that money is something that you trade the hours of your life for, for whatever reason. And so that gives you a personal understanding, not a social and comparative understanding. I was looking at your website, your money or your life last night. It has a parallel to my recent work, which is that energy, all of our money is a claim on energy and materials. No matter what we spend money on, it's a call on energy and resources. And so I say money is a claim on energy. And you say that money is a claim on life energy. Your personal life energy and the life energy of the planet. It's a lean on the resources of the earth. So what is debt then? What are we doing with your nomenclature there when we

issued debt? It's a claim on your future resources. Yeah, it's a claim on your future. And conveniently, we don't understand that. We just think, oh, we'll just pay the minimum. And it's also, I think, a strategy to continue to expand the economy, if you will, because if people only lived within their means, the game would be over, especially in this incredible wealth gap we have now, you know, where people on the bottom, they're struggling. Right. So your money or your life would take on much different connotations depending on who was reading it. People in the lower 40, 50 percent of our society are just massively stress.

and the top 1% have digits coming out of their ears and their bank accounts. So how to, do you address that at all? Can people that have a very tight financial situation still benefit from, from your book and your advice? I mean, I think, I think, I've always said that it is not a book for the bottom 20%, the people who are really hand to mouth. Although there can be benefit because some of the desperation and low status of being in the bottom 20% drives people to spend money on things that will give them the appearance of status. Because just to hold your head up, because one of the quotes that I found early on was men, sick, you know, men and women, do not desire to be rich. they want to be richer than other men. And that people are satisfied with their lot if they feel it is fair in comparison with their

reference group, and that could be the people in their neighborhood. It could be people in their profession. So the level of unfairness is a big driver, and it continues to be a driver of consumption of the wrong things. And also, you know, if you don't have public transportation and the only place you can get to is the Jiffy Mart. The system is rigged against us. And I think in the period of your money or life, I wrote your money or life on an IBM 286, you know, like a really early, you know, pin drive. And so back when we wrote the book and when we experienced, had the experience that led us to the

book, there was no internet. There was no cell phone. You know, we were addressing consumerism in an environment where there was still a great deal of choice. And the wealth gap was not like it is today. So the bottom 20%, yeah, you know, if you can learn something from the book, but you may not even have time to read it. And then I realized that the top 20% don't care. You know, they can waste money and it doesn't matter.

So I always said, you know, we're this middle 60%, that's who we're addressing. And helping people, in that demographic to break the spell of the consumer society and to reauthorize themselves in their own lives. I mean, I used to say I'm a green libertarian. You know, it's really about personal responsibility. But it's not like we're going to, you know, like make problems for you and then you can, you know, you individuals can solve the problems that, you know, the wealthy or the, you know, the industrial system is created. But it is grabbing your situation.

by the horns. And this idea of money is life energy, and then we do a calculation, and we had people calculate, what are they trading an hour of their life for? And they never think about this. It's not just your nominal salary, but it's all the extra expenses of your job, all you're commuting, et cetera. Of course, now we're not commuting as much. But there's expenses to be able to work.

And then there's extra time that you spend. And it's so interesting to talk about this at this time when people are not going back to the workplace. But anyway, the calculation was for people to see that the cost in time and money of having a job reduces their hourly wage to a real hourly wage that is often a third to a quarter of your nominal wage. And so once you see that, you start to realize that you're saving your life by being frugal and conscious rather than you're rewarding yourself for hard work by being a consumer. And that transformation is sort of the biggest thing. And so I think there is an aspect to this whole system where if you can wake up to the game is not worth the candle.

To me, that's the linchpin. And then the other thing, the other question we have people ask, because we say, all your expenses translate them into hours. So you see what it's costing you in the flesh of your life. You know, the new boots that you got, you know, for $120. If you realize that you're real hourly wage, just $10 an hour, that's 12 hours of your life. And once you see that, you're defending yourself against, a system that is trying to pull you into it. Is that because when you translate your life energy, your consumptive choices into life energy,

that all of a sudden that dollar sign or those little digits or those little pieces of paper have an emotional attachment to them suddenly in your brain instead of just a digit, which is why Las Vegas makes these nice little color chips worth $500. or $100 because we have no like emotional attachment to what that is. Right. Is that what you tried to do? And that's how it helps people realize, oh my gosh, do I really want to spend 36 hours of my work on this thing that's not going to give me that much happiness or fulfillment?

