We now face an existential crisis that may
bring human civilisation to an end. This needs a whole of society effort to try and resolve it. Our current system is a planet-killing Ponzi
scheme. Itās a giant casino of absolutely epic proportions. The consumer way very easily debauches. I think we are losing a sense of community
in many ways. We need to learn about these fundamentals of
a deeper connection to one another and to nature. Maybe thereās another option, maybe thereās
another way - way to live which isnāt the way that I have grown up with or become accustomed
to or just fallen into. The story of industrial civilisation tells
us that limitless economic growth, advanced technology, and material affluence are the
pathways to prosperity. But as we reflect on the world today, it is clear that this
is failing both people and planet. We know this in our heads and feel it in our hearts. And yet, it seems we have not found a new
story by which to live. We are the generation in between stories, desperately clinging to
yesterdayās, but uncertain of tomorrowās. But then again, perhaps the new story is already
with us. Perhaps we just need to live it into existence. I came because I was looking for a way to
simplify my life. I knew that the way that I was living my life wasnāt right and the
things that seemed ā that it seemed necessary to strive for werenāt the things that I
really wanted to strive for. And Iāve always felt that. [Beautiful windows.] So I guess
for the last five or six years Iāve sort of been paring back. I just, yeah, I felt
I didnāt want to have debt, I didnāt want toā¦ didnāt want to feel obligated to work
a 40-hour week and not have time to do the things that really mattered to me. So, for the past year or so Iāve been experimenting
with, I guess, living simply, living sustainably, and trying to challenge myself, I guess, to
live in a way that is less ah harmful towards the planet and, ah, less energy intensive.
I guess I feel like this experiment is an opportunity to push myself a little bit further
and challenge not only myself but the modern environmental movement to, yeah, come to understand
what it is to live sustainably. Iām really looking forward to this year,
being part of a team working together to explore, ah, what it really means to live simply and
sustainably, to work towards living within the resources of one planet. How we can just
improve constantly. And Iām really excited about sharing that beyond the group here and
beyond this place as much as we can to inspire and educate others as well. The idea of this project really interested
me because Iād been trying to apply these principles in my own life in quite an individual
way, hadnāt had much support from the wider group of people I was with, so the idea of
coming here to be in a supportive learning environment and to be meeting lots of new
people who are asking similar questions, challenging things in a similar way, thatās what excited
me, that idea of working as part of a larger movement. Ah, I guess my interest in this project was
to join with like-minded people, learn some skills, give my daughter the opportunity of
living, living on a rural property. Being part of a documentary toā¦to educate and
inspire others to one planet living, sustainable living. Um, so I was interested in this project because
it provided me with the ability to put the theories of natural building and natural food
production into practice on a bigger scale than Iām able to do in cities and without
actually buying any land, because landās so expensive at the moment. Iāve been studying permaculture for a long
time, but Iām excited to put it into practice. I want to have experiences and I wanna be
able to use my hands, and have knowledge from experience rather than from books. In terms of the existing infrastructure, in
addition to the house there, thereās a small earth ship, a cob round house, some basic
composting facilities, and a moderately sized farm shed, if you like. My mother loved this
place. So much so that my sister and I spread her ashes here, once she passed away. She
is very much the seed for us, in being able to explore sustainable pathways for the property.
It was not long after this that I was introduced to Samuel Alexanderās book Entropia, and
realised that we were truly on the same page, envisaging a simpler way. I shared all this
with the Gunai Kernai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporationās cultural heritage manager
about our small Braiakolung patch, and Wurrukāan was born. With permission to use āWurrukā,
a local indigenous word for earth and story, fused with ākāanā, a Mayan term for
seed. We are beginning the build of a tiny house.
Itās about 2.7 by 3.6, and about 3 metres high, so itās got a footprint of about 10
square metres. Weāre trying to use as much reclaimed timber and reclaimed iron as possible.
For the last two or three months Iāve been jumping into skips on the side of the road
or jumping into peopleās back yards when they tell me that theyāre renovating, or
going to the tip shops or salvage yards or finding windows on the side of the road. Weāve
got about 15 people here for the build over the next week and at the end of that build
Iām hoping that weāve more or less got ourselves a beautiful, unconventional, tiny
house. This is the tiny house that was built by a
group of people in, when was it, it was January, as well, so it took about a week, and then
I had to install some of the ceiling and a few other bits and pieces myself, but it got
finished in a week. So this is the outside of the tiny house. Itās made out of pretty
much nearly all recycled materials, building materials, itās probably about, I would
say about 95% all recycled building materials. These weather boards are actually skirting
boards that we sanded down and varnished. So I guess that the main feature of the tiny
house is the geodesic window, which our carpenter Nick made. Itās beautiful. He actually made
the frame and I cut all the glass and did the patterns. First time cutting glass and,
what do you know it worked! And then I made a candle-holder for it and everything. This
makes it a really warm and beautiful space to be in and I look forward to many winter
nights with candles. Then weāve got, like most tiny houses weāve got a loft for either
storage or a bed. Thatās my bed up there. Itās got a really cute little window. You
can fit quite a lot of things into a tiny house and to be honest itās quite comfortable.
