Serendipity: The Faculty of Making Fortunate Discoveries By Accident

by Ariel Bui

In August of 2009, my best friend randomly picked out a movie from the library.  He then recommended I go to the library and get the same documentary, Garbage Warrior.  He said he’d never seen anything like it before and that I just had to watch it.

After graduating from college in May 2009, like many others I was unsure of what the future would hold.  My education taught me many worldly things, yet I felt trapped in theory and was ready for action.  I learned about social inequality, human impacts on marine ecosystems, natural vs. pharmaceutical drugs, corporations, independent media, and how to perform and teach music, amongst many other things.  In the academic setting, my fellow students and I were told we were armed and ready to change the world.

Post-graduation, I was told that the “real world” would not let me hang on to my ideals of how things should be despite all the knowledge that things should be different.  I fought the advice that I should go to law school and pursue a monetarily successful career in preparation for starting a family by the age of thirty.  I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew exactly what I did NOT want to do.

I did not want to go into more student loan debt and be bound to a career by indentured servitude.  I did not want to be a part of the current housing system, because I had worked at a bank to support myself through school and had seen the sub-prime mortgage crash years before it was talked about in the media.  I did not want to contribute to the issues of hunger and homelessness by feeding into the capitalistic model of food and housing, especially since I had volunteered so much time sharing food through Food Not Bombs, a group that believes food is a right not a privilege.  I did not want to contribute to exponential population growth, especially if having children meant they would have to live in the wasteful society I was raised in.

After learning about the Earthship concept, I felt I had found a community of people who shared many of my sentiments about life on Earth.  My best friend, Jacob, and I discussed building an Earthship in Mexico on a friend’s father’s farm.  I told everyone close to me all about Earthships and how I planned to build one one day.  My life-long dream of creating an intentional community with my friends felt one step closer to reality.  My excitement was received with a mixture of support and skepticism.

One day, a close friend, Lauren, called from her latest bicycle-touring destination, Chicago.  She had just heard about an Earthship internship happening in Texas in November 2009, the same month that I was planning on moving to San Antonio.  I called Earthship Biotecture to sign up but was told the internship was full.  It seemed I would have to find another way to get involved.

So, I bought the Complete Library Set, watched all the videos, and read Earthships, Volume I:  How to Build Your Own.  I studied the website, signed up on Earthship.com to join the forums and receive the newsletters.  Within a few weeks, an e-mail newsletter notified my inbox that the second Crockett, TX hit needed interns.  Next thing I know, Tanya was picking up the phone in the Earthship Biotecture office and signing Jacob and me up for one week in Crockett, TX.

This was only the beginning…

Matt K

Serendipity: The Faculty of Making Fortunate Discoveries By Accident May 19 2010 19:57:56 What a great introduction to what I hope is an ongoing story. I'd love to read some updates about your internship and the plan to create an intentional community with your friends. I've been signing the praises of biotecture to my friends for months now, ever since stumbling upon it. They all think I'm crazy, but the more I look into it, the crazier it seems to willfully submit one's self to the outdated modes of municipal plumbing, sewage, construction, power generation, and food distribution, which so greatly reduce our true freedom and independence. Hopefully they'll come around soon. Best of luck to you.

#4393

bret mccormick

Serendipity: The Faculty of Making Fortunate Discoveries By Accident Jun 06 2010 01:59:52 Ahhhh, my dear Ariel. Tell Jacob and my favorite nut Sebatian hello. You are a wonderful artisan. I hope ya'll will come to Texas and help us build another...

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JewelOF

Serendipity: The Faculty of Making Fortunate Discoveries By Accident Jun 06 2010 21:12:31 What a wonderful story. I fell in love with Earthships a couple of years ago, I can't quite remember how but came across the website and joined. I have land in PEI but I do not live there I live on Vancouver Island, BC. It is enough to build a couple of Earthships on but I am not in the position yet to be able to build them. Like you I did not want to fall into the trap of owing to a mortgage for something that will not sustain. I will trust in life and that when it is time it will happen. These are the future and it will be a part of mine too.

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