Living at the growing tip
We can learn a lot from mushrooms.
They build cross-species communities that improve the ecosystems they live in, they are in a constantly gender-fluid state of evolution and are happiest in a state of uncertainty…the list of admirable qualities we fail miserably at as humans is endless.
Like most mycelium fans (and I’m imagining you’re one of them) I spend a lot of time thinking about how I can be more mushroom.
Life for mycelium is spent at the growing tip, in a constant state of becoming as it moves forwards, laying down layer on layer of new cells. The mycelial network behind them is the past, the vast expanse of soil, rotting wood, fermented beans or empty space is the future.
There are no labels, boundaries or rules for a mycelium. No big, noisy changes to be planned and strategised, just a slow and steady change with the vernacular of the place they find themselves. Don’t like it here? Grow a new tip and get yourself outa there. Like the look of that nice fallen branch, head over there cell-by-cell, send out the chemical signal and tell your friends, dinner’s up!
This is how I feel. I started Bród as a way of solidifying a messy pile of thoughts into something that I could pick up and look at. How do you create an alternative protein source that doesn’t rely on ingredients that consume massive amounts of carbon? How do you use what we already have in the UK to close a loop on a broken farming system, providing value back to farmers? How can you consume something that actually adds back nitrogen to the soil? And how can you create the kind of value in plant-based foods that we’ve seen in the growth of organic meats, cheeses and other animal foods in the last 20 years?
The answer was a business of some kind making amazing-tasting (IMHO) British-grown fermented plant meats accessible and aspirational. But like a mycelium, as you chew through one idea, you find yourself discovering others.
What about the massive lack of diversity in food and farming? Or in the countryside as a whole? What even does the ‘countryside’ become, if not a massive commuter belt, generating carbon credits for us to happily spend on subsidised chicken from America? Does Tempeh and Oncnom made of ancient British varieties of beans solve that? Does it need to??
Like a mycelium in search of it’s teen-crush substrate, I find myself playing Smallown Boy on repeat, scrolling through pictures of pre-enclosure farming systems and reading books about medieval queer witch trials. Not so much looking for one answer, but at least searching for a pattern in the matrix of ideas that is growing.
Life has taught us to be quiet until we know the answer. Never think out loud in case you get it wrong. Be clear, focus. But now doesn’t feel like the time for focussing. I haven’t found my freshly sawn log yet! my mind isn’t ready to settle on one substrate.
So what is Bród?! I don’t know… yet.
It may well be what it was to start with but it’s still a baby, it could become anything.
So I’m starting this blog to think out loud. Bród will go back to its primordial state, a collection of evolving ideas until it re-emerges with a new form on the other side. As Bród evolves, maybe somewhere else, maybe to where it started, you can follow the winding path of it’s growing tipson this blog.
When we find our log, we’ll know. Until then, let’s go adventuring across the forest floor in search of it.