We're trying to give people, if you will, an emotional attachment to their lives. It's sort of, we're sort of reduced to a nub of nothing. Like, I am not worth anything unless I have this toothpaste, those boots. You know, our self-worth in this society doesn't really come from our work. Because for most people, not all people, not all people. You know, there's a lot of people who have tremendous pride in their capacities and their integrity in their work and stuff like that. My life would be happier if I had these things. And so it's basically it also reassigns happiness, you know, so that I'm not doing anything to people.

We're just giving them a system of analysis. It's like a whole system, you know, like just track your money and then ask yourself the question, is the money I'm spending bringing me happiness in commensurate with the life energy I invested? It's all in service to liberation from the thrall of consumerism. It's like waking up. That's been, that's the spiritual purpose. And then the material purpose of the book was to lower consumption in North America and consequently the world to stop the machine.

Well, you might be able to infer why I was so interested to talk with you because this This podcast is called The Great Simplification, and you and I, you currently, me historically, we're on the board of Postcarbon Institute where we're looking at post-carbon growth sort of economy transition. And I believe that we have kicked the can for two generations at least. And there's a financial, economic, material bill coming due. and that we are, as a culture, probably going to have to do with 30% less across the board in the coming decade, eventually not going to be able to issue credit in this amount to continue to play this expanding game of musical chairs. So I think we're going to have to look around in your community in Washington, where I live here in Wisconsin, Minnesota.

everyone's going to, on average, have 30% less, give or take. That's, by the way, exactly the number from 1929 to 1934 is how much our GDP drop in the United States. I think something like that is coming again. And one of the reasons for this podcast is we're going to have to figure out ways as individuals and as a culture to navigate that. And so I think some of the recommendations you had 30 years ago and today will apply because most of our culture is, I mean, we are richer than kings and queens of old and our material throughput. But we're not happier. And a lot of people that have a lot of wealth. And believe me, I know this because I used to manage money for high net worth families are miserable.

Not all of them. But this is at the key is how do we individually move outside of the consumer culture, the superorganism, the marketing-driven media that says, you suck, but if you buy this product, you'll be better. And so, I mean, what are like two or three of the core tenets that you wrote in your book and you still espouse that would be applicable to this culture-wide transition, if you will? Yeah. One of the reasons that I updated your money or life in 2018 was to be able to challenge the conflating of money with wealth.

Wealth comes from the same source as well-being. And I'm sure you're familiar with the idea of multiple forms of wealth, you know, that your skills and capacities. And if you are constrained financially and you have a... spirit of adventure, you know, which is one important thing. Like, rather than going like I'm a victim, which you are, you're a victim of a system that does not really take your well-being to heart. But you go like there, you know, you just sort of develop a ferocity. Like they're not going to get me.

I'm going to figure this out. And so I have found that living in a limited income forced me to be more competent. and I learned all sorts of things that I wouldn't have as, you know, the daughter of a doctor. You know, I learned, I built a motorcycle from a box of parts. I rebuilt the engine in my Toyota Land Cruiser. You know, I just, I've learned to grow a garden and build. And I love my competencies. You know, I'm not like arrogant, like ha, ha, ha.

You know, because you have to keep updating things. But I used to say, you know, don't throw money at it. Throw competency at it. your competencies and also your networks. You know, one of the dynamics of the consumer culture is every time they can create, break a bond between humans, they can insert a product, you know, like a divorce equals two refrigerators and two stoves and two houses, you know, so the bonds of the human community, which is our essential wealth.

It's not just family, but it's place. It's not just humans. it's the trees, that's wealth. And your emotional maturity, you know, the work that you do, the inner work you do, is wealth because you have a sovereignty, a sort of emotional and intellectual sovereignty that extricates you from what I would say is a bamboozle, you know. So your relational capacities, your capacity to not fly off the handle when somebody upset you. These are all forms of wealth.

