On being a "soul survivalist"

Creativity, connection, and why the things that won't scale matter most.

Every day I tend my flock of nine: a large white Brahma rooster, seven hens (two Rhode Island Reds, four Jersey Giants, one Brahma) and, not to be forgotten, a Khaki Campbell drake who lost his siblings to a predator and, one cold night, joined the chickens in their coop and has been one of the flock ever since. (Our duck contributes nothing besides tail-wagging charm, but he’s worth keeping around for that alone.)

The work is usually pleasant, but make no mistake: it’s work. I scoop food into the feeder and poop out of the nesting boxes; I collect eggs, add more bedding to the coop, rinse and refill water dishes, scatter mealworms and scratch grains on the ground; the chickens’ favorite treat.

The flock races toward me when I come into view, and follow me around as I work. We aren’t on cuddling terms, but they seem to trust me - or at least, they know I bring them good things - and our time together is a highlight of my day.

Yes, caring for the chickens is enjoyable work. And I think of it as creative work, too, defined by problem-solving, intuition and experimentation. Should the feeders and waterers go here, or over there? Are they happiest with this treat, or that one?

It’s also connected work. I use what my flock is telling me, through their behavior and appearance and laying habits, to create conditions that will help them thrive and best express their chicken-ness (and duck-who-thinks-he-’a-chicken-ness).

What it isn’t is efficent work. For my time and trouble - and the cost of grain and treats and bedding and the space to roam - my flock offered up six eggs today, a number that thrilled me since it’s a huge jump up from what they were laying two months ago during the midwinter slump (about two eggs a week, when I was lucky.)

Six eggs, during a time when you can buy an organic carton at the supermarket for no more than five bucks a dozen, is not a big payoff.

So chicken-keeping doesn’t make a whole lot of economic sense, especially if you value my time based on the amount of money I can earn in an hour, and the number of eggs that would buy me.

And while we could streamline our processes while increasing egg load, there’s a limit to how much a backyard egg operation can scale before it turns into something…quite different from a backyard egg operation.

In this week’s episode of The Tea’s Made podcast, I shared a handful of kitchen projects that are keeping me busy right now; things like making my own yogurt, learning about cheesemaking, and trying (so far unsuccessfully) sourdough baking.

There’s no direct economic reason for me to do any of these things. I can and do buy food, including high-quality artisan food, with dollars I earn performing work for pay.

Neither am I prepping for an impending doomsday. While it’s wise to develop self-sufficiency skills, in the event of a societal collapse my family wouldn’t get too far on a few jars of homemade yogurt, a bunch of failed starter, and six eggs a day.

But perhaps I am a survivalist of sorts: a soul survivalist, if you will. Feeding the chickens and collecting the eggs, curdling the milk and stirring the pot, all remind me that life is about more than giving my time and energy to a corporation in exchange for money to buy the eggs and the yogurt from another corporation inside the building of yet another corporation. It keeps me grounded in the real cost, human and otherwise, of feeding ourselves. It roots me in who I am, who we are, besides Worker and Consumer, the two roles that seem most valued by the culture around us.

Last night my sister-in-law Jenna and I went to see a production at a local community theatre. Having done a lot of live theater in my life, I am here to tell you: there’s almost nothing less efficient.

A group of unpaid actors rehearse a dozen hours or more per week for months. The show goes up, and may run for three or four weekends, then the sets are torn down so rehearsals can start on the next production. Very little money will be earned from ticket sales; there are no residuals, no opportunities for “passive” income. And once the show is over there’s not much to remember it by besides some cast photos, printed programs, and perhaps a grainy DVD recording.

But people love live theater because it’s real. At any moment, the actors may flub their lines or bump into one another on stage. Delivery will be slightly different from one performance to the next. Audiences change, too, which makes the experience as unpredictable for the actors as those watching. A joke could land with one audience and fall flat with the next, but there there also could be a moment of unexpected hilarity you didn’t see coming; a moment of onstage connection that surprises you.

During the performance, the veil that separates audience from cast is an agreed-upon fiction; it’s part of the mystery that creates the magic. Then, during curtain call, the veil is abruptly lifted; we all resume our usual roles of neighbors, friends, family, coworkers, in the lobby. It’s all part of the fun, but it’s also an effective way of forming connections. As an audience member, you care about and appreciate the people in the cast, who in turn care about and appreciate the audience members.

Me as Roxie Hart in a community production of Chicago

Whatever you do, don’t add up the hours spent on the production and multiply that number against the combined market value of each cast and crew member. If you do, you may be shocked by the inefficiency. You may wonder how the people who put on that show for you could do it without promise of residuals or even hourly pay.

You may not realize that for the cast members, this particular art form is also a type of soul survivalism. It’s a time when they are neither working for pay nor consuming someone else’s products, but creating joy (the audience’s, their castmates’, their own) from their talent and hard work.

That’s what creativity is: soul survival. It’s inefficient on purpose. It resists scale.

Creative things can often be done inexpensively (where actual dollars are concerned) but come at a high cost of human effort and care. It may not ever “pay off”. If done well, it will always take time and attention away from the roles of Worker and Consumer that tend to dominate our lives. That’s where the magic lies.

Creativity can also be a spiritual practice for those of us who create to emulate a Creator. I use the word “soul” quite literally here.

There’s a lot of talk today about using efficient, mass, technology-driven strategies to feed humanity, to reduce our environmental impact, to harness brainpower and resources. In the face of all that scale, perhaps individual creativity seems hopelessly outdated; even wasteful. In a matter of survival, one might argue, volume and output are the only things that will make an impact.

I can’t say for sure.

But I’m just going to keep creating and connecting anyway; collecting the eggs and curdling the milk and trying again to get the sourdough starter to…start. My efforts most likely won’t scale. They aren’t efficient. But they matter.

Maybe individual effort and personal creativity can’t save humanity.

Or maybe individual effort and personal creativity are what will save the most important things about humanity.

What is it, I wonder, that we believe to be most true about ourselves?