Big thanks to Sheila Dunn for recommending Travis to participate here. I've actually known Travis for a year or so. We met through his wife, Emily, and I believe she initially wanted us to meet because of our sharing an interest in disseminating information via podcasts. Travis makes a podcast called Modern Folk and seems to have a pretty significant interest in living better and more thoughtfully. Travis also participated in a small group of folks I asked to gather together last year with the focus of giving me some advice as this project moved forward. It was so great that Sheila brought his name up. And their particular thread of referrals happens to be the longest one to date — 14 other people referred each other down this line that ended up landing me at Travis' door.
We have a great conversation here and I am so glad to share it with you. In the end, Travis starts interviewing me, too, which isn't exactly the norm. If you can, I recommend listening to this one as the back and forth aspect of our conversation and the tone and cadence and sincerity and smiles and laughter and even some tears seem to all be understood better through the ears than through the eyes. However you take it in, though, I do hope you'll be challenged and inspired.
TW: My name is Travis RIche Wiggins. I am a father, recently. My daughter's just a little over two years old and that's become a really large part of how I define myself right now. I'm a husband and a partner and a lover to my wife, Emily. I am a member of my family — that's really important to me. My family lives in Georgia — that's where I grew up — but I feel pretty darn connected to them despite the distance. I work as a nurse and that's definitely a part of my definition of myself. It's work that really resonates with me. It's the working with people. I'm a fairly deep thinker, although I feel like I often times end up keeping a lot of thoughts inside. I care about people quite a bit. I love people and I think that's such a gift to have these wonderful people in my life.
ACT: That's a good segue. What do people mean to you?
TW: I was tempted to say that people are everything, but I don't think that's really true. Because there are so many more things that I appreciate that aren't human. People are a wonderful way for us to experience being human — way for us to experience consciousness and our emotions. That's something that sets us apart from a lot of the other things that I appreciate. I love the trees and I love the breeze that's blowing outside right now. I have so much appreciation for all those things, but I really love about people our humanness. And the human experience I find to be rather interesting. Seeing that quite a bit as a nurse and the different things that people bring to our relationships. When I meet them in the hospital or I meet people on the street, it's such a broad experience. I love interacting with it in my friends and my family and my community. Just being human is a pretty cool thing about what people mean to me.
ACT: What is your take on the less admirable human behaviors?
TW: I think that's an area where I could stand to grow a little bit, to be honest with you — my reaction to things that I don't see favorable. I tend to be fairly passive. That would be a critique of myself. If I see something that I don't particularly like, I know that I can be fairly passive.
For example, just a moment ago I was walking down the street with my daughter. We live in this residential area in downtown Bend. There's no mistaking that it's a neighborhood and that it's downtown. But people tend to drive really quick. And this guy came around the corner in his Mustang and just immediately revved it and on a trajectory to be going really quick really fast right down this residential street. I couldn't quite make eye contact with him because of the windshield and the glare on it, but I looked right at him and I just said something to the effect of, Whoa, dude. and maybe a little bit of a hand motion — just like, Tone it down brother. This is my neighborhood, man. And I thought about that after that moment. That was maybe actually an appropriate way to encounter someone doing something that I think is outside the realm of normal or safe or wise or prudent. But maybe I could be doing more here. Not to say I should be aggressive to that guy — go up and beat on his door or throw a rock at him or anything — but how do I convey a message to this guy that may be more than just a slight waving of my hand? This really isn't okay; think about what you're doing. So, that's something I've been trying to work on is to find my voice and to use it for some benefit for me and my community. There's probably a day when I never would have motioned to that guy at all. I might have just been upset on the inside. So, I guess I'm glad I made some progress, but I still kinda feel like a softy there.
ACT: My reactions are a bit more extreme, so you can just walk around town with me and take some notes.
TW: I see that. Lots of people are more extreme. That's a good thing. It takes all types. I'm trying to work on that.
ACT: What concerns you about the state of the world and humanity? What gets under your skin and what about it is affecting you personally?
