#solarpunk

*Drags her pile of books + paintprushes up on the cobblestones, wipes her brow, and props up happily on her little corner of the Sunny.Garden* Yay, thank you so much for welcoming me in! Thank you @brook @megan @ipsquiggle @Mustbetuesday @opal! Here's my #Introduction #Introductions for Sunny.Garden, as I am #NewtoMasto

I'm in my late 30s and a writer of #highfantasy #epicfantasy #fantasy #romantasy #cozyfantasy #cozy #cozysolarpunk #solarpunk #fiction and #poetry.
I'm attempting to become a better #digitalart artist also, in order to own my work process end to end ....We'll see if I can get there, lol.

I love #cats, #TTRPGs cozy socks (but forever losing those, alas!), #folklore, Mary Oliver the legendary poet, delight, wonder, witchiness, magic, and mystical meaning. Taylor Swift is my jam; Member of the #TorturedPoetsDepartment!

I hope to grow some poems here, mostly in response to delightful moments and music and art and pop culture. I'll some times share from my Substack, or my other more "networking" outlets.

And most of all looking forward to following / bolstering fellow creative hearts, find writing kindred spirits, joining hashtag writing events, talking about writing + poetry craft, books, the self-pub industry, and the power of the imagination and seeing the magical in daily life.

So happy to be here, can' t wait to dive in and have coffees on the porch on my part of the Sunny.Garden with everyone on the fediverse! <3

A couple folks have brought up a great concern regarding "Free Fridges" and Post-Scarcity Mutual Aid Food Distribution:

(I will not link the specific threads here as to discourage brigading).

Example concern: "It's funny how few of these projects last. I am an old school liberal where we recognize that intentions are not enough. Stuff has gotta work, and that leaves out a lot of hope-cope stuff like free stuff."

Example concern: Post-scarcity programs have been tried over & over. They run into the same issues. 80% decent folk vs 20% selfish sociopaths. [...] Free food outlets get vandalized by NIMBY's to "discourage the wrong sort. Volunteers burn-out & tire of those misusing facilities meant for the common good"

The general concern is that these initiatives "fail." And that the existence of this fail state is enough to discourage even attempting it in the first place.

A couple thoughts:

1) No they don't. Many initiatives fail. Many succeed. Sooo... yay life.

2) A common tech-bro / entrepreneur refrain is "I am a serial entrepreneur." or "Fail Fast, Fail Often, Fail Everywhere". Capitalistic endeavors fail all the time... but that's seen as a good thing there. Why are post-scarcity / mutual aid initiatives held to a different standard?

3) That said, it is important to know WHY those mutual aid / post-scarcity initiatives that fail, do fail. So that we can learn from their mistakes and push for better success. This is a great thought exercise to have.

To go into detail on the above thoughts:

1) It's just not true that all post-scarcity projects and mutual aid efforts fail. My specific free fridge project is in its third year and we're beginning new initiatives to spread and install new fridges. Richmond's free fridges are on their fifth year. Food Not Bombs was established in the 1980's. The NAACP was founded in 1909. So... like... what do you mean fail? Have some projects started that are no longer here, absolutely... but how is that different from any other human endeavor? Which brings me to the next point:

2) Capitalist and for-profit initiatives fail all the time. How many store fronts do you see that run a business and now run a different business? Approximately 60% of restaurants fail within the first year of operation and 80% fail within the first five years. Tech Bros always say "Fail Fast, Fail Often!" and they're praised for being self-labeled as "Serial Entrepreneurs". Does that stop them from trying? Nope. Folks will spin up a new endeavor again and again. Good for them!

Even if I die tomorrow... and fail at "staying alive"... I will have fed people. I have ALREADY SUCCEEDED in feeding people. I have fed people through the food bank. I have fed people through hot meal initiatives. I have fed people through this free fridge project. I have fed people through food rescue. I have fed people by growing hydroponics and giving that away for free. I have fed people by giving them a five dollar bill on the side of the road.

I have already succeeded.

And I will continue to succeed by growing out these initiatives.

3) These "you're gonna fail so don't even try" comes from two places. The first is malicious. They don't want you to succeed, so they tell you you can't. These are discouraging and depressing and I take a step back, feel sad, take a nap, then get up and continue on trying to ignore what they said (it sucks though, and reading these comments hurts, but whatcha gonna do?).

The second set are people that have failed at (or seen fail) post-scarcity initiatives that they wished would have succeeded. They are discouraged and are either venting their discouragement OR are warning you that you might fail in an effort to hope you prepare for it so you succeed.

This is fine.

We can heed this.

For me, in particular, I am not discouraged by temporary set backs. We had a threat of my fridge being shut down recently. We talked to the host and it's staying up (for now). But if it did go down, we would have built another one elsewhere. In fact, this little fright has spurred us to intentionally build elsewhere so that we don't have a SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE. Great. Resiliency.

So let's look at why mutual aid fails. Dean Spade in his book "Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the Next)" devotes entire chapters to analyzing this, but I'll only use a couple paragraphs here for the sake of brevity. These are my observations. Research more on your own!

Mutual Aid / Post-Scarcity often fails due to a couple reasons. Namely burnout and discouragement. If you treat mutual aid like charity, it will fail. If you pour all of yourself into it and do not take, you will dry up. If you push yourself further than you can, you will burn out.

You know what. You can burn out in your job, too, right? I would argue you burn out more often in capitalist initiatives because your managers treat you like a consumable and burn you out and then replace you. I would argue that I burn out and see burn out LESS in mutual aid efforts.

But still: You cannot over extend yourself.

I know it seems like I do a lot.

I don't.

I sleep a fuuuuck ton. My brain failed a while back (burnout in capitalism... yay). There are times when I can't do anything.

So I only work what I can and I only pursue that which fulfills me.

This is important. Me, personally, I LOVE food programs. I get dopamine rushes by doing it. If I tried to do voter registration or push city-council to do stuff, I would die. So I don't do that. Find the thing that really interests you and focus on that one thing. That frees up others to focus on their thing. Don't try to solve ALL of the world's problems. Focus on one simple thing and do that, when you can, as you can, and to the SUSTAINABLE effort that you can.

Further, I join or create initiatives that involve OTHER PEOPLE. I make sure that I'm part of a greater team where any one of us doesn't have to do much and the initiative continues on even if many of us stop working for a while. These initiatives take effort, sure, and even continued and intentional effort, but many hands make small work. The neat thing about community... is you have a community.

Lastly, I PERSONALLY USE the mutual aid efforts I build.

Again, not charity. MUTUAL aid. Mutual. Mutual means both ways.

I give to my free fridge and I TAKE from my free fridge. The free fridge provides me free food too!

The Olio App (used in the UK and some of Canada and elsewhere), encourages their Food Rescue Heroes to take 10% of what they rescue. So just by picking up food rescue, you immediately gain free food for yourself!

That's mutual aid. You are building an apparatus that makes YOUR life easier. If it makes your life easier, you're libel to continue at it, aren't you?

There are other aspects as to why *some* mutual aid fails and they're important to understand and account for.

But do not fail by not starting.

Fail by trying and then stopping after a while. Even temporary projects have succeeded while they were running. That is a worthwhile effort.

#solarPunk #mutualAid #freeFridge #foodRescue