The Left Hand

For those of you wondering where yesterday’s post disappeared to, after only a few short hours of life, well, as it turns out, I’m not quite as comfortable with overt self-promotion as I thought. Henceforth, I return to my regularly scheduled broadcast of subvert self-promotion. You have been warned. 

A few nights ago, at my reading in Warner, NH, a young fellow introduced us all to the term “left hand economy,” a reference to the underground economy that prevailed in Soviet Russia in the years before the union disintegrated. I like the term, in part because Penny is a leftie, and I’m keenly aware of the extent to which my personal economy is dependent on her hard work and support, but also for what it stands for: A way of life and commerce that occurs on the fringes of the dominant economy. To me, it speaks of subverting the hierarchal moneyed economy, and if there’s anything that gets me out of bed on those mornings when I’d so much rather drift back into the soft, halcyon world of my subconscious, it’s subverting the hierarchal moneyed economy. That’s actually not entirely true, but I like the way it sounds.

There were two small events from the previous week that I wanted to share, both of which quietly (and hearteningly, I’d say) point to the existence of a left hand economy in my own small corner of the world. So settle in: A little story-telling is about to commence.

On Wednesday morning, our 17-year-old Subaru began to emit a wall of noise from the point at which the exhaust connects to the manifolds. Now, our poor car is challenged in myriad ways – excessive oil consumption, non-functioning door locks, a passenger window that does not lower (which is good, because if it did lower, it would not raise), a sizable rusted-out void in a rear frame member, and so on – but all of these we’ve learned to live with until we stumble across something better or until the car simply disintegrates beneath us. But the exhaust noise? Egads. Awful. And me with many miles to travel over the next few weeks. Even Rush’s 2112 turned up to 11 would do little to sooth the sonic roar emerging from beneath our horseless carriage (as the boys are fond of calling it).

So it was that I found myself in Shon’s garage at 8 on Thursday morning. Yes, he was busy, and had no time to fit me into his normal business hours, but if I came down early, he said, we’d have us a look. Shon is fast, and knows what he’s doing in a way that is almost graceful to watch. He had the manifold studs off, the deficient gaskets smeared with gasket compound, and the whole thing bolted back together, car on the ground and idling quietly (well, as quiet as the ole girl gets) in no more than 30-minutes. “Shon,” I said. “How much do I owe you?”

He squinted at me through the smoke rising off his cigarette. “I don’t know… you got five bucks on ya?”

The next day (and this is again motor related, which does make one wonder, does it not?), our neighbor came over to help diagnose a frustrating and recurrent problem with the sawmill, involving frequently fouled spark plugs. We puttered for little while, before he determined that I had a bad right side coil that was not providing sufficient spark to the plug. “Here’s what you need to do,” he said, and showed me exactly how to replace the coil and set the appropriate gap between the flywheel magnet and the coil itself.

“Luke,” I said. “How much do I owe you?”

He glanced over at our little sugaring rig, which is situated within spittin’ distance of the mill. “You got a spare quart of syrup?” he asked. Indeed, I did.

I think a lot about the extent to which it is possible to live wonderfully rich and contented lives on the margins of the moneyed economy. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how I might move my own work into these margins. I have this fantasy – which may never be realized, but then again, maybe it will – that someday I will be able to offer my services on a pay-as-you-are-able basis. How cool would it be if I could simple give away copies of my books, and readers could pay me based on both ability, and what they felt my work is worth to them, personally? (Of course, this raises the thorny possibility that I might actually start receiving bills from those readers who felt I had so utterly wasted their precious time with my drivel).

For now, of course, I remain tethered to the traditional model of publishing: An advance paid out, a book produced and marketed, price affixed to its glossy cover, with no room for negotiation. For now, when someone asks me to come speak at an event, I feel compelled to charge a particular fee, which I will be paid whether or not half the audience winds up slumbering in their seats (for the record, I’m fairly sure this has never happened). How might it change the experience – for me and for them – if I were to be paid based not on what the market has determined is the value for a speaker, but instead on the extent to which my talk enriched their life experience?

In a few days, if weather forecasts hold, we will embark on our annual haying adventures with our dear friend Martha. As I wrote in my keynote at the PASA conference a few months back

the story of our haying with Martha is a story that strikes back at the myth of reliance on industry and corporation for the simple essentials of our lives and it comforts me precisely because it shows how we can survive and even thrive outside this myth. 

The older I get, the more I understand the extent to which the full richness of my life is dependent on all the small exchanges that are, for lack of a better term, part the left hand economy. And I suspect this is true for many, if not most of you. The moneyed economy does not want us to recognize, acknowledge, and participate in this realm (indeed, did you know that barter is actually taxable? Assuming you report it, that is…), but of course that is only because the masters of the moneyed economy have not determined how to profit from these exchanges.

And that, my friends, is a beautiful thing.