Iāve got my couch, my bed, Iāve got a work station as well. This is my little desk,
where I end up doing designs from, which is a really beautiful place to work. I often
work with the door open, Iāve got a view down into the valley there. I often work with
a kerosene lamp, candles, sometimes a head torch if itās getting a little bit too dark.
Thereās no power in the house and thatās what I like about it. I like to kind of go
back to nature and it really gives you a feeling of the fluctuations of the seasons and the
cycles of nature as well. I prefer to live in a tiny space. I like to nest, and I donāt
think that you miss out on much ā¦ much more than living in a conventional house, in a
quite a larger house, and thatās because it makes you minimise, it makes you realise
how much you donāt need, as well. It makes you realise how functional a small space can
be. In our modern society we have the, usually the feeling that bigger is better, and I donāt
necessarily think that thatās the case. I think that smaller is more cosy and more
nourishing. I grew up in quite a conventional way, in
a little family in sort of suburban England, but my family had a really strong connection
to the natural world. Weād often go for walks in the forest and along moors and I
had a deep love of nature from a young age. And when I was a teenager I, through videos
on the internet and through publications, discovered the extent of the ecological and
social crises happening in the world today ā the deforestation, the pollution in the
oceans, the toxic dumps, the factory farming. That really hit me very hard and I became
really concerned about how we were living. I had a deep sense that we shouldnāt be
going down that track but at the time I had no idea that there was an alternative. You canāt produce an answer unless you name
the problem accurately. Unless we really understand the circumstances weāre in, weāre not
gonna get the solutions to find the path to it and Iāve seen what I call, after Barbara
Ehrenreich, a lot of bright siding. Aahā¦ Itās all happy-clappy, itās all good,
weāre all going in the right direction, thereās renewable energy, sunflowers, all
of this. I think, in part, some of that is a personal psychological response of people
wanting to talk about the good news because it allows them to go on. But we have to deal
with this problem as it really is, and it is arresting and it is difficult. And to pretend
otherwise, to pretend itās going to be light and easy, that itās going to be business
as usual, that everybody can keep on making profit and we wonāt have to change much,
to think like that, actually means that we canāt get to the solution we need. We need
brutal reality in order to solve the problem. Techno-optimism in particular is, is really
insidious, itās about telling us we donāt actually have to change anything, we can still
have everything we have now. So we donāt have to worry about any of these pesky limits,
weāll have everything we have now weāll just do it all in a green sort of way. ā¦ I
think we have to have a recognition of the fact that we are facing limits, and some sense
of the relative timeframe for the different limits that weāre facing, because then we
know what weāre trying to prepare for, and we have an appropriate kind of sense of urgency
as to the need to do it. I hope that by the end of the year Iāll
have a deeper grounding in what it means to live simply, and a greater confidence that
this is in fact a way of approaching life that is deeply nourishing. I believe it is
and the experiences Iāve had so far tell me that itās something that could be applied
to lots of peoplesā lives for great benefit, but I think the explorations of this year
will help give me confidence in communicating that message and sharing it with a wide range
of people. I hope that by the end of the year these practical explorations will give me
greater clarity of my own realities and vision and how I see my life being a beautiful contribution
to these difficult times that weāre in as a species. I want my life to be a gesture
towards a more stable and loving world. I guess Iām expecting this year to be difficult.
Iām expecting to, yeah, again push simple living to its probably more extreme ends and
try and, I mean I know itās gonna be uncomfortable but I wanna try and find what my limits are
and try and pare it back to something thatās somewhere in between and more comfortable.
And I guess Iāve been doing that by myself for a little while now and Iām hoping to
do that with a bunch of other people that are interested in the same kind of thing and
maybe we can work together and as a community it might be more rewarding or more enjoyable
or even a bit easier. And yeah I mean if you can extend that to community living, I guess
itāll be easier to extend to much broader society. [Oh ok, no itās not matching up anymore.]
I spent the last eight years working in an office, as a town planner, in a number of
different roles, doing different things and in the end of those eight years I was actually
partaking in projects that I was very passionate about, but the bulk of my work that was coming
from up above, my bosses, was not something I was proud or really fully passionate about.
So quitting my job and doing a bit of travelling and then applying to be a part of this project
gave me the ability to remove myself from the daily grind, I guess you could say, and
you know I found that once I you know built my salary up over those eight years working
from part time to a full time, senior employee in a local government, I started spending
that money on luxuries, and since Iāve quit my job itās been nice to just strip all
those things back and try and live more simply with far less. So over the year Iām hoping
that Iāll be able to construct some form of abode on wheels for very little money,
as I donāt have much, using recycled materials as much as I can. Iāve always had sort of minor health issues
and in my mid-30s theyād developed to a point where it was necessary for me to really
do something ā¦ to really take responsibility for my health, because I wasnāt finding
the medical profession helpful and I wasnāt finding anything else that was helping me,
and so I started taking responsibility for my health. And as I understood more about
the way my body works, and the importance of the food that I put in it, and that food
is medicine, and the importance of knowing where your food comes from, and connecting
with your food, the more interested I became in soil, and in gardening, which I had never
reallyā¦ I mean Iād always been a city girl, I never really knew how a strawberry
grewā¦ wouldnāt have recognised half the plants on my plate if Iād seen them in a
garden. So those understandings led me to leave a desk job that I loved but which I
realised wasnāt healthy for me, it wasnāt good for me to sit at a desk for five days
a week all day, every day, it wasnāt good for me mentally, or physically, or spiritually. Ok, so this is the cob cabin. It was built
in a workshop about a year and half before the project started. Itāsā¦ the walls are
30cm thick cob, which is sand, clay and straw and water, and the floor is also cob. Thereās
not a lot to show in the cob cabin because I didnāt come with a lot of things, so I
havenāt got much in here, which Iām really loving. I gave away or sold most of my things
before I came to Australia for this project, which was a really liberating experience.
