Satisfaction, The IKEA effect, and you.

You might have it in your house: that piece of swedish furniture that came in pieces. It feels good, doesn't it, to know that you put it together yourself.

People researched this sort of thing. Named the IKEA effect: people place a higher value on things that they build themselves than things they don't.

As long as it's not too hard, people may even pay more for things that require them to do some of the work.

Psychologically, some of the difference has to do with looking forward vs. looking back. People tend to want to avoid work, but value more highly the things they had to work hard for for. That's the difference between 'to-do' and 'done'.

For example: You'll savour the apple pie you made yourself - with a fresh fork and everything, but you won't pay as much attention to the discount box of cookies that fell into the shopping cart.

Calories used to be hard to come by, now they're easy. Fast food restaurants have mechanized the delivery of foods - like french fries - that are hard to prepare at home. You don't appreciate them as much, and perversely try to eat more in order to be satisfied. By the way, the first two bites of dessert are the tastiest: Share it with a friend.

Same with distance and exotic locales. With a credit card and a passport you could be in Japan in 24 hours. If it was going to take two weeks or two months to go somewhere, you'd certainly do your research and appreciate your time there more.

How can this make your better? To extract more value out of your experiences, you need to put more into them.

For your food: The typical restaurant experience is pretty forgettable. If you cook it yourself, you'll appreciate the result more you would the same dish ordered at a restaurant.

Growing up, knowing that something was 'from our garden' always gave it additional prestige on the dinner plate, and made us appreciate it more. Bonus points if you grow the food yourself. The same goes for berries you pick or, indeed, furniture that you built yourself.

The to-do list sounds like work, the to-have-done list sounds like reflections on accomplishment. Change the name of the list, put more effort into it and feel the satisfaction of a complete and deserved experience.

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The role of art in community

"Art is anything you can get away with." -Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (1964)

Art is the spice enlivening the meat and potatoes of our built environment. It directs the conversation, draws our attention to things we might otherwise ignore, and helps us understand who we are.

That goes for the art we keep in our houses as well as the public art that graces parks, and the murals that adorn the sides of buildings.

The distilled effort and focused intention made real creates something unique, conversation-worthy, and valuable.

Art provides a physical artifact documenting the same focused intention that makes us appreciate watching someone sink a long putt, dance ballet, or conduct a symphony orchestra. Even if you don't like golf, ballet, or the orchestra, you still recognize the focused effort that goes into finessing the performance.

The art you put on your walls is more than just decoration. It's an expression of who you are, how you see yourself, and how you want others to see you.

Public art acts the same way in helping us define our identity as a community. Between public art, the nature of the public space, and the architecture of the buildings we inhabit, it directs what we care about in our community subtly and constantly.

Take an interest in the public art. Understand the message. There's a marked difference between the communities adorned with statues of the supreme leaders you might see in communist China, the religious art across europe during the renaissance, and the abstract sculptures or decorated cows you might see on the streets of Calgary.

Public art is a form of mass media that is more primal than TV or newspapers. It becomes part of the community and helps direct the discussion.

Support your local artists. The vision, commentary, self-concept and vitality that they add to the local community are difficult to obtain any other way. The value may not be immediately apparent, but try to imagine a community without it.


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Small Town Feel

Your willpower is limited. Here's how to manage it.

Mmm. Sugar. That will boost my willpower.

You can't do a million push-ups. Your muscles can't take it. Willpower is like a muscle too, and if it gets exhausted it doesn't work as well.

Self restraint, task persistence, willpower and decision making all burn the same brain fuel, glucose. Depleting the glucose means worse performance in all those areas later in the day.

For example, dieting is difficult because your willpower is weakest when you're low on glucose. It's a catch-22 The foods you're craving are exactly what would give you the sugar your brain is looking for, but they also have the calories your figure is trying to avoid.

But you're not doomed. Eat more smaller portions to keep some glucose in your brain. Establish systems, by putting together healthy snacks in advance. Keep tempting items out of sight and out of mind. Resisting the cookies you know are in the cupboard is still a drain on the decision making and the willpower, but it's easier than resisting the cookies right in front of you.

