Motivations: Looking at the path I'm walking

Recently I've been thinking a lot about what I've been doing in the last couple of months and what I'm going to do in the nearby future. I feel it's time to define my path somehow because it gives me the focus to do the things I love and find important. It sharpens my sense of direction. It cuts away the things I don't need (anymore) and gives more time and energy to the things that deserve attention.

I've found it easiest to work with certain structures when doing this. These structures aren't made to be strictly followed and can be changed. They are guidelines to make life easier. Below is one of these structures that I regularly use. It consists of thinking in three levels: The experience level, the socio-ecological level and the passion level. I think of these three levels as circles, the experience level enclosing the socio-ecological level and the latter enclosing the passion level.

Experience level

This is the most important level in my opinion. It is the way you experience the world. It's the way you see things. On this level there are often things involved like spirituality and psychology.

For me this means seeing myself as a part of the bigger whole. The fact that we are connected to each other and our environment. It makes me think about the things I do and what effect they would have on the world.

Neglecting this would mean either seeing yourself as the main priority or your environment/the others. It would mean a disunity and the creation of an hierarchy where you either place yourself above the rest or the rest above yourself. I believe equality and unity are important, which can only be manifested in thinking and doing when you experience the world as a whole. 

Socio-ecological level

This level gives you the borders in which you can act. Outside these borders you would have a negative impact socially and/or ecologically. After you start perceiving yourself and the world as connected to each other, you automatically start to become conscious about your actions. At least that's how I experience it. It is a continuous challenge to see how your actions have an impact on the world and to adjust them accordingly.

For me personally this means reducing my socio-ecological impact mostly on the levels of food, shelter and transportation, because these have the largest impact on the rest of the world. 

Lately I'm becoming really interested in cooking, so this will become one of my priorities as soon as possible. I mean, people in our society eat at least three times a day, so it has an enormous impact on the environment when we constantly eat things that need a lot of resources to be made. 

Passion level

This is the level where your passion or passions come into the world. These are the things you love to do and give you energy. These are the things that make you jump out of bed first thing in the morning because you can't wait to get started.  

For me, as much as I'm involved in several ecological projects, these projects aren't my passion, which might surprise some people reading this right now. I find it very important to work on these projects however, because they give me the borders in which I can perform my passion. If I wouldn't be involved into such projects, chances are I wouldn't have the knowledge to perform my passions in a way that they wouldn't have a negative impact socially and/or ecologically.

No, when it comes to passions, I consider myself an artist in the first place. I have an urge to be creative. I have to be honest here and say that I've neglected this level too much for quite some time now and I'm starting to feel the side-effects. I'm starting to feel a lack of energy. It's time to give the artist in me the attention he deserves. It's time to give life to a world inside me that's been waiting there for too long.

To summarize: My main priorities for the near future are cooking and being creative. 

Ecology: The bitter taste of chocolate

Just saw this documentary on chocolate and its origins. Suddenly I'm not that proud anymore of our "fine" Belgian chocolate... Makes you think twice before eating chocolate again.

See for yourself (it's in German).

If you don't want to see it, I can summarize it for you: Child labor. And a lot of it.

Ecology: But alcohol is fun and tastes so good!

Yesterday evening I went out with one of my eco-hosts to a gig in de Blauwe Kater, a jazz and blues pub. On our way to the pub we were, not so coincidentally, talking about Spinoza. She studies philosophy and had to write a paper on this philosopher. When we arrived at the bar it was almost completely empty and the band was testing the equipment. We decided to talk further about Spinoza outside for a while because of the loud testing. Soon we were joined by another nationality. An Italian guy, I recognized from a party before. The three of us went inside after a while, because the pub was slowly getting more crowded and we wanted to sit down. We ordered our drinks. They got beer, while I ordered a fruit juice. I've stopped drinking alcohol a short while ago, but maybe you still remembered that from one of my previous posts. After my second drink my host suddenly said something along this line: "I don't think you should deprive yourself from too much stuff." She was talking about me not drinking alcohol in combination with the vegan cooking and other things I do.

Well, I certainly understand her point of view, because I also loved to drink a pint or two, maybe three, until my recent decision. I still really like the taste, but there are other things involved here which make me chose otherwise, which I'll explain with a little story.