You know, it's like the old Sid Arthur. They shouldn't have let us read Sid Arthur when we were in high school because, you know, I can think, I can wait, and I can fast. Those were his three powers. You know, so if we can think and we can wait and we can fast as in do without for a period of time. And doing without for a period of time is not just your networks and your capacities, but it's also your prudence. You know, I mean, I'm sort of overly prudent. So I have a shed full of tools and, you know, all the nails that I pulled out if they're not rusty. You know, I have a, I have beans and rice.

You know, I have, I could live for a month without leaving my house. And even I have enough wood to, you know, run. on my wood stove, which they don't like you to do anymore. So, you know, that, you know, the Mormons ask their members to store food. And so not living on current income, but always stashing a bit, whether you stash it in money, you know, like dollars and cents, whether you stash it in the market, whether you stash it under your mattress, whether you stash it in things. These are all competencies. These are all forms of wealth. And I would hope, you know, and I'm not sure I'm really, you know, stepping up to this, but I would hope that people will learn this. And I think, you know,

it's like you and I are part of a conversation about, you know, were the truckers right? Were the truckers wrong? You know, when we're talking about, you know, the truckers in Ottawa, you know, what was right about it? What was wrong about it? Were they like January 6th? Were they like Black Lives Matter, were they like XR, you know, who? How do you interpret this? But some of the stories coming out of that experience were stories of people around campfires, people having potlucks, people helping and supporting one another. Just like with Occupy Wall Street, you know, it was like a blossoming of an experience the humans long for, which is this giving and receiving, mutuality, reciprocity, you know, it's just being part of something that has your best

interest at heart and recognizes you as part of it. So I have a lot of thoughts that came to mind based on that. First is that in high school in Wisconsin, Vicki, we did not read Sadartha, F.W.I. Did you read Thoreau? I read Thoreau, but I don't think that was assigned by the high school. So H.L. Mencken once famously said that to be wealthy or to be rich is any income that is at least $100 more than the income of your wife's sister's husband, which is kind of a funny way of saying that we compare ourselves to others. And how much of our wanting and feeling of lack is because we're comparing ourselves to the wrong demographic or surrounding ourselves. by people who are living by a different system of values.

And to be honest, in the age of energy surplus, massive energy surplus, our values are kind of defined by how we make our living. And so that's why I think your ideas are so important is one of the antidotes that you suggest is changing your group of people that you hang around with. And part two question is, did the millions of readers and what happened after Oprah and the movement that you built, did people then find others who were trying for this financial independence, retire early, find meaning and other things? And then that give them an impetus and a shot in the arm and some motivation because they were surrounded by other people that were searching the same thing. Yeah, that was true back then. And very much it was people who already valued frugality, people who already wanted to do sort of the communitarian stuff, the back to the land. You know,

that was the demographic we were serving. Like when I, when I traveled and gave talks and I did a lot of that, audiences will always come up to me. People would always come up to me and they would sort of like whisper, like, you know, I'm really frugal too. You know, it's sort of like, I, I'm really frugal too. You know, it's sort of like I could see that people were trying to keep up with the Joneses to kind of keep their public face respectable. But they really valued frugality because at that time they were the sons and daughters of parents who lived through the Depression. What I see now in the fire community is you would not believe the number of blogs. There's a million people on the financial independence Reddit. A million.

How many of those people are self-motivated to just be more frugal? Usually 1%. They're motivated to be frugal, but not for the reasons that I'm motivated. They're motivated to be frugal because they have a carrot call retire early. And it actually, I think, is, you know, I think it diminishes their humanity because they're on such a race. To retire early? Yeah. Yeah, and they're very influenced, a lot of them by stoicism, you know, like sort of a hyper-rationality.

And I've discovered like a subculture in the fire community that's really into social responsibility and I adore them and I'm organizing over there. You know, like what could we do together? You know, like the fire community, I'll betcha because they're savers that if the fire community organized, they could do shareholder activism. There's possibly like a billion dollars in this community. If they decided to organize, they could influence. I'm not sure they're really organizational because they're very individualistic. But, you know, there's power there. So here's a tough question.