This psychological effect has a bigger impact on people living in poverty. If you're wealthy, when you feel the need to go buy something, you simply go buy it. However, if your resources are limited, you need to evaluate the trade-offs and opportunity costs for every purchase. Buying something you need would mean not buying something else you need. Medicine or food?

This means less willpower or discipline left over for other things wealthier people might take for granted.

When willpower is weakest people tend to become impulsive, failing to think things through, or take the easy way out by not making any decision at all. Of course, if you don't make your own decisions, someone else will gladly make them for you, and they may not have your best interests at heart.

In this case, knowledge is power. What can you do to take advantage of your cycles of willpower?

Make important decisions early in in the day.

Decide what's important to you, and put systems in place to make it happen. Rely on systems rather than day-to-day willpower.

Sugar can help rebuild glucose stores in the brain. Artificial sweeteners don't.

'Sleeping on it' can help, then make your decision early the next day.

Make decisions in advance and build them into your routines. Flossing your teeth, for example, can become part of the routine, rather than something you have to decide to do. 

If you want to maintain your ability to make good decisions, avoid situations where you need to restrain yourself. Restraining yourself from impulses or making tough decisions wears you down and makes you more vulnerable in other seemingly unrelated situations.

Originally published September 17, 2011

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Leaders or figureheads?

Deciding which candidates would be figureheads and which would be leaders is up to you.

With the Alberta PC party replacing Premier Ed Stelmach who is resigning October 1 what changes? Will we get a figurehead or a leader?

Changing things isn't easy. Alberta is a big ship and can't turn on a dime. Claims of being an energy superpower is code for continued expansion on oil and gas, rather than any major expansion in renewables.

Provincial leaders have a choice of loyalties: to the party, to their riding, to their province, their country, or the world.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it." -Upton Sinclair

Anyone who can get elected premier will be under immense pressure to pander to the Oil and Gas sector, despite climate change and the environmental impacts associated with fossil fuel production.

In 2008, the energy sector made up 30.8% (almost $90 Billion) of Alberta's GDP. That should indicate how entrenched the industry is, and how much money can be made in the industry. Political muscle? You bet.

With flagging economies, and these resources available, loyalties to party, province and country would suggest exploiting as much and as fast as possible. A strong economy is good for jobs and re-election.

Climate change impacts are down the road and hit poor people in far away places first. Profit and jobs are here and now. Very tempting.

We have a history of trying to pitch the cleanliness of our oil, treating it as a marketing problem. The product is the problem, and our entire system is complicit. Some of us admit we have a problem.

A political figurehead can keep the ship going straight ahead. A leader can forego the easy option, embrace reality, and usher in a clean energy future that we can be proud of. A principled future that we don't need to defend with marketing or guns.

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Short Sighted Money or a Green Energy Revolution

Image of the Keystone XL Protest from radiohead.com . Yes, the band.

The Keystone XL Pipeline, oozing towards Whitehouse approval, demonstrates a commitment to short sighted goals.

Canadian and Alberta governments are pushing for the project to go ahead, eager for the money, market, and jobs that the project would bring about. It hearkens back to Canada's early days, selling natural resources, leaving the value adding to others.

To build the pipeline or not is a question of foresight and loyalty. Unfortunately, the scarcest resource in question isn't oil, it's room in the atmosphere for carbon dioxide. That convenient ignorance paves the way for jobs and money, the main attraction for this project. The pipeline would encourage more bituminous sands development while reducing the incentive to building renewable sources of energy.

The people pushing this 'business as usual' project forward have a different set of loyalties than those opposing it. On one hand, we have jobs and money. On the other hand, we can ease off on the climate change gas pedal, set an example for the rest of the world, and build a green economy. Many jobs that could be created by retrofitting buildings to use less energy, for example.

It seems only fitting that hurricane Irene blasted the US west coast as the Tar Sands Action protests take place outside the Whitehouse. Consider the calibre of the protesters, including author Bill McKibben, and leading climate scientist James Hansen. There have been about 600 arrests so far.

It's up to President Obama now, to decide whether to take the jobs and the carbon bomb that come with KXL, or to usher in a green revolution. It's going to be a tough call, and one that will define his presidency. At least he's a democrat. Right wing republicans seem to have a hard enough time with evolution, let alone climate change.

Canadian support for this pipeline is devastating to the next generation, but understandable given the short memories in politics.

