Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Thursday, March 3, 2016
Activism vs. Volunteerism
I started volunteering over twenty years ago while studying psychology at university. In one of my classes we discussed studies showing that volunteers get a "helper's high" while they give of themselves without any intention of gaining reward. High? I was young and getting high sounded good so count me in! Coincidentally this was when I got clean and sober too, no, not at all a coincidence. Those studies though were dead on. Getting sober was really hard and my mind was very tormented in the first ten years and helping others induces a blissful zen state where none of my problems exist anymore and time itself ceases to exist. Many in the field say Gratitude is what happiness really is and that comes with helping others. I was hooked immediately.
Over the last 23 years I've built my entire life around giving back. I own a company that is rooted firmly in giving back and activism. I live where I do for the benefit of others and this affords me the opportunity to be with family. Every altruistic action comes with it's own reward and I used to think this negates selflessness but the longer you do it the less you tend to consider the rewards- I forgot about them till I wrote that last line. At the same time though if I wasn't happy and at peace I probably wouldn't do it.
When I was 15 I went vegetarian after slaughtering and eating a few of my friends on the farm. I fell in love with a calf named Sunny, a lamb named Howard, Rock Hudson the rooster, and even Silver Bridge the horse and we ate them all- oh and Charlotte the huge awesome pig. I felt the same for these buds and pals as I felt for the family dog and cat, what the psych community calls unconditional positive regard (love). I could no longer eat them without vomiting violently and just feeling so much shame and guilt that fit hand-in-glove with drug addiction. Activism has been giving me the same joy as volunteerism.
When the fur store closed after years of protests and demos the sense of accomplishment and peace for the saved critters was indescribable. Bringing together disparate individuals for a vegan potluck party results in long-term community and offshoots that couldn't be imagined. My current property is so huge but easily traversed willy-freakin-nilly so I've been building trails and converting it to protected wildlife area. Keeping on the trails allows the wildlife, which is a very dense population here, to have less imposed stress while also allowing us to view more of them as they are. I go out at night and walk the trail without any light by bright starlight. I visit the trail at dawn and dusk when everybody is chirping and hopping and stalking and I love it beyond words. What I get out of it is much better than a "helper's high" this high will go on and on. I don't even have to visit the trail to enjoy it.
Tomes can and have been written on the subject, I'm going for short form here.
In my thinking activism and volunteerism can be the same thing but we rarely join the two semantically. In the last ten years I can tell you never once had I considered helping the chimps from being tortured by the university as volunteerism. Never considered using my company to sponsor animal rights events as volunteerism. All those days spent in the freezing snow or burning sun to help inform the uninformed, that is activism. Now I know that it is also volunteerism. Never once did I think to list it on any form or resume that asked about "Volunteer Experience..." but now that veganism has gone mainstream perhaps we can lift the connotation of Animal Rights Activism, the connotation of the Animal Liberation Front can now be joined with words like "organic" and "natural" along with others. Oh yes animal liberation has most definitely gone mainstream but that does not mean ease up on the activism. Now is when we really need to shine the light on the path for these noobs. Populist voices will distract many into dull comfort and inaction and that just comes with popularity. Activism needs to remain a big component of what veganism is as long as injustice, violence against the voiceless continues.
Here's a mama hummingbird I found while maintaining the trail. Protecting her little jellybean of a baby, too cute!
Over the last 23 years I've built my entire life around giving back. I own a company that is rooted firmly in giving back and activism. I live where I do for the benefit of others and this affords me the opportunity to be with family. Every altruistic action comes with it's own reward and I used to think this negates selflessness but the longer you do it the less you tend to consider the rewards- I forgot about them till I wrote that last line. At the same time though if I wasn't happy and at peace I probably wouldn't do it.
When I was 15 I went vegetarian after slaughtering and eating a few of my friends on the farm. I fell in love with a calf named Sunny, a lamb named Howard, Rock Hudson the rooster, and even Silver Bridge the horse and we ate them all- oh and Charlotte the huge awesome pig. I felt the same for these buds and pals as I felt for the family dog and cat, what the psych community calls unconditional positive regard (love). I could no longer eat them without vomiting violently and just feeling so much shame and guilt that fit hand-in-glove with drug addiction. Activism has been giving me the same joy as volunteerism.