So obviously in the process of being here Iāve accumulated things, because thatās
what we do. One thing Iāve done is make a bed from pallets. There were some rocks
left over from the build and some planks lying around so I made some shelves from rocks and
planks. Iāve got a little plastic solar powered light, which doesnāt put out much
light, but thatās so ā¦ I donāt have any other form of power in the cabin. Iām
not going to have any heating for winter. The walls being 30cm-thick cob, itās really
well insulated so itās really cool in summer and so far itās been really warm on cold
days, but obviously weāre not in the heart of winter yet so I donāt know how itās
gonna be. We need a certain level of material possessions
to be satisfied but beyond that point, which is surprisingly low, itās actually less
about what we have and more about the way we live and the way we treat others and the
way we feel ourselves to be in relationship with the wider world, and lots of beautiful
writers spoke very clearly about how people can find more satisfaction in a less consumptive
way, which at the same time makes us happier in the west and it also reduces the load that
weāre putting on other people around the world who donāt have access to the wealth
that weāre taking from them. So voluntary simplicity for me is a very elegant way to
both increase personal satisfaction and sense of meaning and richness. Thereās now a mountain of literature that
is overwhelmingly convincing that not only are there savage limits to growth but weāve
gone through many of them, in the sense that it is now utterly impossible for all people
to live at anything like the standard of consumption or environmental impact that we have in rich
countries. And yet the mainstream has virtually ignored that case. The economy at the moment,
despite all those brilliant tech-fix things ā like the computerisation of everything
ā the resource use rates are going up at a fiercer rate. So if technical advance, technical
fix, is going to solve our problems, well I want to know is whenās it going to start? It often seems to me that these debates about
our environment, our future and our, you know, environmental future come down to almost a
blind faith in technology. And I should say that by background Iām a technologist, I
come from applied physics background, so, you know, I like what technology does for
us. But, we have to be really careful about putting so much faith in this factor. Well, essentially all human political systems
exist to extract wealth from the periphery and concentrate it at the centre. Itās just
that some of them do it a lot more effectively or efficiently than others. Capitalism does
it extremely effectively. So itās a very effective mechanism for sucking wealth towards
the centre. What you do is you create a Ponzi scheme, essentially, youāre sucking everything
in, but you constantly require a larger and larger periphery to suck it into in order
to keep expanding the capacity of the centre. And if you canāt keep expanding, it will
collapse, like any Ponzi scheme, so you have to keep reaching out further and further. I donāt necessarily think itās certain
that weāre in for collapse or that itās happening now. I think trying to make such
a call, a certainty call on this is, would be extremely brave. But I just think the evidence
does appear to be assembling and stacking up forā¦ that itās likely that we may even
be in the early stages of a collapse mode right now. It just makes sense to me to start
to prepare and I suppose that that to me means expectā¦ being more self-reliant. Weāre using organic gardening practices.
So weāre not using any pesticides, weāre not using any fungicides, weāre not using
any chemical fertilisers, anything like that. Itās mainly about trying to build soil in
whatever we can, mostly with compost and mostly with manures. Food is more than just fuel for the body,
itāsā¦ itās your connection to the land. Itās the most, food is the most intimate
connection to the land because you interact with four of the five senses, you know the
taste and the texture and the smell and the sight, so itās quite an amazing thingā¦
to be able to enjoy good food, fresh food, seasonal food, real food, food that doesnāt
come out of a can or a package and you mix water with it orā¦ I donāt understand those
types of food. The giant middlemen in the form of huge multinational
corporations and supermarket chains, are not able to treat farmers in a way that respects
the absolute reality and necessity of diversity. These farmers are being pressured to grow
standard-sized apples without a single blemish, they have to fit the machinery ā that is
the harvesting machinery, the washing machinery, the supermarket shelf and the packaging. The
end result is we burn tonnes of food every year, the end result is that the very research
and development at university is now concerned about transportability and the looks of products
not the nutritional value. We donāt know now when our food naturally
grows. You know, we get watermelons in June, in Victoria, watermelons donāt grow in June
in Victoria, you know. And I think that thatās really disconnecting. When you wait for something
to grow in your garden, itās a completely different feeling because youāve anticipated
it, youāve cared for it, it not only tastes delicious but youāve got this kind of connection
with it that makes it taste even more delicious ā and the fact that youāve waited for
it all seasonā¦ So we get some of our food from the garden,
but during the winter we havenāt had as much coming in from the garden, so get some
vegetables from the Baw Baw Food Hub, so weāve been getting sacks of potatoes and sacks of
carrots and sacks of onions from them, as well as garlic in bulk and things like butter
and cheese. They also do veggie boxes, with a range of different vegetables from the local
area, so weāve been getting them as weāve progressed through the year. Aside from that
we get our dry goods and other food from a variety of different places. So, weāre aiming
to source our food as locally, ethically and organically as possible, so we choose which
supplier we get different items from so that weāre getting it from as close as possible
and grown in the best way possible for the environment. Because to me food consumption is a moral
act. It is also a political act. And it is up to us, the consumer ā or I like to call
ourselves the citizens, not just consumer ā to do something about it. Because we canāt
all wait for authorities or government to do something about it, we just have to do
things. It has to be from the bottom up. My nameās Hayden and I build super adobe
domes, and I run workshops and I hope to do it full time and as a real job. Itās 3.6m
in diameter because that falls under the 10sq metre floor space that it needs to be classified
as a āshedā, so we donāt actually need a permit for it. About 95% of the building
material is earth. Weāve got a really really large pile of earth that weāve just pulled
