Whattheheckisgoingon and Whotheheckarewe?

Ping and I have been at this for three years now. We've gone from Corporate America to Beitou, Taiwan. We've spent a lot of these three years trying to figure out what's up. This week was a rough one. We both floundered, pretty painfully. It's amazing how dark the world can seem when we lose our bearings. But here's the point:

We're still working on getting “what we do” to be closer to “who we are.”

It’s an experiment--a bet, maybe--that we can do something authentic, something that uses everything we have, that opens up all the possibilities, and that somehow serves the world in a valuable, sustainable way.

Have we got it? Not yet. Well, part of it, yes, sometimes. Some days, not at all. We have more questions than answers. Sometimes I wonder: who needs more pretty paintings, more songs, another 

Wheels, Phase II

Before we moved to Taiwan, we sold or handed down our much-loved cars. For almost two years now, we've used only public transportation unless someone offered a ride. We love to "go take a look," but buses may not go or stop when or where we want to go or stop. We missed that freedom, so we've had many conversations about it.

"Can we just rent/borrow/hire one? What kind of vehicle do we need? How will we actually use it? Isn't it just one more thing to maintain? Can we even drive in this wacko traffic? Heck, where will we park it?" We kept concluding that "we haven't been everywhere public transportation can go and we still don't know what format will work best." So we put off replacing our car. Again. But we missed the freedom, so it kept coming up.

Rather than basic transportation, we needed an exploration vehicle, something to get a bit further out, and further in. A car seemed like a bit much, especially since it would not be used every day. The obvious choice in Taiwan is a scooter which, according to the locals, can transport a family of four plus the dog! Unfortunately, scooters here are built for shorter families and I [Mark] wasn't that comfortable sitting on my tailbone with my knees bumping the plastic. That was the most reasonable reason; frankly, I just couldn't get excited about a scooter. Now, a motorcycle, on the other hand...

I knew which one I'd like, if it would make sense. I had the Ideal and the Cheaper/Practical options figured out--at least to my satisfaction. Ping was willing to work with that. We checked online for pricing, brands, configurations, used vs. new, etc. (Local joke: "How do you know if a used vehicle is a piece of junk? It's for sale!") We found a few ways to pick up something functional online at a reasonable price, but the universe had another option.

On Monday, after another one of these conversations over lunch in Shilin (士林), we decided it was time to find helmets. There was a whole row of helmet stores on the way home, so we walked a couple of kilometers to the first store. I had a hard time fitting a helmet in the U.S., so I was concerned about finding one at all in Taiwan. Within 15 minutes, we'd found one that not only fit but cost 1/3 of what I paid for one of the same quality 20 years ago in the U.S. Maybe we should check the other stores, too?

About 50 meters further down the sidewalk, I looked in a bike shop and said: "Hey, there's the one I wanted to try," pointing at a red Kymco Quannon 150 (my Ideal Option, right down to the color!). "If we can't sit on it comfortably, I won't think about it anymore."

Ping asked them to pull it out for us. I got on. It fit my frame perfectly. Ping got on behind me. She fit. The bike was a year old, in mint condition with only 3200 km on it, and it cost 2/3 of what we expected to pay new--in fact, less than my Cheaper/Practical Option.

But what about the local joke? It's still a used bike, right? Yeah, but there was only a minor scratch on the tank. It still had a year left on the warranty. The shop owner said the guy needed the money; they had two of his motorcycles for sale. We had them start it up for us. Nice! I took it for a spin--unbelievably nimble, obvious even within a few blocks. We hadn't seen such a good machine for that kind of price, so we put some money down and walked home (the last 7 km of our 11 km "stroll" that day). They transferred the title the next morning and we rode the bike home that afternoon.

We parked it behind a locked garage door, under a covered patio in Ping's parents' other house, two blocks away from our place. Perfect. We finally replaced our eight wheels...with two!

So this is how things worked: after months of discussion, we literally walked right to it. What are the chances?

Today, we went back for a minor clutch adjustment and came home the fun way, up into the hills and back down again. Next trip, the coast? Let's go take a look!! Now, if I can just learn to reduce the number of emergency maneuvers in traffic...

A Dragon Emerges

Sometimes, one creates a monster. Perhaps one didn't intend to, or started out small, until finally the whole thing takes on a life of its own. It's happened to me. I love to create, but then what? The dragon above is a different kind of beast, one that seems a bit easier to manage.

Tree Huggers

People who have spent time in Oregon (and California), as we have, are sometimes jokingly referred to as "tree huggers." We accept the title happily. We actually do hug trees. Here's some evidence of our arboreal affections: two pictures of the same massive pine in California's Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park.

We had hiked out on the Woods Canyon trail to see one of the many waterfalls in the park. "The Sphinx" stood in silent vigilance due south of us. You can see its twin-peaked summit on the right side of the picture. Great cliffs and spires of granite rose to the heavens all around us. If you look closely, you can even see Ping at the bottom of the tree, giving it a hug.

Sometimes it's good to get this kind of perspective. Yes, we are very, very small, but our attitude toward our environment can have a huge impact. How are we caring for our surroundings?

Every once in awhile, when we see a tree, we think about how it holds rainwater before shedding it, how passing underneath its broad branches cools us on a hot day. The tree is both habitat and food for all kinds of creatures. We think it's pretty amazing that it just stands there, takes care of itself, and helps everyone else breathe a little easier, just by being alive.


Consider this 2005 Ted talk by architect William McDonough, one of the authors of "Cradle to Cradle."  It was one of the things that got us thinking about how we can change our impact. Check out his very quick description of the design concept behind a tree around the 11:00:00 mark.

Gotta love a tree!

"When You Don't Have A Garbage Disposal, You Eat A Lot More Crumbs"

We used to have a garbage disposal. Every house in the States seems to have one. It's that big monster thing that growls under the drain in the kitchen sink, chewing up every little scrap that you didn't eat off the plate, sometimes grinding away at orange peels and melon rinds.

We don't have one here. Instead, we have a little basket in that great big hole. That's so all the stuff that USED to feed the garbage disposal monster doesn't just clog the relatively light duty Taiwanese drainage system. Whatever is too big to wash off the plate, we have to toss into our kitchen garbage bucket which has to be dumped by hand (i.e., by Mark) into a sometimes overflowing public bin on garbage nights.

Cleaning soggy bits out of the little basket is kind of a pain, so we've gotten used to pre-cleaning the previously disposal-worthy fodder off of our plates before we wash the dishes. It's surprising how much material we used to wash away! Now we eat virtually every crumb--at least when we don't have company. It's easier than cleaning out the basket or scraping stuff into the garbage bucket. Plus, some of those bits are pretty tasty!

It's also one more reminder of how abundantly we are supplied with food.

If you have a garbage disposal, what would you do differently if you didn't have one?

Oh, one more thing: we've gotten so good at pre-cleaning our plates that we don't have to clean that basket very often. In fact, Mark went to clean it recently and discovered a healthy crop of soybeans...well, okay, one soybean, but it had a very vigorous little sprout.

(Yes, he's cleaning the basket more often now.)

10 分鐘遊戲 – 10-Minute Game

越來越多的人對生活簡化有興趣，但是”想”跟”做”是兩回事,對吧？現代人類似乎每天有忙不完的事。就算真的有心，卻又不知該從何下手。越想心越煩。煩。煩。煩。那，還是別多想了吧？還有好多事等著呢！先逛逛街，等以後有空再說。