Monthly Archives: January 2012

Pelle Journal — An Invocation

Pelle-2012-01-10-12-25.JPG

My friend Brad Dowdy of Pen Addict fame recently sent me this beautiful new Pelle notebook from Jet Pens in an absolutely stunning, refillable, leather cover. He also sent along with it a Kaweco Sport Fountain Pen (which is so great it deserves a longer mention of its own).

I have been using it constantly for a few weeks now but have been struggling to find a way to impart what it is about this journal that has caused me to be drawn to it so.

There is the obvious of course. The rustic good looks, supple feel, and earthy smell of the thick leather cover that will only improve in character with age and use. The fact that the construction of the cover allows the containment of multiple notebooks if one desired. My notebook included insert was filled with thick, creamy, welcoming, blank linen pages that take fountain pen ink (or any other you choose to throw its way) like a champ. That said, I have used one of the other elastic straps to fasten the Field Notes notebook I’ve been using for my book notes. Yes, all of these make it wonderful and an asset.

But, there is something more and I think I might have it figured out…

It is an invocation. A good notebook (and this is true of anything made with a high level of craft and care) should be be more than just a joy to use, it should be an invocation to do so. It should beseech one to fill it. When within reach, it should call to you to grab it, hold it, open it, and pour yourself into it. It should beckon your plans, drawings, ideas, dreams, experiences, doodles, schemes, diagrams, plots — each empty page left wanting without these. And, when you reach the end of a thought, it should entice you to take it further. It should also be though as nails. One should have no fear of taking it anywhere and throwing it in anything. For any journey worth taking is worth taking this journal along with.

This notebook fulfills these qualifications and more. I have been treating it as prescribed above and it continues to reward each time I do so.

Where Are The Sidewalks?

Among the reasons I choose to live where I live and love where I live are the sidewalks. My community is a very walkable one and I enjoy doing so when I take the care to. They are long urban blocks filled with curiosity, interest, activity, and things unchanged.

I walk to our local grocery |fbhzt|referrer|zdzst
co-op (2.5 blocks) no matter the weather. I walk to our local bread shop (4.5 blocks) and wine shop (4.75 blocks). On a nice day, I walk to a small independent bookstore I love (6 blocks). The great little park , recently refurbished after years of city neglect, where my daughter likes to play (3.5 blocks). When the time allows, I enjoy meeting a friend for beer at a great restaurant and bar with a fantastic selection of beers (5 blocks) which I enjoy more than the one with less selection across the street (100 feet). These places are designed for walking to. They have limited parking if they have any dedicated at all. In the time it would take to get in the car and navigate traffic, one could be there already on foot.

What I love most, beside the walking itself, is the occasional friend or neighbor I run into. And, even when I don’t, most of these shop owners and barkeeps are friends and neighbors as well. For this is where I find out the news that matters most — that which is happening right around me…

“Did you hear about the break-in just around the corner?”

“What’s the deal with the two seemingly competing chocolate shops opening on the same street two blocks from each other?”

“Mr. Councilman, sorry to disturb your coffee. Can I ask you about your vote against the stop reminder I asked about for the pedestrian walkway?”

Thus, though a walk may be only a few blocks it can sometimes take an hour if I’m in no hurry which is just fine with me.

Increasingly it seems, so many of us live in places without sidewalks. So many suburbs and exurbs we are moving to are without them. So many of these communities we build are purposefully absent this integral part (in my mind at least) of community. Though I can’t imagine a worse fate then to be somewhere without them, I increasingly feel in the minority.

The planners know that less people want them. They are moving out of the urban area for a sense of country living. Part of which means, in their mind, to have lawn that extends to the road. Even though that road may be a asphalt beach. Sidewalks are simply a reminder of all those things they are trying to venture from.

These concrete paths are not technically ours. They belong to the city — the community. Even the ones that are just in front of where you live you must share and allow others to pass through. As such, you must maintain them despite this domain. You must shovel them when it snows. You must keep them free of ice. You must pay the cost to repair if damaged. More people, it seems, would rather have a few feet of green space instead. One that they own outright and can tell people to get off of when crossed.

