I got angry when my sister observed that “everybody is looking for a handout”…until I realized how many times I’d said it myself.
“Would you prefer to ride a dragon, or a winged tiger?” Ula is skipping between Saoirse and me as we head up the road for a morning walk. “I have this one dragon, her name is Night Thrower, but she doesn’t usually throw people. She’s actually very gentle.”
I am guilty, once more, of only partially listening to her. My mind is turning over a conversation I’d had with my sister on Easter Sunday. The subject came up over breakfast that I had finally installed a donation button on my blog.
“Everybody’s looking for a hand out,” she said, shaking her head as she stood up from the breakfast table. “I can’t stand it.”
My stomach had begun to turn in knots.
I had wanted to scream at her: Why do you get to collect a paycheck at your off-farm job every week, but I have to work for free?
I didn’t say it out loud. But Mom heard me, anyhow. “You gave your work away for free,” she looked at me pointedly.
What I hate about my family is their ability to voice the exact conversations that happen quietly in my own head.
My sister’s comment has come out of my own mouth too many times to mention.
She and Mom put their finger on the quandary that has been turning my stomach for the past several months.
Should I ask for help?
It was a convergence of events that led me to decide to ask for donations. I’d been deeply moved by Amanda Palmer’s new book, The Art of Asking. In it, Palmer, an indy rock musician, eloquently outlines the act of asking as a potent tool for innovative work. Asking is a form of giving, she argues, a way of engaging your audience in the creative process and building community. She furthers her ideas by showing how the arts are changing. With the internet, the artist is no longer distanced from the rest of the world. She can step outside the fickle realm of corporate selection and endorsement. She is no imprisoned by the record label, or isolated by the book publisher, removed from the public by the celebrity status that cordons off a chosen few. She is also no longer denied the joy of contributing her art to society by virtue of the fact that her work may not have commercial appeal. The artist is part of the community, reflecting the angst, joy and energy that goes into building a better world.
If Palmer’s book wasn’t enough to spur my choice, then it has been the painful process of working through my family’s farm transition plans. Bit by bit, Mom and I have been dissecting each of the enterprises and looking at where time and money are being spent, in order to understand the bottom line and make sure the business can accommodate everyone’s basic needs. The honey business was marginally profitable. The sheep business is doing okay. But the day I had to divulge the details of my website and writing income was ugly.
But the clincher was the long standing chorus I’d heard from my friend Nancy. Nancy and her husband Matt moved to Schoharie County a few years back, right after some of their folk musician friends had relocated here. From the 1960s onward, they’ve invested their life energy into art and music, seeing both as powerful venues for social change. When they came here, the Daynards and their extended family of musicians extended that love to the local farms. We became great friends, except for one annoying habit of Nancy’s. For the last several years, she has called me nearly every month and asked me one question: How can I help you?
I never really had a good answer for her. And that’s because Amanda Palmer’s artsy eloquence and Matt and Nancy’s hippie values of love, peace and sharing collided head-on with my agrarian values of independence.
Farmers don’t ask for help. We deal with our own shit. And all too often, we find ourselves muttering the exact words that came out of my sister’s mouth on Easter Sunday. Everybody’s looking for a handout.
And it’s true. A lot of folks are looking for handouts. Our friends Cornelia and Greg bought our local derelict and defunct church hall. Slowly, with blood, sweat and tears, they have been rebuilding it into The Panther Creek Arts Center. They regularly send out emails asking for help replacing stairs, digging out foundations, rewiring. At the bottom of their website they have a tiny donation button. Ben Hewitt, one of my favorite writers and bloggers, who, like me, explores what it means to pursue a sustainable life on a daily basis, put a Generosity Enabler button at the top of the righthand sidebar of his website. Kathy Voth and Rachel Gilker, creators of On Pasture, a free website devoted to helping grass-based livestock farmers learn about current research, relevant farming news and the latest innovations, has an option on the menu bar at the top of the screen for membership and underwriting.
Everybody’s looking for a handout.
I return my attention to what’s happening on the walk. Saoirse and Ula are running ahead of me now. Ula’s riding the winged tiger, I think. I’m not sure if Saoirse has chosen her mount. I chose Night Thrower, in spite of her inauspicious name. She bucked a little bit when I first climbed up, and took off pretty fast, but Ula was able to reign her in. Now she offers me a gentle imaginary ride so that I can fall back and lose myself in my thoughts.
Why is everybody looking for a handout? Why is it that all these great ideas, all these powerful contributions to make community life more enriching, to make the sustainable path easier to vision, to make ecologically responsible farming more viable, cannot be supported through conventional economic transactions?
Because the conventional economy is broken. It has a distorted habit of placing little or no value on caring, nurturing, community building, innovation, or the sharing of ideas.
I wonder if Rachel and Kathy and Cornelia and Greg and Ben and I are just fools, wasting our energy on frivolity? I could make more money for my family spending the early hours of the morning making socks or soap. Or I could sleep in instead of getting up to write, then put in longer days at the farm. I try to imagine what life would be like if I just surrendered writing in entirety, turning my attention instead to ventures that held more direct economic value.