On the other hand, where you should really feel betrayed by the people who 'represent' you is in the Alberta Utility Commission's approval of the 500MW expansion of a Maxim Power Corp. coal power plant near Grande Cache.

Federal regulations are scheduled to come into effect in 2015, and former Minister of Environment Jim Prentice said "We will guard against any rush to build non-compliant coal plants in the interim".

Maxim blatantly rushed this through, knowing that complying with the upcoming regulations would make the project non-cost effective, and the AUC went along with it.

The Maxim Coal project, like the KXL pipeline locks in carbon emissions for a long time, while reducing the appetite for renewable solutions.

Phase out the coal. The bituminous sands will still be there later, we don't need to extract them all now. The green revolution is at our door, but we're too stoned to let it in.

Tar Sands Action - the sit in at the whitehouse

Pembina: Alberta Utilities Commission fails to protect public interest with final coal plant approval

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Loving, Hopeful, and Optimistic

Not my photo. I wish it was, it's great.
If you know who I should ask about using it here, please let me know in the comments.

"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world." -Jack Layton

What a wonderful approach. For the rest of us, who have a hard time retaining such relentless positivity, it's a wonderful reminder life is what you make it.

We control how we feel and our level of happiness by what we focus on, what we engage in, and which thoughts we allow to fester or grow. If you're happy and you know it, you know what to do.

There are no upsides to anger, fear or despair. These will drag you down. They're tempting, easy feelings, but they accompany misery and defeat. The choice between misery and the fruits of relentless positivity should be a clear one, if you want to be happy.

Positivity is challenging to maintain in a world that's intent on self-destruction while making you feel dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. Don't get caught up in the despair. Instead, look at the world not as something that throws obstacles in your way, but look instead with the wonder and curiosity in the eyes of a child.

Positive attitudes make good situations great, bad situations better, and even if the outlook isn't so good it provides a softer landing.

Let us appreciate what we have, despite differences, hardships, and grievances. Let us rejoice alone, and in the company of family, friends, strangers, and acquaintances.

Let us share the courage and conviction that what is to come is not to be feared, but will instead be wonderful. We create, in a way, what we expect to create.

Let us defeat the cycle of despair, that we will have the wherewithal and strength to overcome any obstacle.

Let us adopt Jack's relentless positivity as our own, so that our lives might be improved, and that we might also improve the lives of others by our presence, actions, and attitude.

We can change the world. You know best where you can contribute. Stay positive. It's better for you, and besides, Jack would want it that way.

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Manicured lawn? You can do better.

What does a lawn need? Space, water, sunlight and maintenance. The maintenance takes time, assorted equipment, and sometimes fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides.

All of this is in the service of a plain green background around a house.

A half step forward here is to lay off the fertilizers and the irrigation. You'll still need to maintain it, but if you understand that going brown when there's no water around is actually a survival strategy you'll appreciate the lawn a little better. You might already be doing this. It's a good start.

There are two different next steps here, depending on your objectives.

If you're looking for easy, xeriscape the lawn. Between plants and mulch or rocks, you won't have to mow or fertilize any more. It's a little work up front, but the payoff is huge. You can still plant the plants you want.

To really help keep the weeds down though, you need  layer of cardboard or 8-10 sheets of newsprint under the 4 or so inches of mulch. Don't be stingy with the newsprint or the weeds will find their way through and reduce the low-maintenance benefit of this approach.

If you'd rather have a payoff from your yard, instead of the xeriscape option, look seriously at permaculture. It's a systems design methodology that gets the plants and the landscape working together so that you can grow food without having to put too much effort into it.

By putting the effort into the design of the yard/garden you can let the system do most of the work once you're done. This limits the work you have to do, and you still obtain a yield in exchange for your work tending the system. (You mean I have to pick the berries myself?)

You don't owe your lawn anything. It was a cheap way to cover the dirt when they finished building your house.

Get back your time with a xeriscaped yard, or get paid in food for your time tending the yard. The green carpet you visit only to mow is a drain on your time and energy. Either get clear with a xeriscape concept, or permaculture up your yard and reap the bounty.