from the site here, so hopefully if your soil is the right consistency you get to use a
really really large percentage of soil thatās on your site. So itās really really local
materials, really really cheap, and yeah really really easy to build with. Yeah, this is our composting toilet setup,
which we built over the course of a few weeks out of a combination of salvaged hardwood,
local cypress, which makes these, and, yeah, just some other materials that we found around
the place, some hessian sacks from down the road. Itās a pretty simple system. Thereās
a urinal over on this side here, and a composting toilet on this side. After weāve finished
using it we put in a cup of sawdust, just here, from the local cypress mill, and that
just helps it toā¦ it balances the carbon and the nitrogen and it helps it to compost
into a fertiliser. So when weāre done with the bin, when itās
filled up most of the way, weāll take it out and put it in a holding bay with all our
other bins and theyāll sit for about 300 days, and weāll check on the compost after
that time. And during that time theyāll just compost away until eventually theyāre,
yeah, beautiful fertiliser for the garden. Weāve used permaculture in the gardens,
where weāre trying to maximise diversity and make sure that thereās a lot of different
kinds of plants around. Weāre planting herbs and things like that, as well, for integrated
pest management. Permaculture can be defined in many different ways but it basically, it
stands for permanent agriculture first of all, and then permanent culture, ok, so the
way I see it is basically itās planning and designing for more permanent kind of systems.
Just like nature does, really, itās mimicking nature. So, itās utilising design and careful
research and planning to ensure that youāre creating a self-cycling system thatās regenerative
and produces no waste. So permaculture is really a design system
for both sustainable land use and sustainable living. And so itās addressing both the
production side of the conundrum and the consumption side, and saying why not bring those things
back together? Well we eat foodā¦ we grow a garden, why donāt we grow the food in
the garden and integrate that wholeā¦? Rather than the industrial system, which stretches
everything out in these long supply chains. So bring it back together. And through that
a whole lot of design principals emerged, that, you know, small-scale systems actually
made more sense than large scale ones, that you need a diversity rather than a monoculture. And itās not just sustainable, sustainable
is not nearly good enoughā¦What you need is not sustainable, you need regenerative,
and thatās exactly what permaculture provides you the ability to do. Rather than our extractive
system, where weāve constantly been sucking resources out all the time, and cannibalising,
catabalising our natural capital, all the time, rather than doing that and leaving ourselves
less and less and less ability to produce and meet our needs in the future, if you institute
a permaculture system, youāre actually rebuilding that natural capital. Sustainabilityās a funny one. Yeah, I feel
like itās a bit of a buzz word at the moment. Sustaining. Yeah. I donāt know what it is
that youāre trying to sustain anyway, I mean, yeah, when you think about sustainability
it means I guess that you can continue doing what youāre doing ongoing into the future,
indefinitely. But I just donāt really think that thereās that much that we should be
trying to sustain at the moment. We should be looking at solutions that can improve the
land over the long term, and can improve the lives of people. But I donāt think the rampant
inequality and the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of the few is something
worth sustaining. I think thatās something worth destroying and challenging and replacing. Youāre really answering what is a deep human
need, because thatās how we evolved. Itās coming back onto a track that would allow
life to continue evolving, that would allow for real progress. The other path is suicidal,
we are going to soon get to the point where ālocalise or dieā basically, because we
cannot continue extinguishing species, cannot continue creating frustration, fundamentalism,
terror. We cannot continue so blatantly destroying any form of democracy. You know, things are
going to change and I think weāll see, you know, that people are waking up very, very
rapidly to the benefits of localisation. Ah, this week we're retrofitting our existing
farm shed to be a kitchen, lounge and craft space. We want a multi-functional large area
that can be converted to different uses with portable bits of furniture, so with the materials
we're using, we've sourced locally milled timber from a local sawmill, and weāre also
using as many recycled materials as possible. So we've got a bunch of floorboards and bits
of iron that we're going to use as cladding for the internal space. Weāre also going
to be doing a recycled bottle wall along the front of the building here, to let as much
light in as possible and thatās also going to feature some large glass doors to bring
the outside in and feature that beautiful view we've got of the property. There's so much waste these days, of buildings
that are getting torn down or scraps of wood that are left over from building jobs, that
we can divert those resources from landfill and actually use them in a meaningful way
and be really creative with just making something out of nothing. Weāre here at the Wurrukāan kitchen/lounge
room/communal space, which weāve been living in now for about three or so months. I guess
the theme starts with our recycled timber. These ones up the top and on the side here
are oak floorboards that were left over from a building project and we were able to get
them very cheap. Weāve got some recycled windows that there are a couple of sets around
the room. So over here you can see weāve used a combination of corrugated iron and
some hardwood fence palings that we were able to get for free from demolition. We also scored
some of this splashback stuff around the sink and the oven, which is heat proof, and that
was left over commercially and we were able to get it for free. These beautiful bench
tops, both these ones and the larger slabs, came from a sawmill, from Jedwood. We were
very luck to get their off-cuts and be able to actually use them with the help of our
professional carpenter to get them to this stage, which is really nice. Up on the roof
weāve actually had to use some ply wood. We were a bit short on materials to do the
whole thing with reclaimed stuff. And thereās also insulation and framing behind all of
these walls and the ceiling now so that insulation was also you know a bit of a compromise. We
bought that new as well cos that can be pretty hard to find secondhand. Itās been really great to have a wood-fired
stove to cook on. It feels a lot better than cooking on an electric stove as we were before.