But before I can fully picture that change, Saoirse and Ula have darted off into the woods. They have tethered their imaginary mounts for the sake of picking up trash that has been tossed out people’s car windows. Their arms are full.
“Mommy? Can you help us?” They call out. “We want to clean this up, but it’s more than we can carry.”
How did they do that? They didn’t even think about it. They felt no guilt about asking for a handout. Their minds were wrapped up in creating the world of their imaginations – one where dragons are gentle and tigers can have wings. And they saw a blight on the earth—Something that had to be fixed in order to keep their world beautiful. They didn’t stop to ask if I would reward them for picking up the trash. They simply charged off and began doing what was right. And when the burden of the clean-up became too great, they did the next logical thing. They asked for help.
That’s what Cornelia and Greg are doing with the arts center. That’s what Rachel and Kathy are doing with On Pasture. That’s what Ben and I are doing with our blogs. We can see a world that contains gentle dragons and flying tigers. And we can imagine the work that must be done in order to let the dragons and the tigers fly together. And we don’t wait to see if that work will turn a profit. We just start. And when the burden becomes too great, we ask for help, asking others to join us as we work to create something bigger than ourselves. Maybe more of us should be asking for handouts.
<3 <3 <3
thank you so much for exploring this. we think about this issue so frequently, it is wonderful to read your musings. from, a fan in kentucky!
Shannon, thank you for sharing your heartfelt thoughts. It is difficult for so many of us to ask for help, yet once we do, the outpouring of love is overwhelming. I see it everyday in my urban community…very different from your life but all part of humanity’s struggles. Asking for a handout is asking for love and hope and understanding!
I think this is a very controversial topic in part because so many of us grew up middle class and what we learned was when times get tough we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and get to work. At age 65 I’ve lived on both sides of this coin; growing up poor wand without, followed by the priviledge of marrying up and the middle class dream and divorce, starting over again at age 45 with next to nothing. Then moving to a very poor agricultural community to live within my means where the average annual income is $21,000 and there is virtually no year-round work, just seasonal hourly pay, if one is lucky. But the land and taxes are affordable here and the area is beautiful.
A few years later (having lived the before and after of privildge) when I first got here I saw nothing but great poverty and delipatated building and I asked “Why are these folks not keep up their property and working?” (and therefore living in extreme poverty. ) I asked this while I was single-handedly renovating a home, cleaning/painting/unpacking the homestead while laying the ground work to starting a new home-based business. I was also writing and taking photographs for newspapers as my day job. My new husband was driving the hour to and from his city job was gone 10-12 hours a day on the road. and I was home getting up at 4 and 5 a.m. and working 70-80 hours a week.
Fifteen year later I see this; there is generation after generation of non-working families here and they have lost the drive/knowledge/ability to work. They do not have vehicles, nor insurance, nor daycare for children and most here must drive elsewhere to find full-time employment. They have received state help for so many years they do not know how to work. Recently I offered neighbors pay for help that I needed and they do not show up. They just do not want to work.
Those that farm are the exception (and we live in the largest agricultural county in my state) they farm out of a deep love for the lifestyle, the land or because there are in a long line of generations of family farmers and want to carry on that tradition. It is definitely not about the money for them.
What is the point of this story? Not everyone is born in a place or in a home that gives them what they need to get educated and to find fulltime employment. Add living in a economically depressed state and geographic area where job are few, the numbers that can take care of themselves and their families drops even lower. Some will not try, will not work and are content to live in poverty with cutting/selling wood, seasonal snowplowing or construction work and taking the winter off and living off their relatives or community.
How do I feel about asking for help? I still have mixed feelings. I grew up in a thrice divorced family without a lot of skills or nurturing. I left home at age 17 to go to college. I paid for it myself. I worked fulltime and went to school fulltime. I rent a room in a house for $50.00 a month, ate tuna fish from a can and had no car so I walked miles to and from school. It was really tough but I made my goal and became a certified teacher. My parents did not pay one penny for me once I left home, not for health insurance school/zero nothing. I was on my own.
When I started my art gallery I took out a loan on my home. I worked a newspaper writing job to make the payments until it got up and running and money started coming in. I never took a penny from our household money, which could not have stayed within budget and paid the bills for my business. I did it totally on my own. I ran this business for 8 years in this manner. I did not ask for help, not even from my husband. He helped me physically but not financially. I did not want to burden our tight budget in any way.
A friend of mine is starting a community coffee house that is in the same building as her art gallery. She bought the building to have full control and has asked for help to build this coffee house. I was stunned when she did this. Her husband is a physician and makes really good money, provided insurance and a huge renovated farmhouse. He has always helped to fund whatever she did. She has a studio and art gallery business in addition to the new coffee house. Quite frankly I could not believe she was asking for help to fund her new business. It’s not that it is not worthwhile its not as if the community will not profit from this place, we will. (Even though I do not drink coffee I will try to support it.) But I do not understand asking others to fund MY business, especially when any profit I make will be mine. Maybe I am too old to understand this philosophy or my own life does not allow for this option. My home/life/education/business….my responsibility. Donna at The Small House Big Sky Homestead.
