But, what started out as an experiment to explore new technology and poke fun at my primitive self, has now become a regular practice in my daily life. It has been an amazing tool to organise my thoughts, stay connected with friends (since I don't facebook), distribute "valuable" information, and network with people. All without the stress of external deadlines, quality standards, and costs.
This blog started as a way to learn about blogging through posting pictures and my notes from life at the Bullocks Permaculture Homestead. One of my main goals has been to provide more info about permaculture in Japanese. But, I also wanted to spread the love to my non-Japanese readers, as I believe the knowledge and experience at the Bullocks is an invaluable resource for creating a sustainable world.
Now, the blog is a bit of a mess, but a good representation of my cluttery active mind.
I believe the main topics are:
- Permaculture, natural farming and sustainable living
- Activism
- Mindfulness and Engaged Buddhism
- Nukes
- War and Peace
- Systems sciences
- Consumer culture and cultural change
Its all related.
Realizing that I still have a lot to learn about blogging, and that this blog was getting a little chaotic, I decided to start new blogs for new projects. Now I have a total of four blogs and I'm cautiously considering another. Here is the critical question, is the blog a tool that I benefit from, or is the tool now controlling my life?
I chose not to own a car, a cell phone (until I moved to Tokyo a couple months ago), a facebook account, etc. because they seemed to be controlling how people around me lived. People talked of how they couldn't imagine life without these tools. But, my life has been great without owning those things. And now that I have a cell phone, I can't quite say if my life is better or worse. It's convenient in some ways, and inconvenient in other ways. But I know I can live without it, and be happy.
I spend a lot of time blogging. And thinking about blogging.
For now, it seems like a good way to use my time and energy,
especially now that I live in the hyper-urban tragedy known as Tokyo.
But, I'm not sure how I would feel if the internet went down,
and if I could no longer access my blog, email, and all the virtual info that I depend on.
Losing access to a "free" internet could happen, and perhaps not too long from now.
This blog, like many others, started out with a thought that I would write a quick article and list my blogs, and here I am 40+ minutes later still typing. Believe it or not, some articles take several hours.
Da Otha Blogz
1. Tokyo Urban Permaculture
This is basically a website for my Tokyo regeneration project. It's primarily in Japanese, but I just added a English page, other pages, and pictures. Initially I was going to try a word.press website but it looked like a little more work than I was prepared to do.
2. Occupy Kasumigaseki Japan
I wanted to create a bilingual site to do outreach for the occupy kasumigaseki movement. It was also an opportunity to explore a new tool, tumblr. I was hoping to get more people involved but it hasn't happened yet. Like blogger, tumblr is really easy to use but quite a different format.
3. Eco Resources Library
I haven't mentioned this blog yet, but it exists. It's a personal data storage site. Sort of like bookmarks, but with more visual info. I just come across an overwhelming amount of cool info and I've been having a hard time keeping track. Some of these resources stay in my inbox and add to the 1700 unopened emails, some become another unapplealing bookmark, and others disappear back into the info abyss. So, I decided to create a virtual data base to organize them quickly and not have to worry about them anymore. That way other people can also benefit. Its a diverse mix of great websites and associated ideas and resources. Many come from the only blog I got tricked into following:
http://makewealthhistory.org/ It's really well done, much better than anything I do.
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