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Who Are We?

http://new-universe.org/zenphoto/Chapter8/Illustrations/Abrams70.jpg.php
Not my illustration, but suitable here. Human Identity Uroboros. Credit line: Nina McCurdy.
Thanks to Nancy Abrams and Joel Primack for the image and their inspirational Ted Talk. 

The answer's different for everyone, and that depends on how far out you can feel.

There's only one you. Whether you're 230 lbs or 115, it counts the same on the census. One. 'Who am I?' is a relatively straightforward question.

The question 'Who are we?' is much more difficult to answer, because the 'we' changes based on context, and is difficult to pin down.

You don't often hear this question asked but it's implicit everywhere. Are you one of us? We're adept at picking up social cues for this sort of thing.

Very few people are so selfish as to only care about themselves. We'll go to great lengths to take care of our families, for example.

The next step up is your tribe or your community. This is the level of loyalty that all cheers for the same hometown hockey team. It's also the reason that, all else being equal, you should shop at stores in your own hometown.

In fact, being loyal to your community would suggest buying from local businesses even if it puts you at a slight disadvantage. If everybody buys their books online, then your community doesn't get a local bookstore.

If you don't support local businesses then you don't get the benefits that they provide, like the business taxes, local jobs, and economic activity that makes a community viable.

Beyond the community, we are a part of our nation or religion. This is what brings the country together for the Olympics or War, or what can spark fundamentalist activities.

Once we look beyond national or religious borders we can see that we're all human. The Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948 is a great example of what being loyal to humanity is like.

Is the 'we' the group of all humans? Is humanity in it for itself? To take care of ourselves, we must also take care of the rest of the life on this planet, both for food, and for the myriad ecological services it provides. So it makes sense for humans, on the whole, to take care of all life and the health of the planet.

When there are violations of this precept, look to see what closer loyalty is being honoured instead. Cutting down rain forest to feed your family can make sense if that's the situation you're in. Watching how others respond when faced with a conflict can help you figure out what groups they most strongly identify with.

It can help you figure out your answer to the 'Who are we?' question too.

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Setting a good example

Enough with living off the past and the future. Live off current solar income.

We have a series of complementary problems. Peak oil, catastrophic climate change, and now the global debt crisis.

By playing the problems off each other, we can find a solution: We need to relocalize our economies.

Peak oil and climate change come from living too much off the past, in the form of stored solar income - hydrocarbons, taking it out of the ground and pumping it into the skies and the oceans.

The debt crisis arises from living too much off the future, in the form of mortgages, bonds, and various flavours of credit cards.

How do we fix it? By living in the present, off current solar income. By cleaning up our act. We're busy, of course, but the more we put off solving our problems the bigger the problems will get. Tomorrow will bring challenges of its own. There's no sense in compounding the problems we refused to deal with yesterday onto it.

Rapidly constructed coal-fired power plants in China are overwhelming any minor gains the Kyoto might have given us. In addition to our own massive greenhouse gas reductions, we also require geopolitical solutions. We can't solve this on our own any more.

Our best hope lies in setting a good example. The global middle class wants what we have, and will get it the way we got it, unless we demonstrate something else, and give them another story to be in.

Demonstrating our willingness to live in a world where ecological limits are respected is a valuable partial solution, and one that could have an impact beyond our contribution, as others start to emulate our way of life.

Now, one thing that we do really well is capturing the imaginations of people around the world. We have the creativity to build and implement viable solutions to this intractable problem. 

But we all need to eat. Get good at gardening or farming. Farm for your neighbour or your friend. If you don't have access to land, borrow someone's yard and split the produce. Figure out how to grow food now, while there's still time. That's a prime example of producing real value on current solar income.

It's time to set a good example.

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Purple pipes and the future of household water

Unfortunately, I don't have any purple pipes in my basement to photograph. Sorry.

We're either blessed or spoiled with all the drinkable, fresh water being so easily available in our houses.

Blessed because it's so important to our lives, and we really couldn't get by without it. Spoiled because the fresh water is so easily available, it's simple and easy to waste.

We use it for everything. Drinking and cooking certainly, but also watering the landscape, cleaning the house, washing and showering ourselves, not to mention the toilet water.

It's ridiculous that we poop into perfectly potable drinking water, but we've quit seeing it as odd thanks to the endless supply of fresh water.

