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I’m back and ready for action…ya’ll.

Well, it’s been quite the summer vacation for yours truly.

First of all, yes, that’s right, I took a summer vacation, as in I vacated New York City this summer. Currently, I am writing to you from my childhood home in the mountains of North Carolina. Yes, the dome home I lovingly speak and write of (which got the star treatment this summer, thanks to Bloomberg’s Muse Arts program on Buckminster Fuller). It’s lightly misting outside, with the sun slowly creeping through the clouds and here I am on our front porch, sipping some yerba mate, eating eggplant fritters and writing to you, my sweet internet.

You may have noticed a lack of posts in my absence and allow me to be the first to apologize and explain. You see, part of the reason that I left New York was to slow down and reorganize my work, my goals and my life, to put things into general, sweeping terms. Thankfully, the world has been patient and providing in helping me to achieve this reorganization, in part at least. This morning I woke up and I finally felt like composing myself and catching up, so here I am, what with the wherewithal and all.

So, what does this mean for me, for you, for cleantech, Ecolectic and ScribeMedia? Good things all around, I’d imagine. First off, I am no longer tethered to New York City and it’s trappings. Not that New York is a horrendous place to live and work, it just isn’t what I want for myself at this point in my life.

I am happy to say that I am able to live and work in a part of the world that both concerns and intrigues me greatly, while having the support of a company and its people whom I admire deeply. I consider myself incredibly lucky and privileged to be a part of the Scribe family and even more blessed to receive their support from abroad. There’s some damn smart people there who work long and hard hours to ensure that things come together as they should. I am pleased to be able to refer to Scribe’s way of doing business using the words “organic”, “intuitive” and “collaborative”. Only rarely do “blood-sucking” and “bastards” enter into the mix.

Though I miss being out of the office and not catching up on…umm, everything, I’m looking forward to getting my own projects underway and redefining my coverage. Some of this will fall under the aegis of the Scribe brand and some of it will undoubtedly fall to the outside, at least for now. I mean, how can you pull appropriate tech, intentional lifestyles + living, functional foods + integrative nutrition, sustainable agriculture, systems design solutions and holistic medicine all under one roof? Not to mention leaving room for media criticism, cultural analysis and, of course, teh lulz.

Currently though, I got issues. First of all, cleantech, you dirty whore. I’m through with you as a singular industry, entity or haphazard buzzword. Cleantech will not save us from our problems. No singular industry, design principle or movement will solve the issues that plague us and threaten our way of life. Simply put, our way of life needs to change. It is engineered such that it can’t help but be threatened by laws of economics, of natural capital, of physics even. Designating one industry, as all-encompassing as ‘cleantech’ may be, to work a little magic while all the others do business-as-usual or blindly race forward in the name of ‘progress’ ain’t gonna’ cut it.

Secondly, let’s talk resources and holistic accounting. Ooh, ouch — does your head hurt too? Does the very thought of having to establish values for externalities such as available fresh water or toxic waste disposal give you a migraine? All those numbers and constants and figures — just let the economists figure it out, right? Well, even if all the economists could agree and wave a magic wand that creates an agreed-upon set of standards, would anyone bother to abide by them? Would utilities comply with a full audit of their energy balance and publish the results? Would governments make best-practice decisions, rather than auctioning off lowest-bidder contracts? Would scientifically sound theories trump politically-connected dogma in the minds of the people and their elected representatives? I digress…

So, if not cleantech, what then? I mentioned systems design earlier and I think that this way of thinking, meshed with permaculture principles and the open source movement, best represents the nuanced view with which to tackle these problems. For one thing, the issues we face today aren’t energy issues. They aren’t climate issues or economic issues or foreign policy issues. They’re cultural issues!

Underlying each modern day ‘crisis’ is a fundamental cultural flaw that allows us to live our lives in denial for as long as it is feasibly possible. You don’t ’solve’ global warming, just like you don’t ‘cure’ cancer or ‘win’ the war on terrorism. Each of these imaginary victories presupposes an impossible singular event. What unites global warming, cancer and the war on terrorism is that they’re all constructs of culture. Not necessarily ‘our’ culture (because who are ‘we’?), but culture as the prevailing shared sets of ideas, memes and operable assumptions that people rely upon in order to (dis)function. In order to appropriately confront the issues we face today, we have to radically alter the way the we interpret our world and challenge what has otherwise been assumed or accepted within our individual spheres of influence. But, uh…I digress to the second power.

More on that some other time. Back to me. What then for your author?

To begin with, we need to talk more often. It’s not you internet, its me. I’ve been a bit of a wallflower at the web 2.0 party lately. Just like that kid at the kegger who seems terminally aloof (or removed) because he’s trying to remember all of the characters in a Dostoevsky novel, I’ve been a little preoccupied with reality the last couple of months. I know, I know — reality is such a dirty word around these parts, but I have to come to terms with the truth: I’ve been digging the real world lately.

For one thing, there’s home. I mean Home, with a capital ‘H”. Folks, I’m here to say that taking things back to the source can be an unnerving experience. Going home can unravel your expectations with the greatest of ease. I mean talk about undoing your operable assumptions! After being away from my home and my family for the last three years, I realized that I had outpaced what was familiar by reinventing myself while away. The challenge of bringing my surroundings up to speed with my values has taken an inordinate amount of time and energy, but I’m pleased to say that it was all worth it.

Case in point, for the first time since I’ve been home I feel able and willing and excited to write to you all. That I am now in a healthy, nurturing and productive environment is a result of having been away from you, dear internet, but I promise not to stray for too long again. Especially if someone wants to gift me an iPhone or an EVDO-equipped UMPC. Then we’ll talk alllllll the time ;^)

Over the last two months I’ve improved my understanding of what needs to be done so that I can become a better version of myself. Heady, huh? It’s true though that sometimes it takes a concentrated effort to figure out what you really need to do in order to better yourself. Breaking habits, forming routines, exercising consistently, eating healthy and staying busy all seem to be basic components of redefining your path, at least in my case. I’ve also found that exploring other languages helps you to say what you mean and work more towards communicating ideas, rather than falling into glibness and cynicism in your speech (or lack thereof). Yes, my Swahili is coming along swimmingly, thanks.

Music is good too, isn’t it? My goodness I’ve been listening to some wonderful music! I’ve also decided that I want to study and play at least one instrument, if not a few. I’m convinced that we are musical beings and that to better understand the world around and inside us, it is important to appreciate, study and create music. So far, I’ve dj’d and made a plethora of mix cds. Time to step to the plate. But, here I am sounding like a self-help guru. I digress to the third…

Projects, plans, plots and schemes? I got ‘em. From brewing medicinal herbal beers, to documenting neo-primitive and modern hobo train culture, to interviewing psychedelic scientists, to hashing out agriplexes and biorefineries with systems engineers, to embedding with WWOOFers and permaculture activists the world over to simply writing profiles about the people I admire.

I’m looking forward to bringing you all of this and more, internet.
Consider yourself notified: I’m back and I’m bringing the dirty South with me.
Stay with me now.

- Curtiss

Now an NYC refugee, Curtiss P. Martin serves as a contributing editor of all things clean and green at ScribeMedia. When he isn't out on the road or in the field researching and reporting on controversial science and tech topics, Curtiss can be found communing with the creative kids at the Elsewhere artist collaborative in Greensboro, NC.