I love Michael Ventura. He is one of those not-so-well known writers who seem to speak for a generation, who just manage to tune in to the Zeitgeist and channel it. Paul Simon always had the knack of writing songs like this, songs that just spoke for the times.
I was thinking about people who had insoired me, who shaped the way I think, and remembered Michael Ventura. A long time ago I read and re-read and re-re-read his Letters at 3 a.m.: Reports on Endarkenment (1994) .
In that book, he offers his 'Solutions to all our problems'. He listed 30, and intrdiced them like this:
It’s happened once too often. Somebody says or writes to me, ‘You talk about what’s wrong, but you don’t offer solutions.’ And maybe they’re right. Maybe to merely detail one’s vision and let readers take it from there isn’t enough. Maybe there are solutions, and maybe I should know them. So I sat down and thought about things real hard, and here, numbered for your convenience, are my solutions to everything.
His last 'solution' was this:
Stop looking for other people to supply the solution. You’re the solution. If you’re not, there is no solution.
And it struck me then, and again yesterday, that he was right. We have to find solutions for ourselves, solutions that work for us. Not just pragmatic solutions that help you get the lid off the paint without getting it all over your trousers (yes, I have been painting). Solutions to stuff that matters. So I was inspired to have a go at my own list - shorter than Michael's - and reading it again yesterday I only needed small tweaks to bring it up to date.
If these are no good, well, make your own. Of course. Here goes:
Solutions (after Michael Ventura)
Try not to trade sunny days for money. Work doesn’t have to define your life, and the idea of regular attendance at a place of work is relatively recent. Work can shape and dominate your life, and you have to be determined not to let it.
Education should be more than just the process by which the state grooms future taxpayers for later exploitation. Children crawl, walk, talk and learn at their own pace and time. All the hurdles education puts in their way are artificial. Just try to stop children learning – it can’t be done. But schools almost manage it by squeezing out the spontaneity and joy in learning. And education schools children to squander sunny days.
Beware conformity. Conformity to values, habits, customs, other people’s expectations always round down. Conformity is about forcing round, triangular, hexagonal, spherical, 4 dimensional pegs into someone else’s square holes. No surprise that the fit isn’t comfortable. Ask yourself in any situation whether anything is gained by conforming, and whether anything is lost.
This is your life. You have just one. There is nothing after it. If you can’t make things better now, they never will get better. And nobody will make things better for you. You have to do it yourself.
Avoid organised religion and all its works. Building irrationality into your life is never a great idea. Building in someone else’s irrationality is just crazy. Think about the balance sheet for religion and what it has contributed; guilt, self-loathing, wars, repression, hierarchies, intolerance, narrow-minded legislation, social control. The good things religion has managed to do could be achieved without the trappings.
Believe things. Believe in people. Believe in yourself.
Be still. Make space and time to smell blossom, count grass, watch clouds, listen to the music of the world.
Don’t trust politicians to make a positive difference or look after your world. They won’t see further than hanging onto power and won’t act in your interests. You have to make the differences yourself. Think global, act local was always the way to go.
Live simply. Thoreau said that a man was rich in proportion to what he could live without. Having is only an illusory substitute for being. Make things, and make them beautiful. Do things for yourself. Be as self-sufficent as possible.
Travel less and journey more. And never be a tourist. There is an unknown world right on your doorstep, and your adventures won’t be any more exotic because you had to fly or drive to them. Like sex, the best journeying is in your head.
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