Okay. How much of the financial independence retire early formula is based on the markets and growth continuing as, it has and will be that apple cart will get upset if there is some sort of a financial recalibration sort of thing. Their theory, and I say they, because that arm of this movement does not resonate with me, their theory is that the market always goes up because they've lived through a period of time when the market has. And even with corrections, they've trained themselves to buy index funds and buy and

hold because it'll always go up. And they do, you know, the classic retirement, you know, a 4% or 3.5% withdrawal rate. And, you know, in good times, you know, in the market's going up, they're just steadily by, you know, their holdings increase. When the market goes down, they decrease, but that steady 3.5% to 4% is available because of the past. And they believe that will continue for the next century or whatever? I don't think, yeah, for me, I'm into deep adaptation. I'm just watching this system teetering. This cannot last.

We are so leveraged. And, you know, people don't understand that no bugs on their windshields means that the planet is dying. They don't understand that the plastics in the ocean, that there's more plastic than fish, means that one of our great sources, one of our great sinks of carbon and one of our great sources of food is dying. They don't realize they don't identify with the coral dying. They just think, oh, maybe over in Cancun, I can go see it. So, you know, and I don't mean they, they, they, because I have an American mind, you know, I'm subject to it too, but it's not a tough question for me. I've thought about this. I think my whole investment strategy, you know, yes, you know,

one of the conversations in the fire community is, you know what, there's no social responsibility in this. We're just capitalists, you know, and we're living on passive income. Is it correct to buy up property and flip it? You know, is it correct to be a landlord? Is it correct to buy index funds? What the hell can we invest in that can throw off a passive income? So that question is very alive. Well, here's a part two to that. This is my worry. And by the way, irrespective of what they do with their money or if they buy index funds or whatever, a core part of what you're trying to do is what I'm trying to do with my students

is advise waking up to our reality and making behavior change. And when you do that, you will find that most of the best things in life don't cost money or energy once your basic needs are met. And I have to acknowledge and you're well aware that for a lot of people in our country and around the world, basic needs are not met. But to start having a conversation of what is wealth to you and income. And a lot of my students, that is probably the most important thing they learn. But getting back to the tough question, I think as our world becomes more obviously fractured and more. and more obvious thunderheads on the horizon for dystopian events, that paradoxically,

because our culture has parsed all of the benefits of our ancestral tribal life into one denominator, the dollar, or the euro, or the renming bee, that as these stresses become more obvious, people will try to amass more dollars as an option on the future because dollars can be immediately transferred into something else. And so if someone has a million dollars, they'll want a million and a half for more security. If someone has 10 million, they'll want 15 million. If someone has 10 grand, they'll want 50 grand or whatever it is. So I'm wondering what you think.

as society gets more dicey and some of the things that you and I and our colleagues have been warning about and discussing become more widely known, won't there paradoxically be a rush to make more dollars to protect against what's coming? Yes. And I noticed that in myself. I, you know, I trained myself to hoard and I am not done hoarding. Me too, to my girlfriend's chagrin. But go on. Yeah, exactly. But in part, I believe two things. Number one is the social safety net is so shattered that money is going to be the only way you see yourself through to the end.

This is a very big concern because I'm 76. I'm like hail and hearty, but I am sure that that's not going to last. I don't know how long it lasts. I hope it'll. last 10, 15 years. But they'll come a point when my physicality and my intellect can no longer operate in such a way that I can care for myself. And so that's what the retirement savings are for. And if you don't have a system that you can rely on, that if you have a system that throws you into poverty, if you have a system that says you're on your own. So it's not just, the fear of a diminished... It's not just the hoarding from fear of the future. It's sort of the reasonable hoarding,

realizing that the social safety net is not working, and it's working less and less. I just feel like, you know, it's like the system that we're in is expressing a lack of care for the multitudes who are falling off the bottom. So I think it's both things. and I think we're in a fear state.

I've been most impressed with the news that's coming out of Ukraine that the people are determinedly not falling into fear. These are the reports that I get. So learning to be present to your fear and learning that fear is maybe an ancient and correct response to threat, but it is to let that disable you so that you have, none of your other faculties are available to you. I think that's where the problem comes in.

I have a friend Matis Swackernoggle who did the ecological footprint. You know, and I have been talking for years about like, we've just been waiting for this balloon to burst. And I think that one of the reasons it hasn't burst is because we're so leveraged. It should have burst a long time ago, but we're using debt to keep the game going. Yep. We did it in 2009 and again in 2002.

