Living Off The Grid and Other Thoughts

I saw a documentary last night that was very intriguing. It was featured as a free movie selection on Sundance On Demand. The documentary is called Off The Grid: Life on the Mesa.

I've always wondered what it would be like to live completely off the grid and construct an autonomous style of living...creating sources of power, plumbing and food all by my lonesome without municipal aid. It is easy to romanticize and idealize the notion but in reality it would be a pretty harsh lifestyle if you didn't have the means to make independence work and run smoothly.

The experiences of autonomous living can vary and my opinion is that the film I saw last night was just one of the many off-the-grid living arrangements. Not exactly the most poetic.

In this documentary, the filmmakers filmed the lives of several people who live in this off the grid community of 400 people in New Mexico called "the mesa" which is near the city of Taos. The community is comprised of extreme loners, vets suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, runaway teens, mentally ill people seeking refuge, ex-hippies, radical anarchists/neo-luddites, junkies, gun rebels, and various anti-social eccentrics.

The community also has its own hierarchy...with "elders" and "mamas" being on top. They are generally older and they strive to keep the peace in the neighborhood when meetings are held to make decisions which includes how to deal with new residents who might be problematic. No one contacts the law and every resident is pretty staunch about that as they strive to create their own rules entirely.

That brings up a question: If a community can successfully live off the grid away from most of society and mainstream civilization (including creating their own bartering system and currency), should they be subject to governmental laws and regulations?

Anyway, according to the community, each person must follow only two rules:

    
• Don't shoot your neighbor

    
• Do not steal from anyone

All food is self-harvested or picked up from a donation ranch in the nearest town and each community member takes a bath at least every 3 weeks to a month in nearby streams and pools of water. Some residents still visit medical centers in Taos as well as collect unemployment or veteran checks (not exactly completely off the grid). The currency of the community is weed. Neighbors barter and exchange food and items for marijuana.

Some of the people in the film have access to some donated solar panels and many attempt to construct greenhouses on the land. However, the land is extremely arid and they are out in the middle of high desert ground, so you can imagine how difficult it is for anyone to harvest crops on that type of "soil". They are competing with ground and succulent plants that are extremely water absorbent.

One of the residents is a pig farmer named Stan (older guy) who has lived out on the mesa for years and he has his own supply of sheep, goats, chickens and pigs that he continuously breeds to keep a constant supply of milk, meat and animal fur for clothing, housing and the like. He is the first to greet and see runaways that come to find a place to live on the mesa. As a result, he often takes strays in until they move on to another location or travel further onto the mesa grounds.

As I watch this documentary, I realize that there is no way in hell I'd like to live in an environment like this.

How stable is this community in reality?
What about the women there?
Are there ever any occurrences of rape or sexual harassment?
How does the community deal with these types of offenses?
With some of the mentally unstable and gun fanatic residents living there, how does that affect safety?

Nothing was mentioned in the film about these types of scenarios so viewers don't gain complete clarity. I also notice that all the residents are white. Very poor and white with very extreme views. I don't see any Asians, blacks or Latinos on the grounds. How openly does the community embrace people from other racial backgrounds? Viewers never get a good sense of this either. Perhaps all would be well in such a community UNTIL someone non-white joined in. Basically, I still don't get a very clear picture of what this community is like entirely and if it is the taoist wild west, open-insane asylum, hard knocks-living utopia many residents claim that it is.

It seems chaotic, way too wild and a bit dangerous but somehow, at least on camera, it appears that the residents make it work for them. They manage to let nature take its course and create some level of mutual respect with one another and grant each person their desired space and privacy.

One of the "mamas", Phyllis, who used to be a full-time psychiatrist before she moved out on the mesa, mentioned that although she and the other residents often struggle for food and water and it's not often that everyone can take baths, eat off of clean plates, get fuel working for their stoves or keep warm, she wouldn't trade living on the mesa for anything else because with this living comes a sense of peace. She mentioned that when she goes into the city sometimes, she feels nervous, agitated, out of balance and completely scattered, but once she returns to the community, she feels total integration.

It's hard to imagine her view because I see no comfort or stability in their living...at least from the outside looking in. I don't see opportunities to be clean, well-fed or nurtured consistently. I see a lot of dysfunction and I see bone-hard living. I try my best to get out of the way of odd mentally unstable homeless people on the city streets, so why would I want to live in a community where many come to live and commune?