Just knowing that the source of energy that weāre using to cook with is a renewable
source is better. At the moment weāve used some off-cuts from building, which have no
other purpose, and weāve also sourced some of our firewood from this property and also
from nearby forests in the way that is permitted. So, itās clear enough now that we need to
transition swiftly away from a fossil fuel energy economy to an economy based on renewable
energy. Not only due to climate change, but also because in coming years or decades fossil
energy production will inevitably peak and decline. But we canāt just green the supply
of our energy, we also need to, I think, significantly reduce energy demand, because thereās no
way that we can run a globalised energy-intensive consumer society purely on renewable energy.
Yes, we need to transition to 100% renewable energy, but that implies significantly reducing
energy demand, and it would be far easier, obviously, to meet 100% renewable energy if
we consumed much less energy. So that should be our goal. But given the close connection
between energy and economy, a society based solely on renewable energy would have reduced
energy supply, and therefore would probably have to go through a phase of economic contraction,
at least in the developed regions of the world. So I think if we were successful in transitioning
to 100% renewable energy we wouldnāt be able to live high-consumption, energy-intensive
lifestyles. We would need to aim for far more humble but sufficient living standards. The silver lining to consuming less is actually
consuming more of what we really want and what we really long for. And that includes,
you know, hand-made, artisan products that, you know, most people treasure much more than
some mass-produced product. It includes more time to breathe and to sing together, to dance
together, to make things together. Thereās a whole universe of things out there that
we could do right now without money, but it requires the insight and the courage to connect
to others, and to form groups where we can change the āIā to a āweā. You donāt need that much in the way of material
things if you know that your neighbours have got your back, and anytime you get overwhelmed
by things, you can go next door and thereās someone whoās shoulder you can cry on, or
they can come to you, or someone whoās tomatoes you can water, then theyāre coming and helping
you fix your bike, or whatever it might be. There are just so many advantages, there are
no disadvantages to building community, and the potential advantages are absolutely massive,
so I think thatās something we really, really need to focus on. I think the benefits of living in a community
reveal themselves to you more and more each day. Thereās the strict financial benefit
of being able to share in the costs of making this transition. And also the benefits of
being able to draw on each otherās skills and attributes and knowledges so you donāt
have to do it alone, you donāt have to do it financially alone, skills alone, some of
those things are very intimidating for people trying to make that step. But more than that
itās about beingā¦ doing it together. And whatās possible here is possible not just
because of us as individuals but because when we get this unique collection of individuals
together weāre capable of so much more than what we would be on our own. So we have to do one of two things: we either
just accept that we have no community at all, we just have a casual neighbourhood and some
nice acquaintances at work and perhaps a couple of people that we drink with at the pub, or
we create community, intentional community. And I think thatās the side thatās always
interested me personally as well as in my research, is How can people create intentionalā¦
How can you consciously do it? I know people subconsciously do it all the time. I mean
itās our natural position, but can you actually do this, can you set out to create this? And
that always fascinates me. You gonna have to come up with some idea of how youāre
gonna make decisions. Yes, weāre going to have consensus, and yes weāre going to live
lightly on the land, and yes weāre going to support each other and yes weāll look
after each otherās children and elderly and all of that sort of stuff. But it depends
whether you have any experience with doing that. I think the other thing is that we are
losing so many of those skills from living in community. Itās like, you know, I know
that I have to develop skills in organic gardening if Iām going to become an organic gardener,
I know that, so therefore I also have to develop skills in inter-human, interpersonal relationships
if Iām gonna live in community. Donāt assume you were kind of born with that because
you werenāt. You have to learn how to cooperate, how to put the group above the individual
and thatās very challenging. Thereās been a lot of challenges, Iām
not gonna lie. I think although we had to live the first few months without much infrastructure,
without a warm kitchen space, without much of a lounge room or without a whole lot of
running water and we had a composting toilet that was sort of outside, I donāt think
the infrastructure were all that big, I think there seemed to be a sense in solidarity in
all doing it together and that kind of gave me a lot of comfort, knowing that we were
all kind of pulling through and stronger because of it. So I feel like the infrastructure challenges
were a little bit problematic but they werenāt as hard I think as the community challenges
we faced, when there was conflict in the community and our conflict resolution around that werenāt
fully developed so yeah, I think I struggled a lot when things were not going well and
people left and things werenāt fully resolved, or when there was substantial difference in
the direction that people wanted to take in the project, whether people wanted to build
lots of infrastructure or start practicing simple, simpler living. I feel like those
chasms, those sort of divides were challenging for me because I didnāt know where I sat
and didnāt know how to bring the group back together again. I wanted everyone to start
working together again. Obviously starting at a community from scratch