20 and how many more options are there down the road. Another thing I've seen in the fire community, which just astonished me, is that as interest rates were super low, where they realized they could get a 7 to 10 to 14% return in the market, a lot of people just borrowed at 1% or 2% and invested. I mean, they just borrowed to invest. Including state pension funds did the same, but go on. What I have done with my surplus is I have stored it in things. I've stored it in my house that I own.

I started it in a rental house that I own. I'm now I store it in a sprinter camper. You know, I have stored it in things that are pro survival. I've stored it in my community. I do a lot of community lending. I am storing it in places that will create a benefit. now and in the future, a non-monetary benefit now in the future. Well, that was my question is if our social safety net is fraying, paradoxically,

the impulse to maximize your financial hoarding would be better off by hoarding relationships and, well, hoarding or building them in your community. Right, right. So one of the things that you also, in addition to your book, you've done many things, you explored a hyper local and relational eating where you ate things only within a 10 mile radius of your house for something like 30 days. What was that like? What were the biggest challenges?

I mean, I've done, I mean, we grow a lot of our own food, but there's no way I've ever done that. So what were the benefits? What did you learn? What were the challenges? Do you think that's kind of like lifting weights? You build your muscles eating locally. You're getting ahead of the curve.

on some of the things we're talking about? It really came out of my work with the transition would be inspired by the transition town movement. And we had a speaker who's a farmer. And I asked her to do a calculation because we're dependent on a bridge that's over a huge chasm and ferries. I live on an island. So I said like the bridge goes down, the ferries stop running.

You know, could the people who live here eat from here? and and what she said, she did a calculation, blah, blah, blah. And what she said is, yeah, probably we might be able to do it for two weeks in August. And so that to me was like this like, gasp. You know, like, oh, my God, we are so fragile here. We are so fragile and nobody knows it. So my 10-mile diet also came from a friend of mine who's a farmer and she was watching a Morgan Spurlock, you know, 30-day experiments.

And so she wanted to see, she wanted to find somebody who was willing to just be fed by her, you know, for 30 days, you know, just do the experiment. So those two things combined, I was primed to do the experiment. And then I realized that there's plenty of things I couldn't, you know, she couldn't provide that I might want. And so I gave myself four exotics, foods, from afar I couldn't live without, which is oil, salt, caffeine, and lemons. But now I'm planning to grow a mire lemon, so that might be handled if I can be successful. And I live by the ocean, and so I've learned how to make salt from the ocean.

But I gave myself exotics, and then I wanted to, because I'm a meat eater, I found people who could source meat within, you know, so I set this 10 mile radius was defined by. But isn't there perpetual fish there, if you want? wanted it? But it's not 10 mile. Oh, what? Aren't you on the ocean? I might have been able to fish off the pier in Langley, but 10 miles is not a very, so basically, but so it was simply in service to discovering what it would take for us to be food resilient. It was an experiment in service to something. And then I, in doing so, I realized that local food is not a local food system. that we don't have a local food system, that that is broken.

We have a farmer's market, but the farmer's market, what we have now cannot feed us. And part of it, so now I'm working with a food resiliency group that is working to change the regulations. I mean, I have stories galore about what the regulatory environment developed in service to the people had no relationship with their food. You know, you have to be able to go to the market and be able to trust the food you get. And so all of the regulations are in service to the industrial system, plus the industrial system has one of the biggest lobbies. So doing scale-appropriate regulations, getting even people who raise, you know, pastured beef here, pastured hogs, pastured chickens, you know, the chickens we can do.

They cannot process their own meat. It has to go to USDA facility. Same here. Even so, they have to sell it by the quarter of an animal. And I cannot eat a quarter of a hog in two years, you know, five years. And so they can't sell cuts of meat. They can't sell homemade cheese. They can't sell anything that's made in their kitchen.