At least it feels endless, but you wouldn't do it that way if you had to carry the water from somewhere. Water is really heavy, and if you had to bring six litres of water from the river a mile away every time you had to go number two, you'd come up with another system.

Using water efficiently in our houses could be automatic. All it takes is a little more plumbing and a little more thought on the front end.

Purple pipes are a part of the solution. They indicate reclaimed water, so that they won't accidentally be interconnected with the potable water system. For example, the water coming from the shower drain or from the washing machine is still pretty clean, and could easily be used in the landscape or to flush toilets without difficulty if houses were set up to make that possible.

Retrofitting existing houses for this sort of system would be difficult, but new houses could easily include this system, reducing the water requirements of the development.

Ensuring the development has adequate water is an important step in getting developments going, and this could allow additional development or reduce the water impact of developments that were already planned, so that more water can be left in the streams.

If you're building a home, build in a system to reclaim some of that water that could have a second life on your property. If you're a developer or a municipality, consider the purple pipe as a way of reducing the amount of treated potable water that the development will need. That will save you money down the road and help make sure there's enough drinking water for everybody.

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Maintenance: Keeping your tools ready for action

Tools radically expand our capabilities and we're great at picking the right tool for the job. All too often we quietly neglect the step that allows us to continue using those tools: Maintenance.

The costs of maintenance are pretty easy to figure out. It takes time, effort, sometimes a trip to the mechanic, and all while the tool is still performing its job just fine.

If they find something wrong when you take your car or your teeth in for a checkup, it's usually an expensive, painful fix. One which you could have avoided in the short term by skipping the checkup.

It's a head in the sand approach to problem solving. Immature and ineffective. Like most things, ignoring the problem has consequences further down the road.

To care about maintenance, you need to care about the future. If you want to avoid breakdowns in the future, you need to maintain your car before it's broken.

If you sharpen your saw it will work better when you need to use it again, but sharpening the saw doesn't get wood cut. To bother, you need to think ahead to next time. An action now for a future benefit.

Another way to look at this is to consider the cost of maintenance now vs. the cost of maintenance later. Deferring maintenance means it will cost more to fix later, because things continue to degrade as time goes by.

If it's a choice of a small hit now or a big hit later, the small hit now is the more responsible choice, even though we're biased towards the here and now.

Some things, like skills and muscles, degrade not with use but with neglect. If you learned to speak French but never practice, the skill will have withered somewhat. A little maintenance, in the form of practicing, will help maintain it. The same goes for relationships. If you don't maintain them they'll disappear on you.

Whether it's your saw, your car, or your body, stick with the maintenance now, even if it's a little inconvenient. You'll be the one reaping the benefits down the road.

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Conversation catalysts create community

When starting a conversation, it's much safer to talk about something else. Not you, not me, the third thing that's present, whatever that is. It's threatening to interact directly with someone in that context. Nobody wants to be on the spot. 

Can you believe these bugs? Nice car, how do you like it? Pretty hot out today eh?

Dogs and babies in particular grant you admission to the club where you can talk with people without having to talk about them, or about yourself. It allows conversations and relationships to develop in a non-threatening way.

The direct approach would put someone on the spot, but what's more likely is that the conversation would just never start. No catalyst, no conversation. This concept may explain golf's popularity. There's always something new and safe to talk about. Nice drive.

It's a little weird to be standing in the front yard talking to passers by. If instead you've got an obvious reason to be there, like a garden that's being tended or a garage sale, it's suddenly ok, and people are willing to chat.

If you're out and have a dog, a baby, or something obviously noteworthy with you, strangers can ask you about it safely. No conversation starter, no conversation, no real community.

The spontaneous connections are important to building community. Making the leap from stranger to acquaintance makes a difference to the neighbourhood and can help smooth over other problems if there's a bit of a relationship first.

For example, your neighbours would be less likely to complain about your dog barking if you'd built up the relationship with conversation and maybe shared some home grown tomatoes.

These conversations that build community are impossible behind the wheel, and far more likely in the dog parks, pathways, and play structures where people have an excuse to linger.

The structure of the city tends to confine us to our cars, so that many of these natural conversations are stopped before they ever start.

Being conscious about these accidental, even trivial conversations and their role in building the community is how you build and maintain that friendly small town feel.

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