Of Mentors and Movements

I've been thinking about the actions I am taking and whether they can fit into a bigger movement.

John Michael Greer's latest piece [update site was taken down, here is a copy.] at the Archdruid Report is on the failure of the Peak Oil movement (maybe one could say the collapse of the collapse movement).

JMG is great about answering his commentators, so I asked

 Do you think there is any hope for a de-industrialization/retrotopian movement framed around quality of life issues? 

So much of modern life is ugly, noisy, and boring. Spaces can be made that are the opposite of all of those things and then be used by the home economy as a way to pay for the space and it's joy. 

Or do you think as long as there is a great fear of some competitor taking their status, most people really can't see that truth (after all, reading Walden shows that people have had the opportunity all along, eh?)

To which JMG replied

it would have to be handled very skillfully, to keep from going the way of the voluntary simplicity movement, and being turned into a sales pitch for "simple" products. It might well be worth trying, though

Then by coincidence I stumbled across Vinay Gupat's  fictional piece The Unplugged.  It's an excellent read.

So the real question is whether I am ready to stop being just an individual and be part of a movement?  Or is more correct to ask if I need to pick up the ideas of my mentors and put in the work to make them movements?

If the answer is yes in either case, then the best place to start is in making Norman weird, and, of course, in corrupting the youth.