Free-Range Living

'Money, money, money ------'

June has been gorgeously warm and dry here at the organic eco micro-holding (small smallholding) in the English heartlands, resulting in great growing conditions and as good as a display of 'cottage garden' flowers as has been seen in recent years. What with these and with the trees, hedges and hedgerows greens, along with the now golden browns of the ripening corn in the fields, it's made a pretty stunning environment to live and work in. Well, maybe 'work' isn't the best word with its modern-day connotations, more like 'labours of love', seemingly now out of fashion with money rewards so prominent nowadays - ? Hereabouts, though, they live on ----.

 One of them is building an extension to the paddock chalet, doubling its size, making use of 'waste' materials about the place, following the example of the 'penny-less' porch built last summer out of re-cycled stuff lying around the place at negligable cost - satisfying on various fronts : 'getting a bargain', making something useful out of un-useful, creating and achieving -can't be too bad, and giving further opportunity to practise the ancient possibly now outmoded art of 'NSM' ('not spending money').  Work proceeds here on a varied basis, which helps to avoid tedium and keeps things interesting. No particular rush - an hour or two constuction work (at its most basic level) carried out most days, and hey presto! - in a few weeks, no sweat - job done - hopefully.

The logs delivered in May are tucked away in the logstore, located in the micro-holding 'logs-istics' centre, busily drying thoroughly in this warm summer - good sight to see next winter's fuel in store - or rather most of it, as to limit cost increases 20% will come from one of the woodpiles already here, soon to be sawn up by 'the man who can' with his mega chainsaw, and added to the logstore to fill it 'fit to burstin'.

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A busy time of year on the veg growing front, with the usual cast of successes and failures, (and trying to employ Kipling's exhortation of not being too impressed by either -'those twin imposters') and busy on the harvesting front too, with broad beans, peas, raspberries and strawberries all ready pretty much at the same time. Be a bit churlish, though, to grumble - nice work if you can get it, with the bonus of spending time in the timeless quiet of the space that is 'the poor man's walled garden'.

 One crop seemingly headed for failure was the onion crop, normally a cast iron crop producing enough onions for the whole year. They seemed to be ok and then quite suddenly went ' manky' - bent over, twisted and 'mushy' - not a heart-warming sight. Others hereabouts had theirs similarly afflicted, as did allotment holders in a town not too far away from here, and attack from the dreaded onion fly seemed to be the general consensus. More in desperation than hope, they were 'treated' with a couple of doses of full strength nettle juice (just made by soaking nettles in a tub for 2-3 weeks) and then a half-strength dose - and lo and behold they appear to have recovered, and as we speak are 'standing tall' - goodo.

 Broad beans have done well and most are now in the freezer, along with the peas. The black fly pest did strike, but quite late, not really affecting the crop, so they've not been 'rubbed out', and similarly the pea moth pest leaving grubs in some of the peas - later than last year and less of an attack. Plenty of salad items - radish, land cress (like water cress), spring onions, 'little gem' cos lettuce and baby carrots - all just fine and dandy for eats in the warmer weather. And after all the work -sorry, 'labours of love', lashings of 'free' hot water from the solar production unit for the relief of the ageing aching bones - good stuff.
 
 'Munificent monies ---- ?'

As above, though - 'labours of love' seem no longer to be in fashion, rather the in-vogue 'pots of dosh' culture, with   'money' conditioning may well having gone on for quite awhile. One commercial manager on a course some years back, for instance, simply pretty much refused to try to see beyond the truism that 'people worked for money' and this seemed not an uncommon stance even then. Of course, if such sentiments are used significantly, particularly unchallenged, added to which money then becomes significantly used to induce work efforts from people, then a 'money' culture probably can develop  (and people presumably may well be susceptible - the so-called 'sweetie shop' effect - ?).

 One of the 'pre-entrepreneurial' times reservations concerning the use of money inducements to get people to work was  the concern that inducement effects could be short-term, so embarking on such a route mean't the real possibility of having then to keep offering further and quite possibly greater inducements to elicit further work efforts, along with the fact that it could be seen as a 'demeaning' way to treat people, working against  'self-motivation', practised by self-motivated, self-responsible individuals ( eg. 'freerangers'?). One motivation theorist (Fred Herzberg) used to call it 'jumping for the jelly beans' and inferred that getting work efforts via money incentivisation could be a one dimensional approach which over-simplified the more complex area of peoples' real needs, which developmental phsychologists such as Maslow sought to identify (see later).

