green inspiration

i was just in bali last week.

the undoubted highlight of the week was spending time with john hardy, the jewelry designer, who recently sold his very sucessful jewelry business, so he could become a full-time eco-preneur.

in the twenty years john has lived in bali, he has trained an artisanal work force of 1000 balinese to make jewelry, for export to such tony retailers as neiman marcus and saks fifth avenue. far from exploiting them, he has taken their traditional skills of artisanal craftsmanship and honed them for a demanding international market. 700 of these craftsman report to work every day at john's compound which is almost entirely green/sustainable and, literally, constructed of only bamboo and natural timbers with only the scantest use of unfriendly man-made components such as concrete or tar. on top of that, the kitchen's fires utilize sawdust, with food cooked in the same stoves as those used by the UN, which require only one stick of kindling to remain fired. the list of examples of green living goes on and on. john is a real doer. not just some slick hypocritical bullshit artist.

but that's the tip of the iceberg: he's now building a large eco-compound on several hectares in ubud, overlooking a river, comprising a school

http://www.kulkulschool.com/ conference center and several residential/hotel cottages, entirely made of bamboo with nary a trace of concrete. or even tar to flatten the connecting roads. it's damn difficult and the the process is one of daily trial and error, because, being a visionary pioneer, he has no one's footsteps to follow. the keystone of the entire thing is BAMBOO and john's belief that the demand for bamboo is set to explode with the interest in and importance of green building. thus, he is now staking his fortune, and, indeed, life on it. (by the way, john needs a CEO for this new business, the complexities of which are too great to outline here. he has asked me to help him recruit someone who is, at bottom, a very good businessperson who preferably has an mba or significant business experience. not a granola-cruncher, but an hbs type in his/her mid-30s. i promised to help him. if you know anyone suitable (and stellar), please let me know through this site and i will be in touch.)

aside from the actual content of his life, i was more deeply affected by the fact that, above and beyond all, JOHN IS A SERIOUS DOER, not just a talker. how many of us can lay a claim to that? i mean, how hard is it to muster the minimum motivation to write your weekly blog entry -- let alone repudiate conventional life to become a dogmatic eco-warrior. so, yeah, wow, even though most consider me a very serious doer, i'm a pallid wannabe in comparison to john.

so, here's to you you, john -- JIA YOU! (i chose that expression, of course, to be as ironic as possible : ) ) many happy returns and may our lives begin to resemble yours - even a little bit.