This image is a blurry photograph of my mother’s etching, “Summer Oaks and Porch”, which was used as the cover of the second Fuzzy Mountain String Band album cover in 1972 after the tragic death of my mother in a car accident.
My definition of Sustainable Living being ‘living in such a way that one is ecologically compatible with the environment in which one lives’ deserves a bit more information.
I have seen several examples of people who shared this aspiration with me. For example, Genes Cottrell and his significant other, in the Appalachian Mountains, in the early 1970s. Genes (pronounced Geen-Us) was a wood worker and furniture maker. All his machinery, saws, lathes, etc. seemed powered by foot pedal, His house, his workshop, and all his outbuildings were made of wood. His significant other, whose name slips my mind, cooked on a wood stove, and their water came from a well. Next, I saw in numerous demonstrations of the practicality and simple beauty of the spinning wheel and hand operated weaver’s loom, how thread and yarn was made the wool of sheep. from Then there was the ‘Solar Shower’, built by William Stark at Carolina Friends School, in the 1970s as well. There were the ‘Foxfire’ books, and today, I find there is a local Smith family who produce more solar power than they use, who compost all of their organic garbage, who recycle their paper, plastic, and metal waste, and who drive hybrid vehicles.
If I could put all of these pieces together, so that even my water came from a well, was heated by the sun, and the sun provided the fuel for my vehicle, that is what I would mean by sustainable living.
The problem with sustainable living as I have defined it, is that it may come into conflict with the definition of ‘economics’ — in other words, the study of the distribution of scarce resources to consumers with unlimited wants and needs.
Well, that’s it for now. Back to reality and the necessity of work.