Some wealthy people appear to recognise some of the possible limitations of the 'pots of dosh' life approach, with a recent survey showing that a significant minority of wealthy people had concerns that their riches could impact negatively on their offspring by reducing their natural drive, ambition and creative powers. One well-known personality (Sting, the singer, ) stated that all his six offspring were independent and rarely if ever asked him for money, which he valued and respected, and that he was unlikely to leave them large amounts on his passing. Maybe such financial reservations tie in with the ex Monty Python John Cleese's TV quote :  'money has spoilt everything' - ?

'Money  not everything --- ?'

The 'it's all about money' approach may have come about from those in closer contact with it than most - ? Anyone who's operated on a 'payment by results' system might testify how 'cloying' its influence can become, for instance. Such a basic approach could seem too to have the merit of 'keeping things simple', often quoted as an attribute to the 'it's about money' approach. The reservationists, though, might well argue that it's keeping things a bit too simple, that 'real life' is anyway in its nature complex, multi-layered and multi-dimensional, and that oversimplifying can at times do more harm than good - ? Certainly the historic big names in human needs and motivation theory, thought that the roots of human behaviour were more involved, one stating for instance, that 'people aren't motivated by money, they are 'moved' by it'. He like others might well have claimed that the real roots of peoples' behaviours lie in them meeting their human needs, and that the people doing 'idiot's work', as simple repetitive work has been called, are not themselves therefore 'idiots' without a complex set of needs (the conditioning effect of repetitive work can, though, presumably long-term influence work attitudes - ?).
 
    One repetitive work situation in a Danish slaughterhouse was not going particularly well with staff productivity 'on the slide'. 'We tried everything in the 'motivation' manual, but to no avail' said one of the managers. 'In the end, out of desperation, we were forced to ask the shop-floor workers themselves how productivity could be improved. They told us to throw away the motivation manual - variety of work, if it's from one repetitive process to another, is meaningless and as it insults intelligence, only annoys. Instead, give each operative earphones and radio access (it was a noisy workplace) and after each hour of work, have a ten minute break for a cuppa to relieve the tedium. This caused some consternation amongst management but in the end a trial run was agreed to and lo and behold, productivity galloped up smartish. Some of this, it's true could have been due to staff receiving 'care and attention', but, so what - that was part of the remedy too.'

These people were relatively well remunerated for this locality, so in this case, 'money wasn't everything', and in fact such a blanket approach could help to mask real and potential problems. Erich Fromm. in his work 'The Sane Society' some years back noted that employees in the USA, whilst enjoying a relatively high standard of material living, were not necessarily experiencing high levels of psychological health and well-being.

'The money veil --- ?' (economists' term)
 
The motivation theorists, again from quite a few years back, might have well argued that without an effective understanding of the range and levels of peoples' needs (for instance, by adopting an 'it's all about money' simplification), and then arranging work patterns and styles to adequately meet these needs, levels of 'need satisfaction' would not necessarily be high. Probably the most universally known of the 'peoples' needs' theories is the 'Hierarchy of Human Needs' model as researched by Abraham Maslow, in which he held that human needs operated on an ascending scale basis, from basic short-term existence needs, to security needs, through then several types ansd stages of social needs (was Margaret Thatcher's 'there's no such thing as society' statement then basically flawed - ?), to a set of 'higher personal development' needs to attain to 'full human potential'.

 Some have asserted that personal 'spiritual' needs represent an even further 'higher' level, and Maslow himself, as reportedly the first researcher into positive human psychological health, became intrigued by the many reported experiences of intense bliss and joy experiences from these 'psychologically healthy' people ( he went on to write a book about this area, 'The Farther Reaches of Human Nature'). Any 'higher' levels of human need satisfaction was, according to the theorists, not necessarily restricted to factors such as social class and educational levels, nor was being 'psychologically healthy' necessarily restricted in the same manner.

'Money - less --- '

 Ah well, back to the 'money-less' chalet extension, one advantage being that for a time, it supports a sort of 'money-less' consciousness, and gives a rest from 'cloying commercialism'. Be interesting to see on what little level of money, a satisfying and fulfilling life could be had - ? One couple, now retired, for instance, ran their self-sufficient smallholding, selling veg at a weekly stall to cover their meagre cash needs. The lived in a glorious environment, had no work organisation-induced stresses and occupied themselves doing what they loved - they were 'labourers of love' too. They lead, for them, a very satisfying lifestyle, with adequate leisure time too, and all while they were categorised as below the poverty line, with an annual cash economy of quite probably less than five figures.

 Food for thought -?  Could maybe even sting a body into action - ??