Into the Clearing. The DailyActs.org Interview with Videographer Pride Wright by Willi Paul

Please start here!

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"Willi, thanks for asking. Here's a thumbnail of what I've been up to.

When the economy tanked in late 2008, we decided pretty quickly there just wasn't much point in continuing on the path we were on with either our retail store or publishing business. After 21 years as a publisher, I had to come to terms with a harsh new reality. Print is a dying proposition and that decline is being accelerated by a weak economy. So to continue to pour energy into it just doesn't make sense. I remain a journalist and a storyteller, but I have had to find/develop new mediums and new outlets.

I have some limited music production experience and I've been playing with a camera for a while. About 18 months ago I started refining my video production skills. Simultaneously I'm in the early stages of developing a loose and informal collective of artists who are also authentic, credible activists and who lead an outdoor lifestyle. One is Austin singer/songwriter Patrice Pike. She's the ED for the Grace Foundation of Texas. She snowboards and runs at a high level. She teaches yoga and she's really been getting into surfing. An amazing woman. Another is Portland singer/songwriter Garett Brennan, who is also the ED for Focus the Nation. Big-time backcountry tele skier. Trathen of course is a former professional snowboarder. I'm working on products of various kinds, multi-media if you will, with all of these people and a few others. An amalgam of video, written word, music, and photography. To me, this is the near term future of media. The iPad, for example, is opening up some amazing creative possibilities for producers of content.

My working premise after twenty years as an activist is that we've been busy waging a largely academic argument when what's really needed is to demonstrate in tangible ways a richer, more satisfying, more rewarding way to live. The art this "collective" is making together is in part designed to do that.

So the net of all this is that barring the unforeseen, I'll have three products out by this time next year." PW

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Interview with Pride by Willi Paul, PlanetShifter.com Magazine

Consider Two Rivers Trading Company and Harbinger Magazine. How did you build community in each endeavor? Where are they now?

It's interesting you ask about community building, because that was our most fundamental objective with the businesses. Founding premise: we use five measuring sticks as a barometer of community well-being---land stewardship, sustainable regional economics, holistic health, cultural vitality, and spirituality. These five tend to rise and fall together, so to elevate one is to elevate them all. So the purpose of the magazine was to raise the profile of each of these, while creating, recruiting, or catalyzing the necessary social and cultural institutions to support that progression. I could drone on about this for hours, as you've already seen! Suffice to say we were successful to a point, and then died a horrible death in the wake of the great economic collapse of late 2008. In retrospect, I choose to believe it was the necessary clearing of space for the next chapter.

What is the best way to teach kids sustainability?

Depends upon the age, and as you may have guessed, my model might be better described as "socialization" or "re-socialization" than "education." For our 3-year-old, we're going back to the very foundation and trying to develop a simple cause/effect construct, complete with a more useful creation myth. For college kids, what I've found is that they're actually much more interested in how the whole emerging paradigm is made manifest in individual lives. How does it play out? What will my life look like? Suffering and sacrifice?

I have spent a fair amount of time in Arcata over the years, and a healthy percentage of the students who leave HSU have some pretty deeply engrained notions about "sustainability". My contention is that other cultural institutions apart from the university are responsible for nurturing this. Speaking generally, in my experience most folks recoil at the academic argument. They feel threatened and attacked, no matter how diplomatically it's presented. But if the proper institutions are in place, and "best practices" are modeled consistently, the "education" happens naturally, organically, and without the confrontation that tends to be inherent in the "cognitive approach".

Can you name three green brands and what they stand for?

I'll give you a couple of companies who are making a genuine effort, who present themselves as green, and a quick assessment based on my experience in the outdoor industry. Patagonia's a great example of a very sincere organization that has assembled some impressive pieces of the "sustainability puzzle" but remains essentially a pretty conventional corporation. Patagonia's approach to design and performance, their material's selection, and their company culture are all, in my view, cutting edge. That said, their manufacturing apparatus and their distribution approach are entirely conventional. Best thing about Patagonia is the durability of their product. The clothes and outerwear still in my closet from the 90s is exclusively Patagonia. Their stuff is built to last, the single best part of their sustainability story.

A Sonoma County company, Indigenous Designs, has gone a step further by taking a relatively unconventional approach to manufacturing, bypassing factories (in most cases) to work with NGOs and cooperatives in central and South America. Adds a layer of feel-good to their story. But again, their distribution is entirely conventional (inefficient, long supply lines, etc.). The clothing company NAU has attempted to modify the distribution model with limited success. These are all companies that are grappling with the consequences of their processes, as we all do as individuals.

