Hedge Society

On Failure

I came across something I scribbled down after reading that book I mentioned a few weeks ago by Tibor Scitovsky (still love that name!). He said there are two kinds of danger associated with failure: the chance of failure itself, and the consequences of failure.

That made me think happier thoughts about the project I'm working on. (Here's how I feel about the project lately.)

But thanks to Tibor, I realized that although the chance of failure is there, just like it always is anytime you try anything new, the consequences of failure aren't bad at all. If it fails, if I fail, not too much happens - unlike somebody walking tightropes, for example, where failure sometimes means a long fall with no pillows at the end.

In my case, failure means I'll just have to do something else. And that reminded me of a Martha Beck article I read once about answering panicked people who say, "But what are you going to do if THAT DOESN'T WORK???"

Something else.

On being deviant

According to Tibor Scitovsky (a great name for an economist AND a regal title for a cat), eccentricity quite literally costs more than conformity. If you're conformist enough to have the same tastes as millions of other people, you'll probably be able to find things in the economy that suit your tastes. That's because millions of people wanting roughly the same thing means we can create economies of scale that allow us to produce those things more cheaply. And things like advertising encourage us to share tastes so that we have a chance to create those economies of scale. 

In short, says Tibor, the economy is really about mob rule, because the bigger the mob that wants something, the more likely it is that what the mob wants will be produced.

Now if you're not part of the mob, we can call you an eccentric. As an eccentric, you'll probably find that your tastes cost an awful lot more than what the mob's buying, or that what you want isn't available at all. That's OK if you happen to be a millionaire AND an eccentric, because you'll just pay the high prices or get what doesn't exist made up for you. And in fact, we tend to think that eccentrics are millionaires, because rich eccentrics are the only ones we know of who can literally afford to indulge their eccentricity. The rest of us, Tibor says, are mostly "forced by the high cost of eccentricity to give it up and conform instead."

Hmmmm. I wonder if that's what's happening in all those rabbit-hutch housing developments in my old neck of the woods. I can't believe that people wouldn't rather live among some trees or plants, or by the water, or in some more soulful environment. Yet this is what we keep producing, and this apparently is what we keep buying.

Christopher Alexander, architect and author, says it's a myth that to cure ourselves, we just have to do some inner work and change ourselves. He calls it "a one-sided and mistaken view which also maintains the arrogance of the belief that the individual is self-sufficient, and not dependent in any essential way on his surroundings." In fact, he says, our state of harmony with ourselves is completely dependent on our harmony with our physical surroundings: "Some kinds of physical and social circumstances help a person come to life. Others make it very difficult."

So - if being eccentric is expensive, and it's cheaper to conform to the mob, then what we, the mob (now made up of a lot of eccentrics) end up with is a lot of what nobody really wanted in the first place. And living surrounded by a bunch of what nobody really wanted in the first place makes it hard to come to life. And THAT makes me think it's worthwhile to keep on being an eccentric, in case there are more of us than we know, simply accepting that life will be more expensive than it might otherwise have been and budgeting accordingly.

After all, you get what you pay for.

Food, take two.

(Photo: Sharks for sale at the fish market in Dubai.)

I've been thinking a lot about food lately, what with the 2008 Chinese tainted milk catastrophe, the 2008 Canadian listeriosis outbreak via Maple Leaf foods, the 2009 U.S. salmonella outbreak via Peanut Corp, and life sciences companies like Monsanto, most famous for its genetically modified seeds, its attempts to patent a pig, and its fight to control milk production. (Please, Monsanto. You are famous enough. Stop now.)

(Photo: Greengrocer in Dubai.)

Food just isn't what it used to be, and I'm feeling more tentative all the time about what's available in grocery stores. I'm starting to daydream about some land where I can run a little hobby farm and grow a huge kitchen garden - where I'll harvest all my own organic vegetables from heritage seeds instead of genetically modified ones, spend the extra dollars for organic eggs if the chickens don't lay, and weed the old-fashioned way - by hand, and not with herbicide. It looks like I'm not the only one. People are talking about growing their own fruits and vegetables or even their own wheat. Sure, it's hard work. But urban gardeners like Mary Seton Corboy claim that physical labor matters: "It is an integral part of the process, and I want to be part of the process, the beginning, the middle, and the end."

After all, if we keep going the way we are - antibiotics in our cows and chickens, mercury in our fish, hormones in our milk, and fewer nutrients in our fruits and vegetables - going back to doing things ourselves might eventually be the only way left to us. Then again, there's got to be a reason human civilization was agricultural for thousands of years. Ever wonder if industrial society with its mass production is a little 200-year blip on the scale of human history? Something we'll look at another 200 years from now and say, boy, was that ever a mistake. And a close call.

Who knew

According to an economist, "Beethoven and Michelangelo, who sold their artworks for a profit, were entrepreneurs and capitalists." So participating in a system makes you a noun in that system? I guess that means growing vegetables on my balcony makes me a farmer! Good to know.

Sounds like Twitter, 25 years too early.

"The competitors [for private recognition] speculate on the market, intrigue against near rivals, and bargain for small gains: I'll admire you if you'll admire me. They exercise power, spend money, display goods, give gifts, spread gossip, stage performances - all for the sake of recognition. And having done all this, they do it all again, reading their daily gains and losses in the eyes of their fellows, like a stockbroker with his morning paper."

Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice, 1983

Justice is...busy

I'm doing some research on law lately and am reading a book by the American Bar Association called Making Partner: A Guide for Law Firm Associates. I had no plans to become a lawyer before I started reading this book, and I have even fewer plans to become a lawyer after reading it.

I was already feeling seasick by Chapter 3, but Chapter 4 and 5 put me over the edge. The title of the fourth chapter is "Work Hard". I have no overt problem with that idea, for yea and verily, I was raised in a Protestant household of German heritage where one of the highest compliments that can be bestowed upon someone lying on a deathbed is that he or she was a hard worker. (This is not an exaggeration.)

But while those German Protestants like to work hard, they are not necessarily insane about it. The bar association's little black book, on the other hand, says if you're a young lawyer, your yearly time budget should look like this:

• record 2,000 billable hours annually
• participate in at least one bar association panel for 50 hours per year, and one local civic group for another 75 hours per year
• conduct research for an article being written by one of the partners, and participate in an in-office training program on the same subject, for a total of 100 hours
• handle a pro bono case assigned by the Volunteer Lawyer's Project
• attend one or more two-day continuing legal education seminars
• perform non-billing administrative functions for the firm
• set aside big blocks of uninterrupted time for time-consuming projects. "Unfortunately, these big blocks of uninterrupted time tend to fall on nights and weekends."
• Assume that activities will take more time than you think, and plan accordingly.

All told, "you can count on 10- to 11-hour days and 55- to 60-hour weeks" fifty weeks a year.

No problem, you say. But "part of working hard...will mean having a flexible schedule. You will sometimes need to work early mornings, late evenings, and weekends...When extra effort is required, work with a smile. Do not complain. Do not be a martyr...If you are a primary caregiver of young children or older relatives, all of this off-hours activity will be particularly difficult for you. You must develop a backup system in the event you cannot get home or pick up children at day care as scheduled...The best advice is to work it out as quickly and quietly as you can. Different people have different priorities and different problems. It is important that you do not visit your problems on the office."

If you get the chance to do pro bono work, "We encourage you to take advantage of those opportunities so long as you can also satisfy your obligations to your family, your firm, and yourself." (I think this means they don't really think you should take advantage of those opportunities.)

And don't forget it's all about balance and developing relationships.

• "Quiet time for thinking or stress management is important. Plan some into your day." (Your 11-hour day.)

• "Get some fresh air...Eat lunch with friends periodically." Still, "Less important matters should be put at the end of the day...Unfortunately, your social life often comes last."

• "Plan some time to spend with your secretary each day." (Make new friends!) 


• "Although taking a vacation is important, be flexible. You may not be able to take it when you want...One sure way to make points in the 'Partnership Sweepstakes' is to be willing to change personal plans for the good of the client and the firm."

Anything else? Oh, yes, one last thing. "Remember that you cannot go wrong wearing a suit."

21 days and counting...

I have to (get to?) go overseas next month to present at a conference. Frankly, this kind of thing freaks me out, and when I start to get nervous as the date looms closer on the calendar, I'm annoyed that I did this to myself. Public speaking = death and all that. Or at least a heart attack.

Yesterday my nerves got me thinking about something I read somewhere (here? thanks, K), that your only job is to be yourself. And as I was driving down the road with my sister, I said to her, "Can you imagine if you took that seriously in life, that no matter where you were or what you were doing, your job was really to be yourself? Can you imagine how comfortable you'd feel all the time?" And that reminded me of something I read once in a old book called Journey Inward, Journey Outward that has since stuck with me:

"A creative work always has its own life. The painting that comes out of the life of an artist is not repeatable. Others can be influenced by it, but they cannot copy the essence that makes it what it is. The imprint of the creator is not in the subject or the techniques. This is why the true artist can give freely to another artist all he knows. Because he lives closer to the center of his own life, he will not be threatened by the success of another. He knows that it does not rob him of anything that is his own. The work of others can only enlarge his horizons and call forth his own gift. He can stand before the work of other artists and receive into his life a newness that will make him different...

Sometimes the artist does not remember this. He becomes a critic of the work of others as he grows afraid. It is as though the other were his competitor, or could be, and he has forgotten the mysterious uniting of elements that happens in himself to produce a work. Either this, or he paints in the way of most men, using only observations and techniques and skill. It may, as with the writer, be a very good work, pleasing to the eye, but it is not creative in the profound sense. It has not come from the deep center of himself, where forces within him unite, and something happens which is through him and of him, but which even he cannot cause to happen again. The artist who is operating on the more surface level has reason for his fear. He has many competitors, and they may seek to occupy his place, for after all he is not in his real place, which means that he can be displaced. He is not even in the place of another man, since it is not possible to take a place that truly belongs to another.

No, the place where he is does not belong to any one. One holds it, and then another. It is won by the usual means of aggression, or industry, or cunning, or deceit, or skill, or knowledge, and in these ways it can be lost. This is common practice and there is nothing to be said about the wrong or the right of it. This is not what we are discussing, but the fact that there is another way - one that belongs to an entirely different order of things, whose governing laws are different. The place a man finds under these other laws is really his own, and when he has found it he is not afraid, because there has grown up in him the knowledge that it cannot be taken away. He is in the place that was prepared for him when the foundations of his life were laid."