with people who donāt really know each other at all and designing a property and finishing
buildings, houses and bits of infrastructure is very challenging in the context of one-year
project, so, yeah, that social aspect of just getting to know each other and getting decision-making
processes in place has been one of the key challenges. Another major challenge I think
has been the group figuring out how to accommodate a wide range of peoplesā styles of voluntary
simplicity. It can be interpreted to differing degrees and thereās not necessarily any
right or wrong answers, so just figuring out how the group can accommodate the variety
within our personal direction and preferences has also been a challenging component of that
social side of things. One of the humbling learnings I got from being
here was how difficult it is to be in community and how in a way we have to relearn that art
ā that we have broken that long tradition of shared ritual and song and mythology and
living in one place and knowing that history. Thatās kind of been fragmented for us and
when we now come together in groups itās much harder to find that common culture to
draw upon in times of discord and in times of confusion. So itās easy for us to fragment
back into our individual desires and paths and I know that for lots of people, as resources
become more scarce and we have to rely on each other more, thereāll be positives to
that but thereāll also be lots of challenges. So Iām very motivated now to keep practising
and developing those skills of communication and conflict resolution, naming the difficulties,
bringing up the emotional challenges. And also celebrating together, creating, relaxing,
learning how to play and dance in a group and, itās a real, itās the art of being
human and the art of being together. Weāve been living in a tent, or we were
living in a tent at the start of the year, and yeah the tent was in a place where it
didnāt get a whole lot of sun and as it began to rain a bit more as we were coming
into winter it didnāt dry out so it started to get mouldy and, yeah, there was a bit of
pressure on us to do something else and we decided that building a small house with recycled
materials would be the simplest way to do that so, yeah, so we did. This beautiful structure behind us is the
house that we built over the course of about three months out of pretty much entirely recycled
materials. We had to make five purchases. We bought some cement for the foundations,
some steel bracing tape, because it was a bit wonky, we bought some screws for the roof,
we bought someā¦ [a tub of wood glue]ā¦ a little tub of wood glue for, to make some
window framesā¦we bought chains to hold the windows open. [hinges] Oh and we bought, there
were six things, we bought some hinges as well. But thatās it; everything else is
recycled materials we got entirely for free. Yeah, we went by dumpsters from demolition
sites, we looked on the website Gumtree and, yeah, we ended up getting, yeah, pretty much
everything we needed to build a whole house just for free. If, yeah, we can demonstrate
that itās possible to do without three and a half years of training and without tens
of thousands of dollars, to build a house that is gonna be a lot better in terms of
its ecological footprint, then I think that that can kind of disperse that knowledge more
amongst the people that might not have the money to take part in a more conventional
sustainability movement. Yeah, so the total cost was about $420 if you, include, yeah,
the petrol money that went into it. Itās a lot more time consuming doing it for free,
but yeah, itās definitely worth it. [A lot more rewarding, I think]. Yeah. So while Iāve been at Wurrukāan Iāve
been continuing to work for eight hours a week for book publishing clients and thatās
enabled me to cover the small expenses that we have at Wurrukāan. So weāve put $30
a week into the kitty, which is, you know, the great benefit of living in a community,
that for $30 a week each weāve been able to pretty much feed ourselves for the entire
year. And obviously all of us have little extras that we like, that werenāt items
that everybody wanted, and so weāve bought our own, I donāt know, cheese, or bread.
I think Iām right in saying that weāve all spent under $100 a week this year for
our basic living costs. [The borrower receives the full amount and
pays it back, plus interest. Either way the interest that it collects on loans is one
of the bankās principle sources of income. Now Mr Moreton has obtained his loan. He has
increased his bank credit by nearly $2000. But this credit was not transferred to him
from some other account, so where did it come from?] So currently the existing monetary system
essentially has a growth imperative built into its structures, because banks create
money by loaning it into existence as interest-bearing debt, and in order for that debt to be paid
back, plus the interest, that implies an expansion of the monetary system. So it needs growth
for stability. But we also know that growth is the driving force behind our environmental
problems, so if we were to transition to a post-growth economy, as we need to do for
environmental reasons, this would require us to create a different type of monetary
system and banking system, one that wasnāt so dependent on growth. And I think thereās
a huge amount that governments can do to reign in the worst aspects of the current system,
but perhaps a more promising line of opposition, given that governments donāt seem to be
doing much, would be for individuals and households to try to create new forms of economy. Try
to escape the existing monetary system as far as possible. And they could do this through
things like creating local currencies, local exchange networks and engaging in practices
like barter, and gift, and sharing. It would be ā¦ itās obviously so much easier for
a community to deal with the contracting economy if communities and households shared the stuff
that they had. So there was a long process ofā¦ what felt
like a long process of learning to communicate with each other and itās immensely satisfying
now to feel that that process has actually been really successful. And to be living now
in aā¦ with a community of people who when problems arise know how to work through them.
