textfiles/fun/CAA/gecaa-20

From slcpi!govt.shearson.com!mjohnsto@uunet.UU.NET Mon Jan  7 17:20:21 1991
To: wordy@Corp
Subject: chapter-20

CHANGING THE WORLD IN MENDOCINO

#20 in the second online CAA series

by

Steven K. Roberts, HtN (WORDY)

Point Arena, CA; 11,363 miles.

(c) January 15, 1987



     Nowhere is the infinite interconnectedness of human relationships so clear

as in a succession of small coastal towns, isolated from the rest of the world

-- towns small enough to be interdependent, yet large enough to be vigorous;

places rugged enough to discourage the lazy, yet beautiful enough to attract

the intelligent.  Such a zone is the western edge of Mendocino County:  a sort

of meta-community spread along the cliffs of northern California.  We've been

traipsing through a sparse network of linked relationships like a couple of

hundred dollar bills in Miami.



     This coastal culture differs dramatically from the rest of the country.

To some extent, it can be attributed to the scenic character of the land,

something that can have sweeping effects on natives. Beauty sells, you know:

Highway 1 winds along the coast like a varicose vein, offering the seasonal

torrent of tourists an optimum view as they bring economic hemoglobin into

these areas of marginal industry.  A long-established love-hate relationship is

in force here, a reluctant symbiosis between hawker and gawker.



     There's something about low-bandwidth communication between non- miscible

cultures that affects everybody.  I've seen it in other tourist areas:  each

group, locals and visitors, begins to generalize about the other -- to lump

them together into a single stereotype. The brash tourist.  The uppity local.

Those stupid RV'ers.  Those weird hippies.  Residents look the other way as

they draw their livelihood from the people who prompted their flight from the

city in the first place.



     But there's more, though, quite a lot more.  Success in these parts isn't

on the same economic scale as it is in mainstream America. Trade work abounds.

The land provides.  Friends support each other. And it works well because the

economic bottom line is simply not the point; quality of life is.  And the

deeper you look, the more interesting it becomes...



     These little towns harbor a remarkable population of creative people --

the kind you would normally expect to find in high-tech node cities blanketed

in stimulating vapors of silicon.  Boat designers who combined the dimensions

of Noah's ark with computer analysis to yield a high-performance open-ocean

kayak.  Networkers who have eschewed systems with a corporate substrate in lieu

of electronic anarchy (FIDO and packet).  A guy who turns Cadillacs into

bizarre artworks. Another who builds high-performance audio cassettes.

Monkeywrenchers dedicated to the battle against despoilers of the wildernass,

practicing "ecotage" on an increasing scale.  A fabricator of custom dental

equipment.  A man who makes computerized biofeedback systems that sell for

nearly $50,000.  And everywhere, literally everywhere, a degree of awareness

that fulfills the oft-lamented promise of the 60's.  Even the bookstores, small

though they be, are dizzying.



     And encounters can be funny.  Phoenix introduced herself as having "seven

fire signs, and two air signs to fan the flames."  A fellow named Raven B.

Earlygrow runs a travel agency.  A Mendocino radio pirate got busted for his

innovative auto-answer "you're on the air" machine, bought into a public-access

cable TV channel, and now broadcasts whatever people send him.  Reagan is

profoundly unpopular around here, to the point that I was recently presented

with an interpretation of ancient biblical prophesy predicting his demise on

August 17, 1987.  And a friend in Elk explained the lingering personal effect

of the World Instant of Cooperation:  less cynicism.  This is the land of rural

counterculture.



     The thing that's pleasing about it all, despite frequent overdoses of HMB

(hip metaphysical bullshit), is an intellectual liveliness that has at its

roots a lot of the right motives: protection of mother earth for reasons beyond

her continuing usefulness to Man, prevention of human self-destruction over

matters of idealogical nonsense, revision of our self-poisoning habits, and the

general objective of peace on all levels.  A lot of us, um, sorta forgot about

those things as we "grew up" from the Age of Enhanced Consciousness into the

Epoch of Bottom Lines -- a dubious maturation indeed.



     But isn't it hard to change the world when you're eking out a small-town

living as a part-time pump repairman, part-time gatherer of sea urchin eggs,

and part-time poet of the revolution?  So what if one of your poems ran in the

Mendocino Review last summer, and so what if you successfully planted a

tire-spiker in a fording spot up Elk Creek to discourage the mob of littering,

noisy off-roaders?  It's a big world.  How ya gonna change it from here?



     Well, my wanderings have suggested an optimistic comment on that. Contrary

to popular news stories of the day, social change does not hinge on government

overthrow.  Those are just the warrings of competing ideologues, not

incremental steps in the evolution of consciousness.  Growth -- the recognition

and elimination of ignorance -- happens on a human level, slowly, building over

time like the gradual conversion of a successful anomaly into a whole new

species. Governments and eco-trashers simply apply selection pressure, insuring

their eventual deterioration.



     The essence is communication, one of my main motives for becoming a writer

in the first place.  Freelancing is actually a maddening business, as the

frustrated ramblings of Chapter 18 may have suggested -- not many people make a

full-time living at it.  I barely manage. But amassing private riches is not

nearly as important as protecting public ones; a larder full of stocks and

bonds is but a hollow trophy without good food, air, water, communication,

recreation, security, and personal freedom.  Whatever one person can do to

raise the awareness of another is the best social contribution of all -- one

small step at a time until we ALL realize which of our systems are healthy...

and which ones should be replaced.



     This coast is an area that enforces understanding of whole systems.  You

can't pick your way among the tidepools, marveling at geometric chitons and

subtly-hued anemones, bending to touch massive starfish and strange whiplike

growths 20 feet long, without sensing something of the planet's complexity and

deep interconnectedness. Everything is part of the food chain -- we've just

grown cocky because we happen to be on top.



     All we need now is a few healthy predators to remind us that we're all in

this together:  one species, one planet, one whole.



          -- Steve