So the things that we need to do to make food systems more resilient and more reliant on local things are not advocated because of the system above it. So we can't, even if we wanted to do some of these things, there are giant. speed bumps in the way, yes? Not only that, but we have really honestly been trained to fear our neighbors. We've been trained to fear anything other than that which is produced by the industrial system. If it's a widget that comes from Amazon, we can trust it. If somebody has a lathe, if our neighbor has a lathe and they can turn something, you know,

that, you know, like a farmer has, you know, so many skills. but we no longer trust and respect that. My opinion is that any producer, local producer, cannot poison his neighbors because he would be out of business. You know, the care that's taken in growing and producing the food is done out of, you know, real love and integrity pretty much, you know, not everybody all the time. And so I think we should be able to hold harmless clauses. We should be able to buy from our neighbors, you know, just like they have egg stands out. And you buy the eggs.

That's permitted. There's so many aspects of our human repertoire, like shame and love and pride and trust that have atrophied. Why? Because we're so rich as metaphorically as a nation that we can just. live in our house and order stuff, like you said, the widgets from Amazon. And so in order to feel shame, I have to be part of a group where I have daily interactions with them. In order to have trust, I have to have daily interactions with my neighbor and sharing eggs and things like that. So it's our lack of social interactions that's caused a lot of these dynamics to atrophy.

How can we change that? Is there things in your book and your work that how can we start first, with rebuilding social connection and community, because I think we're going to need that in spades coming soon. I think participation, you know, it's like if you join a movement, if you volunteer for the food bank, if you, you know, whether it's volunteering or, you know, taking local positions, every time you're part of a group where you're accountable, that builds social capital. And so participation is super important. whether, you know, whether it's with indivisible or even if it's with the truckers.

I mean, I'm not like, there's no political signature on this. The participation with other people, barbecues, you know, street dances, that's really how I have been accepted in my community. I used to say, I may be the village idiot, but I'm their village idiot. You know, it's like I am part of how other people define the community is like, oh, Vicky's part of us. You know, so being, and I, you know, really, the values on the left are very, you know, unless you go to the extreme left, you know, they're sort of like the liberal values are very individualistic, but you go to the extremes and people understand the communitarian values. We have a buy nothing group. And I tell you, I bonded with all the people in that group.

You know, I put little things out of my porch, you know. And it's like everybody is like, oh, thank you, thank you. You know, it's, it's an amazing community. Just today I borrowed a snow shovel from my neighbor and she thanked me. So I think there has to be an intention. And there's an embarrassment because we're trained that we have to have everything in our own house. If we ask for things, it's like I used to. We used to have these big potlucks with transition would be, and we would have a period of time when people did offers and asks.

And we also had a local currency. And I realized that asking is how the machine of community starts. You can't all sit in your home and say, I have a lot to give, but nobody will take it. You have to, you know, vulnerability, need, shared, allowing your needs. neighbors to give to you, allowing and appreciating what you've been given. These are all the ways traditionally societies, you know, we talk about money as like a, you know, we think of it as just a substitute for barter, but in intact societies, it wasn't exactly barter. It was like to be obligated. It's a funny thing. To be obligated to other people is a way in which you are allowing yourself to become

part of a community to say, I have no obligations to other people. I am self-sufficient actually is not allowing others to contribute to you. And that's extremely hard for an individualistic American. So for the people listening to this, that might be in Topeka, Kansas or a town in California or in Massachusetts, who kind of understand the logic behind the energy debt. technology, great simplification that we discuss, but are really hungry to start these conversations and local food or developing discussion groups in their community. You've been trying and doing this for a long time. What sort of advice would you have to someone listening that wants to

broaden the social capital in their community on these issues? How would you start? You know, I think there's so much risk in asking somebody to join you in something. It's like a big risk because you could be told no or that's a stupid idea. And so I think there's a part of it to just accept that it's a risk and you might get a no. That's what I notice in myself, that every time I organize anything, there's always a risk of making a fool of myself of losing credibility, of being rejected, and of reputational, you know, impoverishment. There's so many risks anymore in changing the valence of social connection. And so when we were doing the conversation cafes, I was like for three years every week,

