everything is ugly right now but touching grass helps

everything feels so fucking ugly online right now. like in a way that keeps bringing, to the forefront of my mind, the awareness that part of the system's evil is making everything feel so hopeless and doomed. why even bother trying if everything's irredeemable anyway, right? man. elon & them have really curated the fuck out of that vibe on twitter. if theres one thing that man is good at, its being a bad vibe. it's so bad i find myself yearning for the days of $200 date days on twitter. arguing about how many cocktails women are allowed to order before they're officially a prostitute in the eyes of men who have no choice but to buy however many it takes (or however many they can afford, whichever comes first) to have even a chance of getting pussy would actually be a welcome reprieve from all the death and destruction at this point. but not even that cursed blessing can take the edge of twitter anymore.

as part of my official balvida research & development work-- (that's what i call watching documentaries or falling down a middle-of-the-night rabbit hole that results in me using a word i learned 2 hours ago approximately 42 times in 1 day. OMG. i know my girlfriend would be fine if she never had to hear the word "permaculture" again.) i've been watching, reading, listening to a lot of different content on various topics that are both interesting to me and relevant to the development of this commune. and i have to say that it's been such a welcome change and contrast to the experience ive been having on social media lately. i wont say that dark cloud that forms over my head anytime i open that godforsaken app goes away completely but little flecks and speckles of light start to break thru the darkness and make me filled with a little more light again. like i know that shit sounds dramatic but that's how it feels and i really have been enjoying the break from the gloom & doom. there's a LOT of brilliant people working on brilliant solutions. im also finding this awareness to also bring with it a renewed wave of anger when you realize how much of these "unsolvable" problems are actually quite solvable or completely manufactured in the first place, but then finally after that comes the motivation to keep working on taking down the barriers between us and a better world. its a lot easier, for me at least, to keep going when i know there are actually solutions on the other side.

i also think this is an especially important thing to know, consider, remember right now-- this election cycle has reminded me once again that a lot of the ppl asking "well how do we fix this since you got your degree and know everything?" are, underneath the cynicism and ego, genuinely scared of and/or unaware that actually yes there are very fucking smart ppl (degreed and not) who have been working on building the things ppl keep telling them are not possible. and thats not a judgment. ive certainly been there myself, scared and angrily demanding solutions from ppl while i double-down on existing ones that CLEARLY don't work. but im just saying that there are, in fact, solutions-- or at least very good ideas and work out there and there are very intentional efforts to make people feel like that things are truly hopeless. they're not.

so ive been trying to redirect some of my doom& gloom into this research and development and learning about all kinds of cool shit. and, of course, everything im learning will ultimately help me be more informed, intentional and instrumental in developing balvida. i no longer delude myself into thinking i can do it all, but i need to know enough to know what i dont know, and who & what to ask to find out. ive been watching episodes on 3D printed houses that hold potential to drastically lower the cost and threshold of accessibility of housing. ive been reading books on intentional communities and educating myself on the various models of conflict resolution and decision-making in a commune setting. and my favorite as of late is my developing interest with permaculture.

permaculture is an agricultural system that is designed to be self-sustaining. this means you design it in a way where everything ties together and you don't have to waste a lot of resources to keep shit going. its a huge thing that ill dive into more depth at some point but this concept of building systems that work with the land is relevant to me, balvida, and you the reader because the implications of growing food efficiently, managing our (hopefully much less toxic and voluminous) waste, working with the land instead of against it-- these are all huge components of taking us from wasteful, inefficient ways of working and producing from the land we're growing on and taking us (back) to living in harmony with the people, plants, animals, and land around us. like basically everybody else on the internet right now, ive fantasized about having a little garden and maybe a handful of chickens too, so of course as i conceptualized balvida i knew i wanted this to be a component. but being introduced to the concept of permaculture is giving me the language to describe exactly what i envision and now my very basic desire to walk around my garden collecting herbs for tonight's pasta has turned into a real plan to develop a robust permaculture system here. not only will it serve as a beautiful resource for the people living and visiting balvida but also an example of this kind of system and these principles put into practice for hopefully many many people beyond this community. luckily but not surprisingly, costa rica happens to both produce and attract a lot of people who are invested in this concept and theres many working farms that have been integrating these principles for years or decades now, informed by an ever-evolving balance of indigenous practices and fine-tuned solutions aided by the technlogoical advancements of recent years. i feel very grateful i was able to connect with some awesome system designers who im very officially calling balvida's permaculture team. hi juanpa and amanda! they bring with them years of experience teaching, designing and implementing permaculture designs.