TW: All sorts of things, man. I like to think I generally have a pretty positive outlook, but I do feel a certain baseline level of stress and sorrow and mourning about things. So let me see if I can pull out a few. One thing I think about a lot is the way that in our society — at least here in North America for someone of my age and of my background and of my privilege, basically — I'm concerned with how many choices we have. And how the world is your oyster is the common adage. And for most of my life I knew that to be true and I kind of thought that was a gift. And I think in many ways maybe it still is, but I think there's another side to that coin that everything is out there for the taking. I feel less obligated to do a lot of things. I don't feel particularly obliged... I don't feel a duty to certain things due to this overwhelming sea of choice that I have in front of me. And I think that's common among people of my age and my background and my privilege — being a younger, white, educated male. So, sometimes it seems like what that sea of choices turns into is it manifests in choices that maybe aren't serving you or the world. It can turn into a life of excess or addiction or rampant consumerism or action unbound to any spirituality or any tradition or any lineage.
So, while I don't feel particularly wrecked by any of those things, I feel like it's affecting me none the less because sometimes it just feels like I'm humming along in this easily-accessible, low-hanging-fruit, opportunistic fashion. Like, This a super easy groove. I can be rather passive. No one's really attacking me emotionally or because of my education or color or religion or sex or sexual preferences or anything. So, I'm just on this steady path. And the choices that I'm left with are often times rather easy and fun ones. Do I want to take up skiing or windsurfing this year? They're things that don't carry a lot of weight or consequence and they don't really affect too many people beyond myself.
And I feel like some people, just the nature of who they are, get forced into a more consequential way of being. They have to engage with serious stuff on the daily because of how they were born. I'm lucky, in a sense, that that's not me, but then it just sets me adrift on this easy path — this life of leisure. In a way, I'm lucky for it and I'm grateful. But I feel like now as I'm entering these middle years of my life, I'm interested in finding something with more purpose. Purpose hasn't found me and wasn't handed to me. That makes it sound like I'm a victim of my own reality, but I'm trying to find a way to be more essential.
I do feel that many people are experiencing that and I think that that leads to a lot of what we see around us today. It manifests differently in different people. It might be some of that lostness or that lack of connection or that lack of accountability or that lack of tradition or respect — any number of things — that lack of something that people are having that might be leading to school shootings and toxic commercialism and toxic sexism and all sorts of stuff like that. That's the environment that I grew up in. Not calling foul on any of the people that raised me because that's the environment that was around and they were coming into, as well. That is the relatively sad side of our current situation.
That's our society right now and there's a lot of opportunity there — in the freedom and in the choices. And, luckily, there's a lot of really beautiful people with open hearts trying really hard to point their energy and their intention in ways that are just. But there's also a lot of people that just don't think about it. And that's the general background noise, I think. That's the sprawl and the trash everywhere. And then there's the malignant side of it. This freedom, this choice, all this — it can go to a really extreme degree, as well.
ACT: If community is our relationships to each other and the world we live in and given most people consider their relationships and that community to be the most important thing to them, why are we having such a difficult time treating each other with fairness and equity and compassion?
TW: Well, respectfully, have you interviewed any serious perpetrators?
ACT: I've been waiting for a referral.
TW: I don't really know. Maybe we're limited by our resources. There are just so many opportunities for ways to spend our time now. The people you've been interviewing — the ones I've listened to — they sound like pretty solid people that give a damn and that care. But they and you and me only have so much time and so much energy or so much resources — be that food or money or warm blankets or an extra jacket to give to the guy on the street. We only have so much. I guess that's kind of an easy answer... maybe a little bit of an excuse. Even though I feel like I only have so much, I look around and it's like, Wow, I actually kind of have a lot. And I feel very grateful for the things that I have. I don't know. Maybe dig a little deeper? Maybe the problem is, just for myself, that I'm not as forthcoming with the things that I have as I could be. I do wonder about that often times.