I would show up in a cafe and I would just like put him a little tent, you know, conversation Cafe, join me. Topic for today is love. And it's just, you know, and you're sitting there and you feel like an idiot and then two people show up. And you go like, okay, fine, fine. And then six people show up. Or maybe nobody shows up. It's, I think it's a skill anybody can develop. I'm a pretty social person. So it's easier for me. And the thing is with Facebook, you know, and I've gone off Facebook and service to like thinking more deeply about things. And I miss it a bit. But I think you gain credibility through, you know, not only cat pictures, but, but, you know, through these buy nothing groups or through being a good participant in communities that are already formed. Now, it's Facebook, so it's not

face-to-face. But I have Facebook friends, especially in these last two years with the pandemic, who've just been, we've all been so affirming with each other that when we see each other, the relationship is deepened. You know, Nate, it's a difficult, it's not a formulaic question because I think it takes risk. I've failed trying that here many times in my county. I've got a podcast, people around the world listen to it, which is different than getting people in my own community to listen and to share and to participate because there's wildly different assumptions about the future.

You know, George Jetson, technology, colonize outer space, economic growth for centuries are the dominant narratives. So the narrative that you and I ascribe to is becoming more accepted because we're seeing it unfold in real time, but it's still cognitively quite a large barrier between people's actual behaviors and what they'll talk about and discuss. So one of the other things that you've written about, you call it a hero's journey, which is finding one's purpose in life. So what is it?

How do people do it? And how does the hero's journey fit into someone listening to this program? Yeah. So for me, it's not the hero's journey in general. That is a metaphor that I have used in the fire community to talk to people about. that there is life after financial independence. Retire early. You know, there's light, you retire early and you have a bigger problem, which is that you

have to design your whole life. You know, there's no, you know, bus you have to get. There's no boss you have to please. There's no, you know, cafeteria where you get your lunch every day. You have to do the whole thing. So I used that metaphor for talking about what it's like to, you know, be responsible for filling your time in a way that gives you a feeling of happiness and also a feeling of purpose. And so I said, you know, like the, like, you know, retiring early is like

just the first quarter of a journey, of the journey. And then I've noticed that the next quarter of the journey, you get out and, you know, you're disoriented. What I notice people do is they spend time with family, they go on the road, they take up an instrument, if that's what, you know, or learn a language, you know, the things that they've delayed that they thought would bring them happiness, but they didn't have any time. And then I think, you know, they start to discover that they have something that other people admire. And so I've seen a lot of people coaching others. When I wrote your money, your life and I looked at the fire community, there were like over a thousand blogs. You know, there were maybe 50 that were popular. But people start a blog. You know, I'm going to

help people. And then I see that there's sort of an awareness that grows, that there are, you know, bigger problems. So you could just say that the next quarter, the third quarter, is like community service. You know, it's participating in movements, participating in community service, you know, trying to help out solve the problems of the world. And then I think the fourth quadrant, and I think I think I'm there mostly is sort of a systems thinking, the realization that there's a paradigm that's off. And it's being willing to tolerate the complexity and the confusion of having a mind and life that were formed in a paradigm that is no longer appropriate to our condition. And so I think it's quite a bit of spiritual journey.

It's like a remaking of the assumptions of your life, your identity, your beliefs, your circles, your loneliness, you know, because that is not where everybody is. So that's what I used the hero's journey to talk about, about what is, you know, life designed with a world in mind. you know, how do you design a life in a bigger context than financial retirement early? Yeah, I mean, that's what I'm trying to tell people now instead of what to do. It's how to be, how to be alive, how to be a human during these times. And I'm fully in that fourth quadrant. I don't have financial independence or those other quadrants, but I'm in that paradigm shift that our system is on fumes. and we're going to have to live differently.

What kind of advice would you give to teenagers, to young people who are putting together the knowledge and awareness of this whole great simplification, resource limits, our social and environmental circumstances? Yeah. So it sounds weird coming from a boomer. But I would say to the degree possible, waste no time blaming any, you know, the generations that came before you. you know, just to the degree possible, just forgive us that we did our best within a set of expectations and rules that we accepted because every generation just accepts the world that they're born into. And some of us, like you and me, you know, have like worked hard to address that, but we, you know, it's rolled on, you know. And so that would be one thing. The second thing I would

say is, and I think young people understand that, is to work in groups. Do not let yourself get isolated, whether it's, you know, Fridays for the Future, you know, inspired by Greta, whether it's a, you know, a communal household. You know, it's like to accept that the group is not a step down in status. The group is your pod for moving forward. And don't necessarily, I mean, couple up if you, you know, and have kids if you want to, you know. But don't be convinced that it's low status or to not have the things. You know, it sort of looks like a big jip. You know, it sort of looks like a deprivation.