Is sustainability like a new religion?

I think the word "sustainability" has been co-opted and mis-used into meaninglessness. One could argue it has become dogmatic, which is close enough.

Isn't permaculture just another way to use up the earth's resources?

Use without using up. But of course I defer to brother Trathen on all things "permie."

What are the building blocks of good songs, stories and myths?

Hope you'll allow me to take a different approach to this question, because it really gets at the crux of my recent work and ties back to one of your other questions.

It's not surprising I suppose that the tug of war we're engaged in is largely a cognitive one. We're waging an argument---political, social, cultural, and environmental. And of course those who would appear to be our "adversaries" are doing the same. Not surprising we have this extraordinary polarization. What we lack at this juncture, I would contend, is great poetry. Generally speaking, we know what to do, but haven't been sufficiently inspired to do it NOW. Kind of the opposite of the '60s in many respects, when poetry (music) was an enormous catalyst in terms of moving a generation to action, but much of that action amounted to aimless meandering and ultimately didn't produce much in the way of lasting change.

So currently we have, it seems to me, reasonable agreement on next steps. We know what the future should look like, at least in this transitional phase. We just haven't been able to convince the vast majority of folks that this all adds up to a better, more satisfying, healthier, happier, richer, tastier, more beautiful way to live. Which of course it does. That's the inspiration part of the equation, and that requires not only poetry but poetic, artful, soulfully lived lives. We are desperate for these points of reference. My current work is all about finding these stories and amplifying them.

What do you mean: "print is a dying?" What is taking its place?

Pretty obvious the way we consume information has changed radically in the last 15 years or so. I'm not overly sentimental in the sense that I don't mourn the death of books, magazines, and newspapers per se. What I find alarming is that we have an entire generation of young people that ingests information in Twitter-size bites. That's a great way to starve to death intellectually. There often just isn't an opportunity to develop an idea. Even poetry requires you to sit with it. Color me old, but it's an annoying, alarming trend. And it's a major obstacle to change.

Yikes! You said: "Inspiration is way more important than information?" Elaborate please!?

I've touched on this, but the reality is 98 percent of the nuts and bolts of what needs to be done can be Googled. The information is not only out there, it's at our fingertips. And yet with the exception of a few pockets here and there, we're not making a whole lot of substantive progress in terms of inspiring people to live differently. We're not selling a to-do list, we're advocating an alternative values construct. When folks value differently, the to-do list will take care of itself.

What challenges does DailyActs.org face as they compete for donors and eyeballs, in the global scene?

I think those challenges are pretty much universal. There's a glut of content out there and a shortage of money. But I would contend Daily Acts has exactly the right model in terms of meeting our most immediate needs, and it's replicable. They're spot on with their programming, and perhaps more importantly (thanks to Trathen), they're spot on with their messaging and tone. They're current trajectory is pretty amazing, but I truly believe Trathen is on the cusp of being one of a handful of true icons in the "sustainability movement" (or whatever we choose to call it next). It's amazing what one truly grounded, selfless, charismatic leader can do, as I think we're about to see.

You are working on a film, yes? With whom? What are your goals?

Before I was a journalist and a publisher. Now I see myself as a creator of content about stuff that I'm passionate about, which is really liberating. Lots of ways to package that, lots of ways to distribute. I'm producing a CD with video content, and I'm writing and accumulating video footage for three projects that I'm co-producing with others. Above I said my current work is about "finding these stories and amplifying them." In a nutshell, I've had the great good fortune of working with a handful of artists who are simultaneously authentic, committed, effective activists, who live a compelling outdoor lifestyle, and who embody a certain richness in living.

None are famous or wealthy (or want to be), and yet their lives (and others like them) are the most compelling arguments for the values shift mentioned above that I have seen. Points of reference for an emerging paradigm. I'm sure you won't be surprised Trathen is on the short list. Austin singer/songwriter Patrice Pike, who is a snowboarder/surfer/runner and executive director for the Grace Foundation of Texas. Portland singer/songwriter Garett Brennan, who is a big time backcountry telemark skier and executive director for Focus the Nation. Several others. Amazing humans, big personalities, appealing lifestyles, effective change leaders. Gonna rock. Details to follow.

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Connections –

Pride Wright
Pridewright at mac.com