And I think weāve actually been really successful at making thoseā¦ at developing those communication
skills, and itās a nice feeling when, you know, when we have a meeting and someone raises
an issue and you can see the change inā¦ you can see the different way that people
approach it, you can see the different ways that people sort of think about, respond to
issues, especially if, where at the beginning of the year they might have felt a little
bit attacked now they think through the reason for the issue coming up. Yeah I think weāre
all much better at, I think weāre probably all in some way more mature community dwellers. Living in such close quarters with other people
as part of a community, especially on quite a small scale where we all use the same lounge
room and kitchen and thereās you know seven or eight of us in that same space on a daily
basis, it certainly presents a lot of challenges on a personal and a group level, that are
just inherent to human beings and you know families and communities and all types of
human relationships. So itās certainly been challenging but I know for myself thatās
made me look inward and examine my own personal journey and where Iām at and how my own
psychology is evolving and just you know, if you feel a bit down one day or feel a bit
anxious about how someone else is acting, itās ended up kind of flipping around and
making me examine how Iām contributing to those sorts of dynamics or social situations
and just, yeah, trying to learn more about myself I guess. So Iām gonna be building my house in less
than a week now. Iāve got fourteen people coming out to learn how to build a tiny house
on wheels, and Iāve been gathering materials for the last couple of months in Melbourne
and around the local area to build a tiny house on wheels out of recycled materials.
You know, weāve got a few rough plans but being a tiny house itās quite easy to go
with the flow and being recycled materials weāve had to adapt to that and itās gonna
be a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, I guess. So thereās a major, major benefit if you
donāt get trapped into working 20, 30, 40 years to pay the mortgage on your two big
McMansions, boy oh boy have you gained a lot of time and freedom from worry to do other
things. And in a sane world we would be able to build a very nice little house for, I reckon,
$10,000 at most, and you can do it for less than that if you like, and thatās a perfectly
adequate house. Now, youāve saved $400,000 there, by the time you take in the payment
of interest and the loans to the bank and tax on the money. Thatās not negligible;
there is a benefit for moving to simpler ways. So weāre three days into the workshop and
itās going really well. As you can see weāve got the full timber frame of the walls up
and the groupās working really well together. Theyāre all learning off each other and
Nick, our carpenter, is doing a really great job, so I feel very lucky to have everyone
working so hard and weāre on schedule. I was really humbled by the good will, the
energy, and all of the contributions brought by everyone who made it possible. It was just
an amazing week of everyoneās energy vibing and making this beautiful house possible,
and, you know, Iāve got a little bit left to do but Iāve basically had people come
and build me a house with really great intentions and we all learnt a whole lot. And it couldnāt
have gone any better. Iād say it was probably the best week of my life without a doubt. Thereās a whole history of these sort of
energy descent ideas and permaculture being associated with a move to the country, a move
to rural areas as a place thatās a better place to be more self-reliant. And that still
may be true, but for most people thereās both a necessity and an advantage in looking
at where they live already. And for most Australians that is some sort of detached housing in what
we call suburbia, whether thatās in our capital cities or whether itās in similar
housing in our regional towns and even villages like the one we live in ā that most people
are living in those separate houses on small blocks. And what that template of living makes
possible is itās possible to incrementally adjust what is happening there and provide
a lot of peopleās needs by growing food, by modifying the house to make it moreā¦
ah, less dependent on energy, by harvesting some of the water, and by using some of the
space that exists in our relatively large houses to start doing more in the household
economy. Doing things for ourselves, rather than depending on money. One of the things thatās most exciting about
the intentional communities movement now is that itās like we have right across the
landscape hundreds of experiments about how to live in a way that confronts and resolves
issues associated with climate change and peak oil, you know, environmental damage on
a global scale. Instead of just having a one-way solution, which just says this is the way
that we have to go forward to resolve this, instead weāve got all of these little bubbles
of creative responses and you know new ways of living and being together and, building
lives together. Patterns of settlement and patterns of production are popping up all
across the landscape, each offering different pathways, and itās almost like theā¦ as
more of these emerge we have more opportunities for resilience. Ideally Iād like to see more initiatives
like this, where people with resources and land and spaces, making them available to
allow, you know, passionate and enthusiastic people to live more self-sufficiently and
demonstrate through example that there are other ways of doing things. So thereās so much that we can do right
now, without spending any money, to greatly enrich our lives. And letās not be fooled
by this idea that we have so much choice in the modern economy and that our lives would
be so limited if we were to choose a different path. We have not even begun to explore the
potential for more diversified, localised ways of doing things. There are reasons for pessimism, because itās
a big, big task, and weāre in a lot of bother, and we are not very far down the path to the
kind of consciousness that we need. But there are a lot of strong reasons for optimism.
