To do:

work for a social justice org
move to sf or bkk
play the guitar
mountain climb in yosemite
write more letters
get better at giving directions
run a marathon
join a book club
find a yoga studio
dont be scared to fuck up

I recently finished reading Jon Kraukauer’s (my favorite author) emotional account of Pat Tillman’s story.  Pat Tillman walked away from a multimillion-dollar NFL contract to join the Army and was killed by friendly fire.  The details of his death was covered up to promote a  story to manipulate Americans into believing in a false patriotic perception of war and freedom.  Don’t we owe it to our brothers to honor their families with the truth?  Gripping… I need to see this.

So appropriate right?  Quoting Alex Garland, author of The Beach, a novel about backpacking in Thailand- a week before going back to Thailand.  Okay actually-  first stop is New Zealand, then Australia and then Thailand and my Thailand is simply home rather than some exotic “find yourself” destination but yes, next week I will be circling the globe.

When I first read The Beach in college, I told myself that I would jump around from city to city every two years to really explore and never be tied down.  This past month has proven that I am resisting that.

November has been filled with celebrations, grad school essays, running, grad school aps, more running, making various connections with ngos in Thailand, managing challenging issues at work, running 26 miles and realizing I didn’t run enough in training so now I cannot walk, planning trips with friends, watching ski porn in anticipation of the season, lots of laughing, lots of great conversations with good people and then finally submitting my first application to school tonight.
With the click of the “submit” button, I found myself asking why am I leaving? I live in a beautiful city with wonderful friends and amazing opportunities for growth and I hunger to dig deeper-right here, right in this spot.  After 3 years of living in SF, it finally has become me.  This isn’t broken and why am I trying to fix it?

When I first moved here and was asked,  “How do you like living in SF?”  I always compared it to dating someone I would like to marry.. but not yet.  I needed to date around a little more, see what is out there, and then come back. Now, I am not sure I am ready to date anyone else yet.

I guess I will continue to ponder this question but I will still submit the applications knowing that I can come back in two years. For now, I will just cherish the fact that Tahoe is a 3 hour drive, that I am surrounded by good people, and that my apartment is home.  I sought out advice from my friend Sonia the other night who said,  “Just because your needs are met doesn’t mean you should stop striving for more.”

Well then, I guess Alex is right… I’ll just keep my mind open and suck it all in.

Peace

My Sunny Valentine from Vote Solar on Vimeo.

Solar energy is one of those no-brainer issues for us at Tides, and yet — even with the triple threats of climate change, job losses, and energy dependence — it just doesn’t get the legislative and political love it deserves.

We work with many groups that either primarily promote clean energy technology and policy, or that work on intersections of the environment and issues like social justice, human rights, and economic development.

For example, Honor the Earth, founded by Winona LaDuke in 1993, promotes the development of solar and wind energy on tribal lands.  A new Tides project, the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative, makes the connection between climate change and human rights, as environmental degradation disproportionately impacts people of color, low-income families, and indigenous communities.  Chinadialogue.net is the world’s only fully bilingual environmental news website in English and Chinese, and fosters a unique, cross-cultural dialogue with China on climate change and environmental issues.  And Vote Solar, who has been with Tides since 2002, works tirelessly to bring solar energy into the mainstream.

Vote Solar has always been at the forefront of using simple online tools to help folks make their voices heard on solar energy and policy. Continuing that tradition, and to coincide with Valentine’s Day, today they released a video montage of personal ads rife with dating clichés… that happen to apply equally to solar.

It’s okay to look! And to send it along to your state leaders.

Happy Valentine’s, from Tides.

On our current state, Richard Tarneas says, “humanity has entered into a condition that is in some sense more globally united and interconnected, more sensitized to the experiences and suffering of others…more capable of collective healing and compassion and, aided by technological advances in communication media, more able to think, feel and respond together…”

As our world becomes flat and we feel more compassion for society at large, more people want to become involved in the solution. They do so by identifying the traditional weakness of a typical nonprofit and applying a different model.  Typical nonprofits can be inefficient, may lack resources and depend on the hand (read: funders) that feed them.

The solution is the Social Enterprise model. Social enterprises are cause driven with an objective of promoting a social good.  Their foundation is  built by business principles that allow for efficiency, effectiveness and self sustainability.

The engineer of this concept is Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank and the concept of microcredit.  He addresses the need new kind of capitalism that serves humanities most pressing needs.   These businesses identify revenue streams that allow them to be economically sustainable -not having to bend to the wishes of funders or fold if the money pool dries up.  They are powered by investors willing to only recover the amount initially put into the project.  They are also powered by fee for service or fee for product models while promoting  objective  to address social problems with innovation and sustainbility.

My friend Evan won a Tshirt design contest with  this print.

Check out more of his work here: