Separating Separation Between the Consumer and the Maker

I’m old. At least, I have been told a couple times now “you’re old” — in reference to certain events in my life — ok, honestly — when dating.

So. I’m old. Old enough to remember going to a butcher when I was a kid — the sawdust on the floor and the carcasses hanging in the refrigerated room in the back. Old enough to remember that I knew the names of the store owners in the town I grew up in. To remember that feeling of the city being a vital organism because of those connections.

I love to bake bread, and lately, I have been thinking about wheat a lot. I find that I am obsessed with where my wheat comes from. How it has been processed. How it rises into bread and the nutritive content of the fragrent loaves I pull from the oven.

Today, I went to a Farmer’s Market in San Francisco, and spent some time talking with a grower who was also selling wheat. We talked about the protein content, the bran content — she told me the appropriate use of her flour in baking bread (which I have been doing a TON of lately). For the 5 dollars I spent on that bag of flour, I got, as part of the purchase price, time with the grower and grinder of this product. I got some share of her experience.

Lately, I have become more and more obsessed with 2 things: the sourcing of my food, and the tangible qualities of integrity.

I am trying to be more conscious of how I eat — for a lot of reasons, but importantly, because of how it makes me feel. On a lot of levels — how it makes me feel. Sure — how I feel functionally — that my diet is aiding and abetting my desire and will to get up to stuff. Also — how I feel preparing food. How conscious am I of the food I eat and how it is prepared. I am reasonably certain that pre-packaged and processed food robs us of a very real thing besides nutrition. It robs us of a chance to practice the skill of discernment. To choose food. To prepare food. To spend the time to think about what it is we are doing with food. I am kind of talking about food as a form of meditation — but also — food as a form of awareness.

Switching gears for a hot minute — tai chi, yoga, martial arts — meditation — these teach us to become conscious in increasing amounts. When I am strung out in a yoga pose, there are two places my mind can go — into the strain of the pose (I AM DOING FUCKING YOGA) or into the alignment that my body is finding. Putting my body under load and responding to stress in a considered fashion rewires the brain after a fashion.

So too — when I treat food with some consciousness — I find that the connection between growing and eating becomes real — and kind of powerful.

Knowing — Talking with the purveyor. Being reasonably conscious of what it is being made and consumed— I don’t care if there are puritanical reasons to do it — I do it because it feels good — it feels grounded. I am doing it because it is helping me define where I stand and what I stand on.

Which brings me to another thing I have been thinking a lot about lately- What integrity feels like.

A week ago, I was practicing Systema with my friend Anthony. The exercise we were doing isn’t important — what is important, and what I will try and convey is. As we were moving, Anthony hit me with a really nice shot. His arm was relaxed and the strike didn’t look like anything, but it felt like a ton of bricks as it connected. I stopped him and asking him — partly to get my breath — it was a good shot — but also to ask “what did that feel like?” I wanted him to remember that feeling — the quality of self he was holding as he reacted to me. There is a feeling of integrity when something is done right — or to the best of one’s abilities — there is no subtle lie of “I could do better next time.” In Systema we learn early on that, when the shit hits the fan, we don’t rise to the occasion, we fall back on our most base level programming. Chaos and fear are fantastic teachers!

I can walk through life doing things that are “good enough” — I can cut corners, and react intelligently enough in a lot of situations to not really have to bring myself, fully conscious, to that situation. I don’t have to have skin in the game if I don’t want to because, really who is going to know?

Other than myself of course. The measure of myself is in compromise. It isn’t in my greatest accomplishment. My father used to say “A printer is always known by their worst book.” — Accomplishment — failure. These are bi-products of the process of living. We have that flush moment of joy or shame, and we move on to the next moment. Then the next. Integrity might mean, simply, that when we arrive into those moments, we do so with as full a consciousness as we can muster.

That exercise in integrity spans most of my actions — the muscle I am building is one of honesty — that what I say has gravity because it is the truth as best I can exemplify it.

Recently, through a friend, I discovered Carol Sanford and her wonderful podcast “The Responsible Entrepreneur” — each podcast, she interviews someone who exemplifies what she sees as a core value of responsible entrepreneurship.

One of the messages in the most recent ‘cast was this: In order for you to really have value-added as a company, you have to understand what you, personally, bring to the table. How is your company exemplifying your values? Because, that is what makes your company Unique. No one else can offer the world what you offer.

In the 70's, my father worked for a Summer with Adrian Wilson, a San Francisco printer who would go on to win a McArthur award for innovation in letterpress. One day, my father went to Fisherman’s Warf and had a T-Shirt made. In rainbow lettering, what looked like Cooper Black, on an orange shirt, was the word “UNIQUE”.

I don’t know what he was thinking at the time — but. We are, each of us, unique. And when we arrive at that uniqueness fully conscious, what we offer the world is that singular vision. (I still wish I had that shirt, some, almost 40 years later.) Compromise certainly cuts down on the agony of pursuing ‘unique’, but compromise will rarely get anyone closer to their ambition.

Going back to the Carol Sanford podcast for a second, because this helps add color to my point — in one episode, she gives a brief history of business — from merchant class, to craftsman, to industrial revolution to now. What struck home to me was her description of the craftsman — the person making something for others — who knows intimately their material sources-whether its cow hide or silver — and who knows the people they are working for. What is implied in this relationship is the investment in the final product. It is not making something good enough — weighing the balance between what the consumer needs and how annoyed they will be with the results. The bond between consumer and maker can be one of delight. Of getting that one perfect thing, that will suit their needs, without compromise, without ‘good enough’.

I grew up in a craftsman system. At 12, I was an apprentice to my fathers print shop. I graduated to journeyman, and eventually, to master printer. Along the course of that journey, I gained values and perspective about my craft — about what I could offer, and how I could provide a skill no one else could. I cultivated pride in my technique, and that translated to the work I did for others. (I think, as an aside, there is probably an entirely separate, long-winded approach to what my values are as a designer and a maker.)

I also learned that you have to be willing to throw out everything. In order to go from good to great, abandon preciousness. Be ruthless in sticking to the vision in your head that began the exercise. Do it again. Do it again, until you get closer to your ambition. There is a certain agony to that — and a certain reward.

Craftsmanship still exists. But the challenge now, in an age of very sophisticated automated fabrication, is keeping craftsmanship from becoming anachronistic — a living museum. An oddity worth marveling over, but not worth discussing its vitality. To use the method of craftsmanship, not to show the crafty side — the made-by-hand side, but to distill the best possible decisions into a product that will have lasting value. Into an object that will have a life.

I believe the human connection is important. That a way to heal the world is not just through laws and initiatives — but by one-on-one human interaction. By touching one another’s lives in kind rather than caustic ways.

Design is durable and design can change how we see the world. More importantly, design can change how we see ourselves.

For me, that feels like integrity.