Some Reflections

27.06.2010

In the beginning of the Garden Shuttle, my motives were very clear and explicit to me: I wanted to do something that feels good to do, no matter if it was strategically, financially or in any other way making sense or not. More specifically, I wanted to help T and his family to build up a business in order to be able to lead a better live.

Now I think that wanting to help is certainly a good basis for getting involved in some kind of developmental work, but it certainly is not sufficient. It is a momentum to get started, but in order to keep on going and to develop a direction one also needs success. I want to see that my efforts lead to improvements into desirable directions. And I also want to see what works, and what doesn’t work.

For several reasons, our business success has so far not been sufficient, and instead of thinking "things take time..." and "be patient" and so on, I more and more tend to believe that "obviously I am doing something wrong". Trying to help is nice, but I want success for me - actually M and me - and our Cambodian friends and that means that I want us to get some kind of business going and to be able to experience a reward for what we are doing - financially and by being able to develop skills that allow us to interact more effectively with our environment.

Somehow, this also reminds of my favorite social philosophy, that I had the pleasure of being confronted with in the middle of the 90s when I visited the archaeological site of Tanais in South Russia. By chance I received one of the most fascinating lectures in my life by Dr. B, one of the leading archaeologists there: 2000 years ago, Tanais was a Greek settlement and trading post located at the northeastern part of the Black Sea. The Greeks brought mostly wine and the surrounding Skyths traded in furs etc.

When you stand in the middle of nowhere and think of a couple of Greek traders being surrounded by one the strongest armies in the world of those days, you immediately start thinking "how could they survive for so long?” (probably a couple of centuries). They didn't have the slightest chance to defend themselves and their goods from such strong enemies. Why did the Skyths tolerate the Greeks and interact mainly peacefully with them? Why didn't they simply take the wine and leave "without paying"? The reason Dr. B presented was a simple as it was thrilling to me: Because then the wine would be gone and would never come back! The Greeks had something that the Skyths seriously wanted and the Skyths tried to make them stay and most likely actually defended them if necessary. Trade accomplished something that no arsenal of weapons and no political treaty could ever have been accomplished so effectively: peace and cooperation! In my opinion trade - to give what the other person wants and to take what you need - is by far far the strongest tie to keep people and societies together. From a behavioural perspective it contains the most essential form of communication: exchange of mutual rewards.

Coming back to the Garden Shuttle project, I believe that trying to do something "good" (whatever this could mean) is primarily selfish and mainly aims at giving oneself a feeling as a good person. In order to create realities (today one might also say "to become sustainable"), however, is is necessary to focus on the mutual needs and desires and to create balanced, or equitable, links between people. With respect to the Garden Shuttle, I should probably get away from the image or position of the "helper" who can tell others what to do and who gives the money and input to start moving. I should pay more attention to what others want and what others think they can achieve and then see if or where this matches my interests and my capabilities.

On a larger - global - scale, I think this is one of the major obstacles on the way to common developments. Everybody talks about what he thinks what is right and what should be done, but no one reveals their motives or objectives. Everybody talks about how important it is to help others or to protect the environment and the climate, but no one is really interested in doing what is necessary to achieve that. Individual interests are (from an individual perspective probably correctly) evaluated much more important than our shared common ground "the Earth". Furthermore, in many cases the "time trap" lets us harvest today, whereas we have to cultivate tomorrow. I firmly believe that in order to be able to overcome this situation of selfishness and mutual distrust, we must find ways to make the needs and objectives of all players (or at least the key players) visible and to find ways of creating trade-offs.