Professions & businesses in the years ahead.

Hi Evan,

A similar thing was asked by Oilobserver a while back. Its a difficult subject to broach because it very much depends upon the person asking the question. However there are some generalities that stick out a mile and so are worth extrapolating.

My advice? Get into everything that might be useful in an energy and resource constrained world:

How to grow stuff organically, for instance you can find out how by Wwoofing..

How to treat the sick and injured without recourse to expensive big pharma or high tech hospital gadgets. the Cuban medical system is now one of the most effective in the world, and sends its many doctors to medical crisis all over the world.

Learn how to fix stuff, anything. This is surprisingly easy to do if you have an aptitude for DIY. This is where a course in applied physics would possibly be one of the more useful courses still on offer. But you could probably learn just as much from a local electronics or mechanics group.

Generally things are going to get a lot more constrained with regards to our current (western)energy profligacy. Thus anything to do with energy efficiency and energy conservation is going to be key. Forget about generating more energy, especially with so called renewables; check out Stoneleigh’s Renewable Energy: The Vision and a Dose of Reality and
India Power Outage: The Shape of Things to Come. Things like supplemental systems such as battery backups and small scale local wind/hydro/solar (with battery backups!) will be the biggest growth areas. You need to be like Kelvin Doe, the African teenager who builds power generation plant out of scrap or Malwian William Kamkwamba who educated himself in his local library to build a wind generator.

Its going to be this sort of artisan hands on deep knowledge approach as opposed to the current ‘accreditation’ system, which basically certifies that you have done a course at an [strike]education[/strike] dumbing down facility and little else. I am serious here, I personally have spent three stints in supposedly higher ‘education’ two of them at post grad level, and I have noticed the level of so called ‘degree’ inflation, where the quality and depth of study has diminished as the class sizes and fees have risen. Its now been turned into an industry like any other producing disposable goods that have to be upgraded every few years. A true educational experience should have the opposite effect. And that is the key here; to recognise the true meaning of an education. Education as in Educe: 1, bring out or develop from latent or potential existence; elicit. 2 infer; elicit a princliple, number, etc, from data.Origins from middle English from Latin educere educt- ‘lead out’. (from Oxfrod concise dictionary) As in to lead out of darkness.

If your still set on being an entrepreneur, you might want to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenace by Robert M. Pirsig. Its more relevant than ever to everything.

On the lines of spirituality, learn to cultivate the higher faculties, especially that of an enquiring mind and the critical thought process. Getting caught up in a cult, religious or otherwise, like most ponzi schemes involves a deadening of the critical thought process. Try to find an exercise to build awareness, whether through yoga or mediation or through a more active ‘art’ such as a traditional kung fu system. That will keep you fit as well. Something like that will also help you learn to get along with others, a skill that will be invaluable especially when dealing with ‘difficult’ people and situations.

Why is this sort of self improvement valuable? Because IMHO ‘work’ (that has any real value or satisfaction) in the future it is going to be about flexibility and adaptability, pretty much as it has always , really. The modern hyper-division and specialisation of labour is going to be one of obstacles going forwards. In fact it already is an obstacle as people made redundant these days often have to retrain to get any other work, so narrowly focused have their abilities become. Rather than focus on a job or a career, focus instead on why you might be here in the first place. Why were you born? What are you really here for? Is it just to collect as many toys and as much money as possible?

Also money will (in all probability) not be all its cracked up to be; we will live much more in a Gift Economy. Thisvideo of Charles Eisenstein says it all really.

So as for a portable profession or business, make yourself as ‘portable’ as possible, then wherever you end up you will be useful.

“We do need a return to individual integrity, self-reliance and old-fashioned gumption. We really do.”

Robert M. Pirsig

L,
Sid.