There's a lot of people in this town that care and there's a lot of people that are activists and holders of the flag for change. I often times don't know how much I'm that person. Maybe I could do a little more in that sense. Growing into my role as a vector for change or as an activist — that could be a good place to put my energy. Sometimes I just feel tapped-out trying to keep... I'm busy with my job and my family. Maybe the problem is we're just so busy. What do you think?
ACT: To go back to your question about whether or not I've interviewed any of those people? I don't think there's gonna be many people who are going to volunteer to come out and own their social faux pas. But I do think — and I don't have someone in mind — that there are people I've interviewed that are missing the mark in some capacity. I know I am. The more I learn, the more I realize that I'm contributing to things that are really negatively affecting the world in ways that I wouldn't have been able to imagine. For example, I've been learning about food and how some of my buying habits are keeping people in slavery. I'm not asking someone to own up to being a sex-trafficker. I'm asking for people to own up to our participating in life as it is being dictated to us versus really taking control and making thoughtful decisions on a daily basis.
TW: That's a good point. And I think for you and me both it's important not to become paralyzed by the knowledge that you're not doing it perfect. Because you were born into this thing... this consumer, capitalist, colonial, patriarchal... you were born into that. And somewhere along the way something sparked something inside of you, presumably, as it did in me that made you interested in waking up and learning a little bit more. But it's a continuum. If I allow myself to become paralyzed by the overwhelming amount of stuff that I could be doing, what's the good in that?
You brought up a lot of stuff... the food system. I think about all that stuff daily. And I hope other people do, too. For people to understand right now one thing they can do is be voting with their dollar. I'm a big proponent of that. Support the farmers and the growers and the distributors and the preparers and the grocers that do it in a way that you understand to be the most sustainable for the world. Try to source your clothing and the things around you in your home and your recreation in the same fashion. That's an area, in our home, we really try to do that. But again, like you said, it can be freaking overwhelming and it can drive you crazy. And I've felt that. I feel it regularly. But you kind of have to do the best you can and keep on learning and share.
It's hard too, because there's so many people putting out information. So, who do you listen to? Who do you trust? Who do you give the precious time that your ears have — for maybe two hours a week total — to listen to a podcast or to do this or that? I've got a podcast myself. I try to put some helpful information out there for people. I think everybody would benefit from listening to it, but in reality, people already have their ears, hopefully, glued to something else worthwhile. I don't know. There's just a lot of information out there. It can be paralyzing. I've used that word quite a bit, but sometimes that's how it feels. Realizing that all that's a continuum and doing the best you can... I don't think we're gonna just suddenly wake up one day and be in some sort of utopia. We have to start somewhere. And each of one of us, hopefully, are.
ACT: You keep saying things that I want to dig a little deeper on. I would say here in Bend, Oregon, more than any other place I've ever invested meaningful time in, I actually find that many people have created a utopia for themself. They credit it to their hard work or smart financial decisions or real estate accomplishments somewhere else and they are now living a life of relative wealth in a beautiful place so that they can feed their interest of recreation. And then the concerns of others who don't have those same advantages can easily be forgotten because they're in their groove. They're living their best life.
I want to do better — to do better for my partner and for myself. I'd love to buy a home and not stress about the work I need to do on my car and eat delicious food and travel. But always on my mind is the fact that there is so much to do. There are so many really dire situations out there. And I really don't know what to do with it. This project is what I know to do. But like you said, people have other stuff to listen to. Even within attempts at doing better, we have so many choices. But I do wonder if the options we have are the right options or will be efficient or successful.
TW: Do you have a thought as to why that is?
ACT: I have lots of thoughts as to why. Our pursuit of money has built a culture of busyness and then manifests itself in this feeling of lacking. The voids that we have from our broken community/relationships will never be filled with a consumeristic effort or monetary gain, etc., but every person seems to need to learn that lesson. And every person's trajectory for that is different. Some will never. And some will perpetuate the opposite. But I can speak from my varied and exciting life that the best times I've ever had have been about relationship. We're very busy; we're out of touch with who we are, with our own personal growth; and we're seeking to right that in wrong ways. But that's so judgmental...