Imagine yourself sitting in that bar next to me and suddenly a starving, little, African kid stumbles into the bar, walks in your direction and stops right in front of you staring with his big white eyes right into yours. Let me help you imagine that little kid:

Now, with those big eyes staring right into yours he opens his mouth and with a soft, crumbly voice he asks you a question: "Can I please have that glass of beer in your hand? It would feed my family for at least a week..." 

You're probably thinking the thirst and hunger got to him and he's talking gibberish. How can a glass of 25 centiliters feed his whole family??? Well, he's not talking gibberish. In fact, he's completely right. That glass of beer of 25 centiliters you're holding in your hand needed 75 liters of water to get produced. More than enough to have produce and water to feed his family for a week.  

Now, I ask you, are you able to look him straight into his eyes and say "No, I will not give you your 75 liters of water you need so desperately. I am going to drink my glass of beer because it's fun and it tastes good." Are you capable of doing that? I am not. And that is one of the main reasons why I don't drink alcohol anymore. Every time I want to order a beer I see this little kid's image in my mind and I just simply can't order beer because of this.

I guess this is something Spinoza meant with at least one of his higher types of 'knowing' as he called it. To think in function of yourself as a part of a bigger whole instead of just thinking in function of yourself. The latter comes from the ego and creates the illusion that you are separated from the rest of the world. You aren't. Every action you take has an impact on your environment, be it a negative or a positive one. It's that simple. Every time you chose for beer or wine, you are taking water away that could have been used to give a little kid in Africa the food and water he needed. It's that simple. And if you thought beer, with its 75 liters of water, or wine, with its 120 liters of water, are bad, 1 kilo of grain-fed beef equals 15.000 liters of water!      

Like the taste? Maybe find something that replaces it. More than enough tastes to choose from in my opinion. 

Like the fun that comes from drinking alcohol? Well, if you find your life dull without alcohol, maybe turn around your life so it becomes fun, instead of going for the temporary fun that alcohol gives. 

If you're still thinking I'm depriving myself from these things, then let me tell you how I experience it. First of all I do this out of free will, no one is forcing me to do this. It is my own choice and I don't feel obligated to do this. 

Secondly, I find it enriching. I find myself becoming happier and happier because I constantly reduce  the things I need out of free will. The fewer things I need, the fewer things I need to be content.  

Lastly I am happy that I can give more this way. What would you do? TAKE a glass of beer of 25 centiliters or GIVE 75 liters of water to those who need it? I prefer the latter and I know that I'm making a difference by making that choice even though I may never see the direct result with my own eyes.

The gig in de Blauwe Kater wasn't my cup of tea, too much of the same in my opinion, which is good thing for some genres but not for this one, so my philosophical companion and I went back home before the second set started. It got pretty cold compared to a couple hours earlier. We talked about the dialects from Belgium as well as those from Germany (she's from there). Apparently her grandmother speaks something called Plat, which some say is a dialect, while others categorize it as another language. When her grandmother speaks it, my host can't understand it. Apparently it even has some Dutch influences! I really find it interesting how connected we are to the rest of the world even if we don't know it at first. 

Ecology: Rocket we go!

Bright orange and sudden pain. That pretty much describes what I saw and felt the moment I almost got a hot spark in my eye from the circular saw. It luckily missed my eye by a centimeter. Definitely taught me a quick lesson in why safety always comes first. I was holding a piece of metal when Bernard was cutting it in the right shape for our rocket stove. Of course he had a pair of safety goggles on. Next time he won't be the only one. Working gloves would've also been nice. Certainly when a piece of your skin gets between the chisel and hammer you're working with.

"Wait, rocket stove you say? What's that?"

Glad you asked. It's a type of wood stove that I came across a while ago during my never ending searches on the internet on ecological practices. I'm very enthusiastic about this type of stove because it's extremely efficient, very ecological, really cheap (even free if you play it well) and is pretty easy to build, which we are doing right now in a sauna.  

The only basic materials you need are a couple of steel barrels, steel pipes, common bricks, sand, clay (in our case we're using loam), straw, water and some tools. That pretty much covers it.

The basic principle that makes a rocket stove different from a regular wood stove is the chimney, also called the heat riser. Instead of placing the chimney outside of the stove you put it INSIDE the stove. Because of this simple principle almost all the exhaust gasses are captured and thus a lot more heat. With a regular stove all the warmth goes through the chimney and up to the skies, which is pretty inefficient when you think about it.

You'll here two different names pop up often for this type of stove: "rocket stove" and "rocket mass heater". The difference between the two is the purpose of the stove. If it's mainly used for capturing heat through mass and thus keeping the warmth inside your house, you'll here rocket mass heater more often. If it is mainly used for other purposes, like cooking for example, you'll here rocket stove. It's also often used as a synonym, though.

With a rocket mass heater the heat goes up the heat riser and is then pushed down through a long pipe system encased in cob (mixture of clay, sand, straw and water) which captivates the heat inside it. Most of the time the cob is shaped like a bench, so people can sit on it and enjoy the warmth coming from it. Because of this you are able to capture a multitude of heat compared to a regular stove and you need up to four times less wood. Yes, four times less sounds crazy, but it's really that efficient!

Here are some pictures from our visit to a rocket mass heater and our first work day: link  

My advice to anyone who's building or wants to build a heat system for their house: Go rocket! You'll make your life much easier! Check Youtube if you want to see some rocket stoves or rocket mass heaters into action.

Body: Sandals in winter, the aftermath

It's the second day that I'm wearing boots again when I'm going outside. My heels are slowly recovering and are getting less painful. I'm still walking barefoot inside the house, though. I've gotten so used to the nice benefits right now, that I'm taking my shoes off whenever I can.

To start with, I don't have cold feet anymore when walking inside the house without shoes. Same goes for when I'm going to bed. I used to have difficulty getting my feet warm, but now they always feel warm when I go to sleep.

Secondly, your feet become more efficient in storing the heat inside them. I've noticed that, when I go outside for a first time, let's say for half an hour, they start to get pretty cold. If I go inside for a short time and then go outside again I can walk for as long as I want, because they don't get that cold anymore. They store the heat and don't release it as easily anymore.

Thirdly, you become more aware of your environment. I'm way more careful where I plant my feet when I'm walking around in sandals, because I don't want to bump into anything hard or sharp. It made me wonder why on earth we started to use these hard, harsh materials as building materials.

Lastly, your feet become a sort of thermometer. After a while I could tell what temperature it was, off by a degree or two, by sensing it with my feet. Yesterday, when I walked around with boots for the first time again I really felt weird. It was like I was missing a sense. I even deliberately took my hands out of my pockets to register the cold better. Of course my hands weren't as well adapted to the cold as my feet, so I had to put them back in my pockets after a while.

I really recommend walking around like this. Just be careful and get proper footwear before starting this! And yes, I will continue this challenge as soon as I can.

Body: Bye bye sandals, hello boots!

As of today I'm going back to wearing boots.

To be clear: It's not because of the cold. I got quite used to it and although it's snowing pretty heavy today, it is bearable to walk through it.

There are 2 reasons why I've decided to stop walking in sandals for now:
- The straps of my sandals were cutting my feet open when they get wet, which happens regularly in this weather.
- I've developed some pretty painful heels, I think because of the design of my sandals, which were getting worse.

I guess most of the above will be solved as soon as I'm going to switch to huaraches, which have a minimal design, but I'm not going to do that right now because it really takes some time to get used to walking with this very light footwear. So in short: I'm willing to go through really cold weather, but not with constant annoying pains.

There's a thin line between taking up challenges and just asking for trouble. For this challenge I'm drawing that line here for now. I'm happy with the outcome, though. I now know I can take temperatures almost to freezing point and there are some nice side-effects to walking almost barefoot.

Motivations: What if money didn't matter?

Beautiful short clip that contains so much truth. It's the same drive that got me started doing the things I do now.

What if money didn't matter?

What's your drive in life?

Motivations: First snow and no alcohol

First snow today in my home town!

For the people that are wondering if I still wear sandals: Yes, I still do. I have to say it was really cold this morning but I could still take it. One pleasant side effect I've noticed because of this habit: I don't have cold feet in bed anymore when I go to sleep. I guess it has something to do with my feet having a better blood circulation now.

It's also a good day to start a new habit, or rather leaving a habit behind that I picked up again during my travels: Drinking alcohol.

This for a few simple reasons:
- Some of those drinks aren't even vegetarian (like Guinness).
- It takes 75 liters of water to produce a beer of 25 centiliters and 120 liters for a glass of wine. Not really responsible in my opinion if you know that there are people dying on the other side of the planet because of a lack of water.
- It's not good for my body. I always have to recuperate the day after, which is time and energy I could have used for more useful things.

So, bye bye alcohol. Hope I can stay away from you! :)