Most of us know, at least on some level, that we can’t continue our lifestyles as they are now. The cheap fossil energy our lifestyle is built upon is in finite supply. The ecological systems that our living bodies need to survive are unraveling. The endless cheap consumer goods piling up in every corner of our homes–and the world–are literally poisoning us. We’re unhappy, unfulfilled, and chronically stressed.
We can’t continue as we are, but we can’t go back in time either. Instead, we need to take what we’ve learned throughout our history–all of it–and build something new, something better. Something that synthesizes modern scientific understanding and ability with ancient wisdom. Something that revitalizes Indigenous land stewardship practices, enhanced by modern technological ability and our constantly expanding biological understanding of what’s happening within the soil. We need lifestyles that interact with technological communications only in ways that enhance social connection and community fabric, not in ways that splinter and isolate.
Here’s the thing about making something new–not everything we try is going to work. We will have successes. We will also have mediocre outcomes, and outright failures. We will waste time, energy, and good resources on projects, ideas, recipes, and methods that are ultimately just bad or flawed ideas, or good ideas executed incorrectly.
We are all going to have to get real cozy with failure. We need to invite failure into our homes, our workplaces, our social lives. We have to be able to look failure in the eye, see her, and thank her for the lessons. We must share our failures publicly, so that others can learn from our mistakes, too.
“Learn from your mistakes.” “You’ve only failed if you give up, or don’t learn anything.” It’s such common advice, it’s trite and stale. Yet somehow, it bears repeating. I don’t think anywhere near enough of us has gotten comfortable enough with the idea of failure to take the risks we must take in order to build the future we actually want.
Today, my life is better than I ever dreamed it could be, and that’s because of the risks I’ve taken. I risked tying my life to an imperfect, yet amazing, human. We risked our finances on community-based financial investments. I risked my health to have biological children, risked the unknown to foster and adopt. I risk failure every year in the garden as I experiment with methods, combinations, and new crops. I risk failure in the kitchen, trying new skills, new foods, making new recipes. All of these risks have made possible the best things in my life. Has everything worked? Absolutely not. Does my life have challenges? Of course, but most of them lie within the scope of work I enjoy tackling.
The places in life and business where I haven’t found success? It’s because I haven’t accepted the risks and made the commitments. We will all, always, have areas to grow in, right? I certainly do.
The future is full of promise, beauty, and hope. Let’s, together, remember that this future is worth taking a little risk for. And that just because something failed–whether it’s a collective housing project, a new garden tactic, an unfamiliar food, or a regenerative business–doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth trying, or that we aren’t closer to where we want to be than before we started.
So feed that bad meal to the pigs, take the collective organizing skills you learned to a new project, and find a different way to apply your skills.
The future we want is waiting for us to build it.
My household pantry is an interesting blend of typical modern household staples, and somewhat less common local and wild foods. Learning to utilize the foods that are easiest (and most nutritious, most regenerative, and most delicious) to create in-house is a constant process of recipe testing, research, and experimentation. Not all of the results are worth repeating, but this recipe proved a winner, with a huge double batch devoured within 24 hours. I think kids are a good barometer for general palatability!