Shannon, I think it is appropriate to include a donate , support or contribution link on your posts. You provide a service to all of us that follow you every week that is posted. This is another bit of information and education which I for one look forward to and appreciate the time and energy it takes to create these posts.
I only hope that there are many others who hold my sentiments on this issue. I personally know how difficult it is to ask for what we personally create yet it is a fact of life that we are of value to others and should be recompensed for our efforts.
Keep up the good work.
Well said. I think when we started breaking up families into “nuclear” and “extended” and all started living in different houses farther away from each other “independence” became the triumphant value. Community fell by the wayside. Communities ask members for help regularly. With this breakdown asking for assistance from others has become shameful instead of beneficial. I always feel great if I can help someone out and feel great in return when there’s someone I can lean on when in need myself. I applaud you for valuing your work and asking for needed help. We need to build up some community.
I know what you mean. I considered putting a donation button on my website. Finally, I decided not to. I call all the time I spend on eatkamloops.org my corporate volunteering for my real, money making business. I even gave the content of eatkamloops.org to the Creative Commons.
There’s lots of work in this world that doesn’t pay. Like your children, I’m picking garbage around my property right now. I’ve been doing this work voluntarily for eight years. With eatkamloops.org, I’m writing blog posts that don’t pay and wondering if I should continue. Since I started the website, there’s so much great content on the internet that’s frankly, better than mine. That thought is a bit demotivating!
For me, it comes down to do I need more money? Honestly, I don’t. I have everything I need… and much more. I even have a surplus of hard, acquired knowledge and experience that I can share with others.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do. Sometimes we just have to move on to new “paying” ventures… Sometimes the old, “non-paying” activities are worth it even if we get nothing. Even if we get nothing… we still have something!
Thank you, Shannon! Frankly, I’d rather make a donation to something important to me – like your blog – than be bombarded with advertising. My nature is a lot like yours; however, a run-in with cancer has shown me that being a receiver is just as important as being a giver. It’s just that right now, it’s my turn to receive and do it with a heart that is open to the love that’s attached to the gifts being given. And when I recover, you can bet I’ll be back in the giving mode again!
Good morning, Shannon!
Your post since morning, which I eagerly anticipate each Tuesday, moved me truly to tears! I am in a major transition in my life right now that has had me thinking for a couple of months now, how on earth do folks like you do it all? From the energy it takes to do everything that you do, to the ability to so creatively express your thoughts as well as as give instruction, to the sincere and open generosity that you share so easily! And none of those things have anything to do with the reality of economics! I will gladly donate what funds I can if I can help in any way to even bring next Tuesday’s post to my inbox. I read your weekly posts and I am given hope that we can make our world better. What you do- and I can definitely say this with regards to your writing in particular- is incredibly important to a lot of people! But, in order to do the writing, you must first DO eveything else! You are my hero! With 3 young children, and 6 old chickens, I’m doing good to just get my garden started- and get a shower! You manage it all! And I know it’s a lot to ask of you- to keep writing and to keep doing! But I certainly hope you do!
By the way, I have not yet purchased a single one of your books, but I desperately want each one, and will begin my collection today as well!
While, your writing may not the most profitable of the many wonderful things you do, it is the most far-reaching. I am in NC and luckily have access to a number of organic, sustainable farms where I can procure all of my proteins and some of my produce. But your words,…I’d have a very hard time finding those around here. Not that folks here aren’t concerned and aren’t creating wonderful farms, they are and they do, but they don’t share thoughts, and anecdotes, and inspiration the way you do!
So, thank you from the bottom of my heart, for asking for help! I know so many people feel same way I do! I would so gladly donate to hear real words than to pay nothing to hear only corporate sponsored fluff! An awful lot of people are realists- and we know that people can’t live, or run a business, without money.
Each of us is a single cell of the Divine. When we start looking at one another (every single one) in this way, how can we not want to offer help or have anxiety about seeking it?
(I remember my daughter every morning asking, “what animal should I be today?” I never answered correctly, but loved seeing blanket tails tucked into her pants for hours on end.)
Shannon, you are the one who has been like the “little angel on my shoulder” when I began cooking grass-fed meats, which I had never done before. Devastating shoeleather became most delicious fare after falling in love with the cast iron skillet, caramelized onions and your cookbooks. I learned and was inspired to can and freeze seasonal produce from reading your blogs. My hubby even got me a chest freezer to put all the grassfed beef from a farmer friend of ours. There’s now pastured pork too. So if your blog was to disappear, I certainly would miss it. I am not able to go totally sustainsble, but I’m closer to it than before, and have gained many helpful ideas from your writing. So why don’t I stop writing now, snd look for that donate button. The Bible sez the worker is worthy of his wages. The Bible also says to ask.
hi
useful topic.
why indeed should we not offer support
if folks are doing something we think worthy.
donations make perfect sense.
we must talk when we get to america this summer.
I’m not sure I agree that this issue indicates that
“the conventional economy is broken”
but it does suggest that it’s a work in progress
and we need to be part of it
thanks for your warm and clear post