Dumpster Diving

My version of Happy Lifestyle Design asks three questions: How do I shelter myself, How do I give and receive value, and how do I care for my embodied soul? This post is about the last question.

I thought very carefully about how to phrase my question. What I eat and where I get it from matter . . . and there is more. Industrialized societies that are heavily influenced by European cultures tend to separate the mind, body and soul. I have decided not to. What I eat and where I get it from, how much I sleep, what sort of exercise I do, the relationships I have, balancing all of these contributes to happiness for me. And so I ask myself, how do I care my embodied soul?

I happened to talk to a friend of mine about van dwelling and the philosophies behind avoiding consumerism. He directed me to the NYC Freegan Meetup Group. The group meets twice a month to present Freeganism 101 and to give Dumpster Diving tours. I joined the group for a presentation and tour on Monday, April 15, 2013 (yes, tax day, how ironic). Before we left on the tour, several members of the group gave us some background about Freeganism and what dumpster diving is all about. I managed to keep it together but inside I was screaming, "Glory hallelujah!" I had found my people.

We hit the streets at about 9:30pm. Timing is important because the dump trucks arrive by around 11pm to pick up what the supermarkets throw out. We visited four locations. Le Pain Quotidian gets my highest praise. Someone there had gathered the best of the bread that was being thrown out into double-lined clear plastic trash bags then thoughtfully placed those bags in clear sight on top of the rest of the rubbish. In all of the locations, most of the food was still in its packaging and was, perhaps, one or two days past the sell by date. By the time I decided I had to go home, my bags were overflowing and I felt overwhelmed by it all. There was SO MUCH! I can eat really well and avoid consumerism!

Watch this short video to get a better sense of what Dumpster Diving and Freeganism are all about.

UPDATE: Youtube has pulled my video for reasons that I cannot fathom. This is really unfortunate. I hope to figure out why and get the video back up.

Why am I doing this Part II (aka The Prey that Got Away)

I have written a blog post about intentional happiness lifestyle design.  That post presents one aspect of why I am making the lifestyle changes that I am. This post presents another aspect of my decision.

Do you remember The Social Contract? Jean-Jacque Rousseau? The treatise on the relationship between the people and the government? Rousseau focused on the sources of political authority which he credited to "the people" rather than to a monarch who ruled by so-called divine right. His work revolutionized politics in Europe and significantly influenced the American Revolution.

There is another sort of social contract that threads the fabric of every society. It is an economic contract. In the context of capitalist industrialized societies, that relationship mainly lays between corporations and people. Basically, the corporations (i.e. the shareholders) own the means of production (sound familiar?) and the workers produce the products. The corporations sell the products and (here is the social contract part) distribute the profits between themselves and the workers. The corporations have a vested interest in the welfare of the workers, the workers have a vested interest in the welfare of the corporations. That's how it is supposed to work.

Then there are the banks. The banks make it possible for the corporations and the people to conduct business: Purchase and sell assets, finance large investments, store their money, and so forth.

There are rules and regulations that govern the transactions within this economic contract. They are intended to curb excess, prevent abuse, and prosecute it when it does happen.

The United States enjoyed a period of relative prosperity during the Clinton Administration. This got certain people thinking, hey, there is no limit, let's milk this thing for all it is worth. So they got rid of the rules, went hog wild, and then, eventually, as should be expected, it all came crashing down.

My issue is this: in the aftermath, the corporations and the banks (well, the people who run them, really) have made no effort to uphold their end of the economic bargain. It is much worse than that. They have coerced ordinary citizens (via the government) to pay to fix the mess that they made. Below I have posted an excellent video made by the political economist (excellent combo) and Brown University professor, Mark Blyth that explains this all quite nicely. (By the way, I find his accent super sexy.)

In the beginning I totally accepted the financial crisis hype, believing that allowing the banks to fail would lead to unbridled disaster. I believed that the bank bailout was unavoidable and prudent. Perhaps it was. However, the aftermath is unconscionable and I find myself growing more unwilling to participate in this nonsense.

So, I ask myself, what can I do to make big banks and multi-national corporations irrelevant to my life?

For me the answer lays in arranging my life in a way that has as little to do with mass consumption as possible. So, in addition to changing my life for the sake of living in the now and maximizing my happiness, I am also minimizing the stranglehold that consumerism has had on my life.

Imagine being free from worrying about money and the constant, grinding, soul obliterating obsession with the means of obtaining it and, rather, having one's needs met via direct exchange with other human beings. Imagine a life where what the "too big to fail" banks do has minimal impact because money is not the central mode of exchange.

Again, I am not doing this because I don't believe in industry and the economies of scale. I am doing this because our banks and corporations have not only betrayed and abandoned us to the wolves, they have become the wolves and they are feeding on us. Many argue that they always have. Fine. Whatever the case, I choose to be the prey that got away.