When the fur store closed after years of protests and demos the sense of accomplishment and peace for the saved critters was indescribable. Bringing together disparate individuals for a vegan potluck party results in long-term community and offshoots that couldn't be imagined. My current property is so huge but easily traversed willy-freakin-nilly so I've been building trails and converting it to protected wildlife area. Keeping on the trails allows the wildlife, which is a very dense population here, to have less imposed stress while also allowing us to view more of them as they are. I go out at night and walk the trail without any light by bright starlight. I visit the trail at dawn and dusk when everybody is chirping and hopping and stalking and I love it beyond words. What I get out of it is much better than a "helper's high" this high will go on and on. I don't even have to visit the trail to enjoy it.
Tomes can and have been written on the subject, I'm going for short form here.
In my thinking activism and volunteerism can be the same thing but we rarely join the two semantically. In the last ten years I can tell you never once had I considered helping the chimps from being tortured by the university as volunteerism. Never considered using my company to sponsor animal rights events as volunteerism. All those days spent in the freezing snow or burning sun to help inform the uninformed, that is activism. Now I know that it is also volunteerism. Never once did I think to list it on any form or resume that asked about "Volunteer Experience..." but now that veganism has gone mainstream perhaps we can lift the connotation of Animal Rights Activism, the connotation of the Animal Liberation Front can now be joined with words like "organic" and "natural" along with others. Oh yes animal liberation has most definitely gone mainstream but that does not mean ease up on the activism. Now is when we really need to shine the light on the path for these noobs. Populist voices will distract many into dull comfort and inaction and that just comes with popularity. Activism needs to remain a big component of what veganism is as long as injustice, violence against the voiceless continues.
Here's a mama hummingbird I found while maintaining the trail. Protecting her little jellybean of a baby, too cute!
Friday, February 26, 2016
Nuffing But Warms
Only here for a few months so far and every day I love it a little more. More lizards. More heat. More wellness. Further away from cancer every day.
Sales are up, overhead is down. Still no running water in the house and that has proven to be a non-issue, amazingly. I've started converting the shipping container which has the best deck for viewing critters and sunsets. So dry. Dressing Burner-style more every day. Dusty. Dry. Hot. Love it.
I adopted Win10 early beta and it was okay but I like privacy too much so I have switched solely to Linux/Gnu for almost a year now and I don't see going back. My latest OS is called Solus and it's pretty damn rad. If you're new to open source free OS try Ubuntu or Linux Mint first to learn on then if you want you can try hundreds of other free OSes good for different people doing different things. here's a picture of my Solus:
Video of the OS shows what's what:
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Five Stars on Amazon
Because we recently moved to Amazon the reviews from the past 9 years do not transfer. So far some of the belts have 5 stars but to compete with the yucky belts we need more. When I say yucky belts I mean any non-HELD belt. Show me a more green, more vegan belt I'll do a backflip while eating my hat.
If you could click on over to our gear and rate or review your awesome belt it would really help a bunch. Our belts are still the most ethical, the most vegan, most happy so they should be in front otherwise yucky stuff gets out there.
https://amazon.com/shops/vegangear
Thanks a metric ton of non-gmo soybeans! Here's a pretty picture I took:
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
HELD Vegan New Year!
Aloha and a very happy new year to all!
We are nearing the one year mark of the HELD re-launch and things are going very well. Some of the changes we have made were the right ones like closing both of the stores, for now, adding Melinda to the management team has been a huge boost, and moving to Arizona... well it's January and I'm soaking up some warm rays right now! Some of the changes like the name change for example, wasn't so brilliant. Simplifying our product stream is still iffy and will likely change again once the new campaigns even out. I still want to ad the pro belt and a few other ideas but this has been a rough learning curve me- an artist, not a business or marketing person.