connecting with juanpa and amanda has already brought so much more life and dimension to balvida. i had the opportunity to walk the land with them and learn so much as well as finding them to be really cool, passionate people in general. thanks to them im *almost* sold on the idea of composting toilets (that's a toilet where you shit and throw a bunch of sawdust or other materials on top of your shit instead of flushing with water. makes really great material for gardens and they and the 13 youtubes i watched about this swear it doesn't smell. but alas, i did say *almost*. i have to try it for myself before i commit lol), i can officially say i've had ecuadorian bbq (delicious) and soon ill have a map with every tree on the land located& labeled, which turns me on in a way i never knew i could be. i am excited.

juanpa y amanda's first site visit here, walking the land, starting to map out the existing features and brainstorming ideas on how to work with the land, not against it

so now im like 3 documentaries, 2 books and so many conversations into my permaculture journey. now ive told all my friends and even "forced" many of them to join me in visiting a local farm so i could show everybody wtf ive been ranting about. i have to say the joy of seeing somebody from the eastside of atlanta eating fruit straight off the tree and fantasizing about growing their own tobacco for their blunt wraps....i FUCKING love it. we touched grass (and fruits and vegetables and herbs and flowers and trees) and it felt so good. truly the best antidote to all this bullshit.

at the same time, theres still that awareness that's screaming at me how absurd it is that it took a lot of us 30+ years to experience something so seemingly simple as being on a farm and eating something you just picked. its actually sinister that so many people have never had that experience. and it all ultimately circles back to an even deeper understanding that the fact these experiences aren't common is part of a very intentional scheme to disconnect ppl from our food, our land, ourselves.

so i find educating myself on this shit, not just permaculture but a whole world of hope, thinking about ways i might incorporate it in my own life& in balvida-- not just because i know these are the better things to do but also, in light of how shitty everything seems right now-- to just feel better. and feel better in a productive way-- not in a denial of the realities we face, not wallowing in the despair the algorithms are increasingly programmed to try to trap us in, not dissociating in the mind-numbing way of other genres of content (im so sick of real housewives lol), but in a way that actually reinvigorates me to keep going. touching grass. little speckles of light breaking thru. hope.

ill wrap this up with 2 things.

first, im very happy to say that there are 2 sponsored permaculture design classes being offered. the course is a 2-week experience later this year at rancho mastatal in costa rica and travel, lodging, and the course itself are all included, and free to 2 women. if you're interested you can get more info here.

secondly, im sharing a couple favorite things ive watched recently as part of my "research and development". i figure there's others out there who need something to break up the doom-scrolling so maybe these will make you feel speckles of light, too.

1. "the longhouse"

   season 2, episode 7 of the "home" series on apple tv

   i stumbled across this series randomly where they get into the nuts & bolts of all kinds of living spaces and homes. i really liked this episode in particular bc its a great example of a lot of the things i plan to incorporate at balvida, like flexible and creative uses of space, built for both functionality and its capacity to be a teaching resource, and clearly inspired by the love of food.

   
   

2. "mexico:3D printed home"

   season 1, episode 9 of the "home" series on apple tv

   another great episode from the same series. not only was it cool as fuck seeing the way 3D printing works on a large-scale to print whole houses at a fraction of the cost of traditional homes, i was crying right along with the families on-screen as they walked around and imagined what their life would look like in their new homes. i also love that this episode is an example of the way there are people working on solutions. they do exist.

   
   

3. "the lexicon of sustainability"

   whole series, PBS

   this series has a bunch of videos on a bunch of diff concepts relating to sustainability like water conservation, urban farming and food waste. while this series isn't nearly as sexy as the home series, the episodes are informative, easy to follow and short-- each one is 2-7 min long, so a perfect length for getting your kids to watch a couple with you too, if you can drag them away from roblox for long enough.