But I wonder how I'd adapt to such a lifestyle. Would I find peace in that or would I run back to ready-made constructs of modern civilization in complete relief and ecstasy?

There are many more characters that are interviewed and filmed in this documentary but you must see the rest for yourself. I recommend the documentary. It is thought-provoking.

I feel strongly that I would not want to live in such an environment and that I would not adapt. I think the community the residents live in is for certain mindsets. It's where the pariahs of the pariahs can really feel a sense of home and belonging and although I have my eccentricities and like my solitude, that's not my kind of energy.

I am fascinated with off-the-grid living in more of a prepared context...a mode that involves an environmentally-driven awareness that leads to alternative and more sustainable ways of living. The documentary's off-the-grid living appears destitute and abrasive...like a skid row paradise taken off into the desert. No thanks.

As for the latter, what I find desirable, I can't see this model becoming standardized because big businesses would make sure of this.

A part of me is glad that gas prices are going up because it is forcing people to look seriously at alternative fuel solutions and take global warming seriously. You'd think now that it seems that we've reached the era of peak oil, some people who are otherwise intelligent, would finally get IT and turn their business industries into a new direction or market.

They could start collaborating with other relative companies to further regulate cogeneration waste principles by combining, reusing and regenerating fuel byproducts. They could sponsor and campaign for politicians and other companies that discuss solutions that advocate ending the use of fossil fuels and they could seek out investors or become investors themselves for these causes.

I remember years ago talking to someone who complained that they got a letter in the mail from the their electric company warning them about their unhealthy practices and demanding that they use a certain percentage of their electricity per month in order to abide by health regulations. This person explained that for about 3 months, the household decided not to use any of their electricity...just candlelight and battery-operated lights and cookers. They thought they could save quite a bit of money this way and be more sustainable...but of course as with most things...they encountered bureaucracy. You'll encounter this in so many industries because it's all in the interest of big business...you'll especially see it in the automobile, housing and agricultural industries.

My opinion is that we have not reached a workable state yet in the way we run this economy and our government. The industrial revolution was only recent and I think we need several more stages of evolution to get to where we need to be. Green capitalism would be the next and ideal stage...but as we are seeing the new frontier of super-sized corporations like never before, people who seek this change and know that it is needed are up for a hard trial against those types of interests. We can have large corporations but corporations are going to have to start networking with smaller businesses to fit them into their revenue grid rather than remain as complete controllers of various markets. Some might see this as a form of socialism or a mild form of communism, but I disagree. You still have capitalism, you just have a better working model of it. Everyone can still have a piece of the pie and indulge self interests. Our future is headed to a world of large corporate giants maintaining and controlling everything with most of the world acting as frenzied consumers. Does sound much like a free enterprise with a diverse markets?

For example take the company Monsanto (We can also include Wal-Mart as a good example). They are a super corporation. They own over 70% of the market share and pull in the most revunue in the agribusiness industry. In the last year their stock has appreciated over 120% and they are the biggest producers of genetically modified and engineered seeds and plants. They are gratuitous with their use and development of herbicides and pesticides and the company, as a leader in this context, have the science of "monoculturalizing" and "StarLinking" crops down to a tee.

If the local government of every city was were to draft or pass a policy for new urban planning which involved a construction of a local farming community and market in each region, you'd see a lot of red tape appear to stop these measures. Why? Because big companies like Monsanto would want no part of this. They'd lose business and footing as the major supplier of produce in the global agribusiness market. Large companies aren't big sponsors of localist actions like these for this reason.

They want to make sure to keep a hold on their respective markets so that they continue to control and take in most of the revenue. This is pretty much a legal form of monopoly. Yes based on our larges and free market enterprise, large corporations have a right to do this and as long as consumers buy into their market holds, they'll continue to do business as they are doing it. They'll string a lot of consumers in by offering very low prices and mass quantities of products...but of course the price we really pay is with how we effect the environment when it comes to the sheer amount of land, toxins and energy we use to produce goods on a global level. Companies like this will argue that we need their structure and their presence and that they do good for sick countries and poor people all around. But localism of course is always a better choice...-especially- for poor people.

Just go back to that popular phrase: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

So I do think that we are due for several more rounds of evolution. We have some great principles and concepts to follow and we've covered a few grounds but we are still in the dark ages. It's definitely time to wake up and restructure.