TW: You're wondering about the problem from the perspective of someone immersed in the problem. So, the problem is all you know. And it's really all I know. I would give a lot of hope to indigenous peoples and the way the leaders among them are helping to preserve ancient and tried and true ways of living in harmony with the Earth. I'm talking about people that weren't ruled by money, that had a different kind of contract with one another as family members and community members. I think that we have a lot to learn from the survived and still intact indigenous communities. That's an area where I would love to learn more. But I feel like you have to be conscious of cultural appropriation and not just take someone's ideas and practice them as your own. I think there are situations out there where we can learn from people. I would like to be able to do more of that.
What's worth doing? How do we fix this broken society? If I were to be an activist, I should be on the front lines at the Dakota pipeline and down in the Amazon 'cause that stuff is critically important. It's not their water rights; it's our water rights. It's not their Amazon; it's the freakin' Amazon, man. It needs to be protected and cared for. As does all this land. As does our continent... there's been a lot of environmental harm and a lot of poor farming practices — most of it driven by money. But we don't have to reinvent the wheel. And we're probably not gonna figure it out if we're looking around from the vantage point of a bunch of young, affluent white dudes trying to figure out how to solve the problem. The problems were probably were solved long ago — we just forgot the answers.
ACT: You mentioned hope there. This is another question that I've reframed. I used to ask, 'What gives you hope for a better future?' But now I'm more interested in asking, 'Do you think we will accept responsibility and take action to create a better future?'
TW: I think so. And I think we're doing it right now, quite honestly. Even though you didn't ask your old question, I'll answer it anyway. What gives me hope is when you look around there are lots of people working hard at some angle and they're doing their best to preserve some old information. Maybe that is plant medicine — herbalists — or some sort of craft, like making clothes or shoes. There are people that are divesting in some form from this large, shitty system and doing things on a much smaller scale — a scale that's more appropriate and more sustainable and, quite frankly, more satisfying. And I see that and I'm so grateful to know a lot of those people. And I'm grateful that it's cool now to be doing all that stuff. And maybe this is one of the good things about social media — that people see that sort of thing, like farming or craft or cooking, gardening — they see their friends doing it and they're like, This is some cool stuff, man. I gotta get me some of that. And I feel like that is growing. And people that care — people that are more committed to local and sustainable economies and food systems — that has tremendous traction and it gives me hope.
Regenerative agriculture is a newer concept to me. It's something I learned about [through] interviewing people for my podcast, which by the way, is called Modern Folk. That is where people should be putting their energy. I'm grateful for nutrition and health information. There's a lot of shit out there on the shelf in the grocery store and being pushed down our throats on commercials on television. But most of the people that I know are not buying that and they're not listening to it on the TV or on the radio. And that gives me hope. There's no shortage of horrible decisions that we could make. Some people are doing them all the time and they're rampantly making horrible decisions for their own bodies and their families and their communities. But we are at a pretty cool time where there are some good choices out there. It's an opportunity for us to engage with those good choices and to share some information. Don't eat that shit. There's nothing good gonna come of that in your own body on in the soil or in the atmosphere. It's a bad thing from start to finish. So, yeah, I do have a lot of hope.
ACT: You mentioned a desire for purpose. Do you have an idea for where that desire to have a sense of purpose comes from?
TW: I do. I think I've always been interested in doing better for myself and trying to be a better person. And, again, that's a continuum. I've know that and I've understood that for a long time. There's really a particular author that I've read that I would recommend to other people. It's a guy named Stephen Jenkinson... he writes on death and dying in his first book. And it really changed the way I understand a lot of things. And he highlighted a lot of things for me. A lot of my feelings about the world were formed from reading Stephen Jenkinson's books: Die Wise and then the other one is called Come of Age. And there's other authors as well. I would say that through my own exploration of the world, I've come across a couple ideas and people — Wendell Berry's another one — they just share ideas of both cynicism, but also sometimes a path forward. How can we be more engaged and how can we do better for our families or our community? How do we do our part? It's reading those authors, primarily, that launched me on that path of really wanting to understand and participate... the power of sharing information.