One is, that the vision of an alternative way is, I think, so attractive, itās what
keeps me going, and itās so easily done. We could do it in weeks, if we wanted to.
Itās about moving to ways that would liberate all of us. You donāt want to wait until you have absolutely
no choice. So I would say itās a bit like weāre standing on the edge of a cliff and
weāre going over the edge, like it or not weāre going over the edge. Thatās not
up for debate. So what are you going to do? Are you going to stand on the edge of that
cliff and wait for someone to shove you off? Or are you going to put on your parachute
and jump? Because, not that base-jumping is without its risks, but itās a lot less risky
than going over the edge without a parachute! So letās not think of it as good guys and
bad guys, and letās not believe for a minute that the way weāll change it is by getting
some good guys to go into those large structures. Letās look systemically at how we can shift
towards smaller structures with more holistic knowledge, underpinnings, and that really
is the localizing path. When you know how to live simply, the sense
of freedom can be just overwhelming. Thereās nothing as addictive as freedom, and thereās
nothing as attractive either. So, I think if we find the right way to explain our ideas
to people, and explain the ideas that are fundamentally workable in the first place,
then there is so much that can be achieved, thereās no need to despair. I came to Wurrukāan wanting to explore a
really radical form of voluntary simplicity, because I felt a real sense of urgency around
the various crises that the world is facing at the moment and radical simplicity seems
to me to be the best and most logical response. After the experience this year of living in
community, and despite all of the challenges, I feel really strongly that this is the right
way for me to live. So, yeah, my intention is to return to New Zealand and find or found
a community and in the long term Iām really hoping to live in a community that operates
in a gift economy. That feels like a right and responsible way to live, or thing to work
towards. The person I was at the start of the year
is vastly different to the person I am at the end of the year. As I would hope would
be the case for every other year for the rest of my life. My plans for the future extend
as far as I should probably pick that zucchini over there. Beyond that, not many plans. But
Iā¦ Iām imagining that Rachel and I will probably stick around here at Wurrukāan
for a little while. Iām feeling pretty settled here, itās feeling a lot like home. I think
the number one thing thatās been solidified in my mind this year is that my favourite
things in the world are imagination, creativity, and teamwork. And the combination of those
three things is, yeah, personally the recipe for living in a beautiful way in the future. I love community, I love other people, I love
living and spending time with other people. I donāt know whether or not living in an
intentional community is part of my future. One thing that I knew coming here was thatā¦
living in community is a challenge, it involves effort, and that that effort is worth it. Yeah, itās been a really transformational
year for meā¦ I didnāt expect to have the opportunity to be constructing my own house
this year, so itās been very humbling to have the generosity of all the people involved
and the land owner to allow me to do that, because itās been quite a journey to collect
the materials and go through the process of building over an extended period of time,
so thatās just been fantastic and blown my expectations out of the water. So, once
Iāve finished my house, which will be sometime early in 2016, I plan to relocate it to Melbourne,
hopefully in a back yard somewhere that affords me a location where I can ride my bike and
catch public transport without having to be car reliant. But after moving it to Melbourne
and living there for a little while and enjoying a bit of city life, I donāt really have
a plan. Iām very happy to have that feeling of freedom and liberation for the first time
in my life and Iām going to make the most of that. One thing I get paralysed by is this sense
of having to do it right, somehow not making mistakes. And weāve made so many mistakes
living here, you know, there are buildings that are leaky, there are disagreements that
never got resolved, there are contradictions in the way weāre living, and compromises
that we had to make. So, from one perspective, we failed, we havenāt transformed the world
or led this perfect example. And from another perspective, those very failings are our gifts,
and they are the offering, and they are the learnings, because weāve risked and weāve
been willing to put our values on the line, and weāve been willing to test these ideas
and try and bring them into, you know, the shared reality. You know, no one holds the
answers, no one has the perfect solution, itās gonna require a response from everyone
if weāre going to be moving towards a more wholesome and enduring way of life. And, you
know, the challenges, the failings, the mistakes, the triumphs, theyāre all part of the story
of change and I just hope that other people can feel that encouragement to make their
own beautiful mistakes along the way toā¦ on the way to integrity.
I've been working on this film for the last 18 months and I'm so excited to finally release it to the world! We decided to put it out for free to reach as many people as possible and if you want to download a copy of the film, you can do so by paying what you want on my website. I hope you all enjoy it!
OMG, Hippies are back again!
First half of the epilogue is interesting.
Yeah, I agree.
New technologies, yeah, but...
The entire definition of a free market is one that is outside government influences. I agree that operating through governments is tedious and not ideal, I would prefer to find ways to nullify and ignore laws that prohibit solutions.
Boilerplate anti-capitalism is self-destructive. Many top names in American permaculture realized some years ago that the people who need to be convinced can be convinced to change the way they make money but can not be convinced to eschew a business-like approach to farming.