Because there are less sidewalks in these places, people tend to make their connections elsewhere. At work or at the kids hockey practice or at the dog park. They tend to know their actual neighbors less. There are few opportunities to do so since they never cross each other’s paths except within the protected bubble of vehicles and traffic laws. They drive to all the places they need to go. Which are the similar to the places I go but all decidedly further away and designed for cars. Upon return, they go straight into the garage and then shut the door.

They turn on the TV before dinner to get news that is happening half a world away and consider themselves informed. Why should’t they? For the news they may get from conversations with people who do not live near them might as well be the same distance and equally as relevant. And because these connections are with people who live not near us they must discuss what things we have in common which does not start with community for there is none.

I wonder too if our communities in the virtual world are following this same path.

My first sense of being “online” was on a dial up connection to a local BBS. I knew the people there offline as well. It was small enough that one could. The topics discussed were often a continuation of the ones we did when we were together. If there was a problem that needed sorting (or a quarrel that needed moderating) one messaged the sysop who, once again, was a friend as well as neighbor. There were sidewalks there.

Then AOL came along. The first suburb. A place where you could form relationships, of a sort, with people from all over the country. They were not neighbors or people you would likely see in real life. Yet, you felt like you knew them just as well. You felt like you were being informed about things that mattered. And, as long as you stayed there, there were sidewalks.

Now we have Facebook and Twitter. The exurbs. Communities and relationships that span the globe. People on the other side of the planet that we know better than those real humans right next door. We can now know the first hand, on the ground, news of a community in Iran in real time. Or assist in the search for someone we barely know who has gone missing and is feared dead. Are we building sidewalks here?

If you pressed me to come up with one reason I feel so drawn to a service such as Path versus the rest is that it feels like a sidewalk to me.

Owners and Custodians

I’m going to attempt to explain, in some very broad strokes, one of the key differences between those that are rich (new money) and those that are wealthy (old money). I like to separate these two groups. Though they both occupy the same 1%, the way they approach their abundance is radically different.

The rich are those for whom having a lot of money is relatively new. These are the folks who got the right breaks or worked hard enough and now they are firmly members of the haves. They think nothing of buying a lavish home, expensive clothes, a luxury car. They often have high salaries and powerful positions. They tend to spend more than they save or invest. And, after all, why shouldn’t they. This is America. They earned it. They own it.

The wealthy are those who inherited their riches through the generations. While some distant relative may have initially acquired that wealth through the same means and circumstances as the rich, they adopted the tactics of the wealthy to ensure their dependents were secure. Such abundance was then passed down through generations. These folks may live in a big house, but it often is one that has been in the family for a while. Sometimes their clothes are plain and their cars average. They often work hard despite not having to because it is what they believe is right. They likely invest at least as much as they spend (if not more). And, after all, why shouldn’t they. This abundance was granted by many before being just as careful. It is now their duty to do the same and ensure the security of future generations. They are not owners. They are custodians.

Now this is not to say that an owner can not adopt the values of the caretaker or vice versa. In fact, there are countless stories of the rich giving away their fortune for the greater good and teaching their children the lessons of wealth. There are at least as many stories of the child of inheritance blowing the family money on foolish expenditures and shady dealings. But the fact remains that the difference is not rooted in ways and means but in approach and values.

And, because it had nothing to do with the stuff but how it is treated, one in the 99% can learn and apply these same lessons (and, as this economy has taught, fail just as spectacularly). When we start to see ourselves as caretakers instead of owners of what meager abundance we have, we are far more likely to maintain it.

Instead of adopting endless cycles of replacement, we’ll put more upfront thought and investment into the final choices of things that will last. Perhaps, even things that will outlast us.

It does not matter what a house is worth relative to the mortgage if one plans to pass it on. Does it matter if your home is “underwater” as they say if you never plan to sell it or borrow against it? Homes that are well cared for can become those of our children and their children. What greater gift could you provide for your descendants then a home that is paid for a well maintained? The comfort and security this could provide them is the only measure that matters.

Abundance may seem to be antithetical to the idea of enough. But it is not in every case. It is only so when one is not doing enough with the abundance they have. When they are not allowing it to provide for others or being judicial custodians of the gifts they have.

Even most of those who feel they do not have enough generally have far more than they realize.