Wait a second. I was supposed to be better, but it's not. No, I mean, you're going to find new things. They're going to be niches. That's the other thing is the dominant system always, because it's so big and it assumes that it's persistent, it always has blind. spots. You know, it always has places it cannot see. And so there's always niches that are open, but anger and fear will diminish your capacity to see the possibilities. And it may be that,

you know, you settle in some place that if you look at the climate mess, you know, that you can see where to settle. But you settle someplace with other people that's, you know, where you can grow some food. I mean, the, the sort of, you know, the sort of, you know, of, now it's called permaculture. We used to call it back to the land. Or you may operate in cities or small cities or you may, you know, the kids who can't stand to inherit the farm because they want to go to the city. You know, there's opportunities. Even as things are crashing, there's opportunities. And whether it's apocryphal or not. I heard that Helen Keller said, life is either a great adventure or it's nothing. So I have lived my life like a great adventure.

And these are tough times. But it's also what we talked about earlier, about multiple forms of wealth. These are tough times. But you know, the other thing to know is that humanity has gone through really tough times. This seems like the biggest existential crisis that you could ever imagine because it's planetary. And so, but the old world has died to many generations. You know, the people at the end of the Roman Empire, the people at the end of the Inca Empire, the Mayan Empire. It's not to reify struggle, you know, and the kind of struggle that indigenous people went through. It's not to reify that and say, oh, go and, you know, get yourself destroyed and you'll be stronger, you know, whatever. doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

It's not that. It's to know that within you as a human, part of your birthright is this capacity, this amazing capacity to scan the horizon and pick a line and that you think is going to lead you to something better. And the very fact that humanity is here at all means that we have a 10,000, year, at least history of exactly this, of generation after generation after generation, by hook or by crook, figuring this one out. So, you know, do not despair of this time. It's tough. It's not right. It's terrible. It's horrible. Grieve, cry, but be undaunted. What do you care most about in the world, Vicky?

Besides my cat? Besides my cat and my friends. It's true. I care about my dogs quite a bit. Yeah. No, no. I mean, I care about the community of life. I don't care about like, I care about the specific dog fur that are, you know, are stressed now and we'll be.

I care about the individual people. and plants and animals a lot. But I care about the community of life. For me, I am part of the community of life. And that, it's so comforting to me, is I belong here. I do, you know, because I'm part of the community. I understand. What are you most hopeful about in the coming decade or so?

You know, what I mean, it could be because I, it's my area of focus. But I think that relocalization, I actually think, you know, if the empire comes apart and may it happen without huge wars and all that stuff. But, you know, as the people are sorting themselves out by their politics, you know, people are moving to Texas, people are moving to California, people are moving where their people are. So we're already voting with our feet for a falling apart of this country. I would love to have it be grace. Graceful. I actually think localization has a lot to offer in terms of all the things I talked about,

networks, competency, all the other forms of wealth. And where I live is as polarized as the country. We have a naval air station up north. It's like a red, you know, red zone. And now, and I live in the blue zone. And we're just going to have to figure it out. Yeah. I do have hope as well. localization. And we're probably not going to choose to do that on mass, but little examples of what you're doing if they could scale and we get a little bit ahead of the curve. I think that is a positive development. So any other words of wisdom, advice, or closing thoughts for our listeners before you go to your youth climate change local meeting, Vicki? It's sort of like what occurs to me, and this is unplanned. There was a spiritual

teaching. I don't know who offered it. But it's like love as much as you can from wherever you are. I think that love is the lubricant, love is the glue, love is the practice, love is the possibility, love is the nature of, you know, the spiritual gravity that holds us together. And there's so much fear and so much anger and so much loss and so much grief and stuff like that. And so just, you know, to not forget love, I guess. would be the thing that occurs to me at the moment. Vicki, so great to talk to you today. Yeah, so great to talk with you too.

We'll be in touch. I'm really glad to know you. If you enjoyed or learned from this episode of The Great Simplification, please subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform and visit thegreat simplification.com for more information on future releases.