The Grapes of Wealth

Something really strange happened this year to the grape vines I planted last year:  something I wouldn't have expected and that, frankly, I was completely unprepared for.

I found grapes on them. 

I know that in other people's yards, grape vines yield grapes, but this my yard:  the Yard of the Basil Killer, the garden where the weeds outnumber the tomatoes 8-to-1.  I put the grape vines in the ground last year; I read the instructions about fertilizing and pruning, and then I proceeded to not-fertilize and to not-prune.   So I naturally figured I'd have a bunch of fruitless vines among the tomato-weeds.   Or maybe I'd get a few grapes that would be snatched by squirrels.

Bunches of charity requests.  Not the same as grapes.

But instead, the grape vines decided to be fruitful.  Bunches and bunches of grapes (literally, bunches) appeared.  The grapes themselves taste awesome  -- not like the grapes I've had from the store, but really wonderfully delicious.   But with seeds.  So eating them is a bit of an adventure, because each yummy little orb of a grape has, like, 4 seeds in it.

Thing is, the grapes don't just hang around waiting to be eaten.  They hang around, but if I don't eat them, they turn brown and yucky.  So this past weekend I realized I'd better do something about the fact that my back yard was, for a brief moment in time, a vineyard.

Bunched together in rubber bands, by who sent the request.

I'm not much of a grape juice drinker, so I decided instead to halve each grape, remove the seeds, and freeze the fruit. (Because frozen grapes = yummy).

But it turns out that de-seeding grapes takes me a long time, if I'm not trying to simultaneously turn the grape into juice.  Like, it took a few hours.  So while I de-seeded, I watched TED talk after TED talk.   Bunches of TED talks. 

Since I have recently been through our family dOnnOr (where we sort through charity envelopes and try to decide where to send our money), I've been thinking a lot about ways to increase the likelihood that the money I give away has the same kind of intentional, effective power as the money I spend (or often, don't spend) at home. 

Dude, even carrying the envelopes around was a bit of a chore.  

I know about Charity Navigator and Charity Watch (are charities spending money on projects, or on administration?).   And I've been learning dribs and drabs about the Effective Altruism movement and the GiveWell site.   But I the more I learn, the more I realize that I still have a freakin' heck of a lot to learn. 

A post-it note on N-son's door.

So I watched a bunch of videos on giving stuff away, and eventually started this playlist on Generosity.  (I got halfway through, and want to see more). 

I know that malaria nets and deworming are some of the most effective ways to save many lives for small amounts of money.  That, I get.

And I dug a bit into improving lives by giving really poor people a bit of money, no questions asked.  That's scary and counter-intuitive, and I'm still sussing that one out.

But I haven't yet figured out how to deal with the big messy problems that transcend counting people who are still above ground and comparing that to the number of human beings who died.

So this year, with each check I wrote,
I included a slip of paper that asked:
"We are trying to reduce the amount of waste our family generates. 
Please send us only one request envelope per year. 
Mailing us the request in June or July would be fine;
we don't need or want other mailings."

For example, what if I worry (as I do) that environmental degradation leads not only to loss of human life, but also to international conflicts, to global refugee crises of unprecedented proportions, and to irrevocable damage to our ecosystem?  How do we figure out how to give effectively to organizations that want to save the whole world?   How can I tell whether the money I give is effective at combatting attitudes (personal, business, government) that thinks that a strong economy automatically outweighs a strong ecology?  I haven't figured that one out yet. 

Yet. 

So in my spare time -- or at least, in my grape time -- I try to learn a little bit more.  I chop grapes, and I hear about how Bill and Melinda Gates work together, and about how the mind of altruists work, and about how pro-social gifts make us happier than spending on ourselves does, and how sometimes poor people actually know better than aid workers how to spend money that alleviates extreme poverty --- and I don't quite answer the questions I wanted answered, but I get closer.

And also, I get frozen grapes. 

From my vineyard. 

Yeah.