Grassroots, After the Sprouting
by Paul Finley
I feel I have always been drawn to the more basic things in life. Not that I do not necessarily appreciate complexity and making all the pieces of the puzzle fit, but I truly find joy in simplicity and forms of raw functionality. That being said, I do enjoy and find the added aesthetic of art and color , which really advance functionality in no way, to be delightful and almost a necessity in my life. Finding the balance between these things will be a lifelong pursuit for me.
Working off the framework or underpinning of the simplistic approach to life, it may be a bit easier to see why I may be inclined to appreciate a more "grassroots" or "organic" style of movement, company, or lifestyle. But, what does this really mean? What is the reality of a sustained grassroots endeavor in our society today?
With the advances of opportunities for every 'Joe' (including myself) to have an opinion or idea and share it with whoever and how many other people they can worldwide in an almost effortless manner, we run into a dilemma.
When we owned our little business making surfboards, we tried with utmost diligence to be authentically grassroots, involved in the community, individualizing almost every single board with personal interaction and feedback. As we learned, energy and efforts expended to be real and available was not the easiest way of being the most profitable. Notice though, that it was not a problem with the "bottom line." but with the "budget." For to us, the bottom line was the people and lifestyle, not the money in hand. We were happier to see the shop close than to compromise on our ethic of grassroots in order to turn a profit of solely monetary gain.
If you look up the definition of grassroots, you will find that there is an imposter form of grassroots headed by people gaining from ulterior motives. This has been referred to by many as "astroturfing." Not just reserved for political or social movements, I believe that the concept of astrotrufing is a deeply imbedded virus attacking the very core of society.
People with good ideas may be able to start sharing their story with others, but as the grassroots begin to sprout you will see the movement, company, or my favorite "collective" rapidly become transformed into a market — targeted, pigeonholed, and advertised to death until the good idea becomes repulsive to some, passe to most. Of course, there are a few exceptions to this rule, but I would argue they are few and far between.
So my question would be, as I struggle through my place in the noise of our society — "Can grassroots be grassroots after it sprouts?" Can our beautiful seeds of grass planted by hand grow from our field to the next in a slow, natural, and organic form? Or, are we so far gone and so obsessed with greed and maximizing profit that as soon as we spot a good blade of grass, we scoop it up and start to chemically engineer it and mass produce it in a sod farm? Then, taking a step further, we realize it is cheaper and more profitable to manufacture the blade of grass in a fully synthetic form. Are we happy consuming a silly and frankly pathetic imposter of the original simple blades of grass that we used to enjoy in between our toes on a summer day? Are we too far gone? Have we become completely rootless?
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