My only anxiety is what I can do... could I not be of use and good for something?... The world only concerns me in so far as I feel a certain debt and duty towards it and out of gratitude want to leave some souvenir in the shape of drawings or pictures... to express sincere human feeling. ~~Vincent van Gogh This is a book about meaningful work; about values and virtues, ideals and responsibility, spirit and hope, creativity and community... Essays from To Be Of Use Praise for To Be Of Use: Inspiring, clear, and supremely relevant... a beacon of light to our troubled times. ~~John Robbins, author of Diet For A New America, and The Food Revolution ~~ I simply loved this book by the unsung half of the founding partners of Smith & Hawken. ~~Tom Peters, best selling business author ~~ There are many books about spirit at work, finding meaning in your work and living a life on purpose. There are also a growing number of books about business social responsibility and the dominance that corporations hold over modern culture. What Dave Smith, in his new book, To Be of Use, has done is bring together in one, highly personal and readable place, how the effort to find personal meaning, reclaim our democracy, and restore the environment are all connected and within the reach of each of us. He is a strong advocate for the importance of creating and supporting local businesses and sustaining our local economies. The book underlines the importance of transforming our choices about consumption by focusing on food and agriculture. Food, its production, distribution and consumption is central to the kind of world many of us want to support. It is an arena where each of us can be activists in creating this world. Agriculture is one of the primary industries that is highly centralized, automated with a high energy requirement, operates under the control of giant corporations, and undermines all the advantages of a self sufficient local economy. Stephen Decater, a community based farmer is quoted as saying, "When someone goes to the supermarket to buy food, only ten cents or less goes to the farmer. The only way to survive on that is to grow ten times more product, which is not possible without large capital inputs. So farming has become a system run by banks and large industrial corporations, subsidized by our taxes, that keeps food artificially cheap, driving out the small farmer who is not subsidized and cannot compete with their prices. There is no future for the family farm under that system. So we need an approach where the people eating the food work directly with the people growing the food. If we want to create a local agriculture that is not so totally dependent on banks for capital, fossil fuels for energy, toxic chemicals for pest problems, and chemical fertilizers... and not be burdened by the environmental destruction that comes from all that, we need to bring it back to a food system that works locally." Reading this book is going to make a difference in how I think about the role food plays in ways much larger than just diet and health. Take this way of thinking and broaden it to include all of our patterns of lifestyle and consumption. Every organization we choose to work for and every business we patronize become political acts, which determine the future of our society. By thinking and acting along these lines, we can create an economy which confronts the very purpose of our organizations. None wants to be purists or even heroic in what we do, but we can become conscious and Smith helps us along. It is an important insight to see the day-to-day connection between our actions and the health of our communities, our businesses and our own spirit. What is also important about this book is just how Smith goes beyond the need for individuals to find meaning and actualization within the givens of our organizations and society. Smith is much more political than this and joins others such as David Korten (When Corporations Rule the World) and Marjorie Kelly (The Divine Right of Capital) in confronting the basic purpose of corporations and their willingness to take responsibility for their full role in the world. His goal is to "create pockets of democratic cooperation" in our workplaces and in our communities. He has a quote from Wendell Berry that captures the essence of what will create an alternative future: "The real work of planet saving will be small, humble, and humbling, and (insofar as it involves love) pleasing and rewarding. Its jobs will be too many to count, too many to report, too many to be publicly noticed or rewarded, too small to make anyone rich or famous." This is a strategy and way of being that we each can act on and Smith gives a very concrete set of actions that will make a difference. It is also noteworthy that the author, as founder of companies like Smith and Hawken and Briarpatch Co-op, has followed the path he recommends. The book is structured in the spiritual context of converting the seven deadly sins into the seven life-giving seeds. This is a very good book, in its accessible style, the breadth of its thinking, and in the generosity with which it is offered. ~~Peter Block, author of Stewardship and several best-selling business books.