Over all the changes has been very good. Melinda is becoming quite the manager and her tireless work has been freeing me up more and more so in turn production is stabilizing nicely. I can put more work into innovating and streamlining the production process, which we really need. As the production becomes more smooth I can then turn my attention more to my new belt designs which I know you have been very patient about. I really thank you for all the feedback and it isn't forgotten in fact there is still room for more input so go ahead, we do listen very closely.
It looks like this will be our best year so far and the biggest part is being able to contribute more to help the animals. This doesn't mean we are done asking for your help, if you want to do something to support our aim please do. We still need help spreading the word and you can do that by liking the Facebook page, following and re-tweeting, posting our links and all that social media stuff. In addition to our amazing belts we'll be starting an AR campaign here at our new location. I'll announce more later for now here is a cute Bobcat on our front porch.
Okay I think that might be enough for now. I have a bunch more stuff to do so ttfn and thanks a gajillion!
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
Keeping It Classy San Diego
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Ten Years of Video
We closed the original website at m3house.org while we build the new one (this will take quite a while). Until then the main way to get the most amazing belts in the world is through Amazon/VeganGear. Currently only USA but we'll get to other countries and continents asap.
I've put together a playlist in case you want to see how much fun we have or how we make these or how cute the pups and bunbuns are. This playlist goes all the way back to the start but it's missing a whole bunch.
I've put together a playlist in case you want to see how much fun we have or how we make these or how cute the pups and bunbuns are. This playlist goes all the way back to the start but it's missing a whole bunch.
Friday, July 13, 2012
First Store Closure
The store might be open for another month. After three years of surgeries they finally broke me by saying they have to take my arm apart. I imagine I will be able to reopen after a few months of rehab, learning how to use my arm and building muscle. I am of course having difficulty with one foot in front of the other operations, simple things are hard to do. I will be keeping the factory open and making appearances at vending opportunities and hopefully reopening the websites in the meantime. I suppose I can make shirts one-handed. Thank you for everything.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Because I Can: ALEC - An Evil That Knows No Boundaries
Because I Can: ALEC - An Evil That Knows No Boundaries: "It's interesting to me that (ALEC) has managed to stay below the radar and secretive for many, many years," Underwood said in a phone conv...
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Katie has been bringing new artists into HVB and it has been just fantastic. I can't wait to see whats' next & I might start a new page devoted entirely to the artists. Yes that is what I'll do, wait for M3house.org/HVB
For HELD go to: M3house.org We just released the new color brochure a dandy tri-fold designed by my local fave she's done work for just about every reputable magazine to be brief and I am honored in a big way marcirothdesign.blogspot.com/ & marcirothillustration.com/
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Katie's Talk at HVB
I feel so fortunate to spend such time with this great lively collection of art. The use of glass powder or granules in the acrylic medium is met with near perfect application. This entire body sparkles and shimmers but not obviously, you can barely see it, it arrives in near imperceptible waves of lavishness. I'm so lucky.
Before I even knew it was in pulverized glass I was struck by the embodiment of what all art strives for: creation; These "Vegetable Portraits" are living and breathing in a world that could only be the "womb" to them. Sorcery is the only plausible way these [beings] could be attached to such a mystical background. Never in Post-Modern art have I seen anything even close to this arrangement. Over the days I have spent with these treasures I have truly fallen in love, luckily the size range might allow even me to pocket one.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
HELDVeganBelts.com
The HVB store is coming up on the one year anniversary so we got the website and shirts to go along with it! I'm really excited about getting the new catalog running with all the new products on the site HELDVeganBelts.com you can go to Skreened.com/HVB for shirts. Damn I've been looking forward to this for a long time. A very special thanks to all the volunteers who kept HVB alive while I was in the ICU and recovering. We still need plenty of generous help so when you're ready let me know.
Time again for HELD to grow so we are reaching out far and wide to greater distribution. These are the Strongest Belts in the World! Likely the most sustainable as well. In addition to setting up wholesale accounts everywhere we are looking to open other workshops to keep the distribution as green as possible.
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