Meme #5 - Inside-Out Rather Than Outside-In

In Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake observes that, 

Mycelium is how fungi feed. Some organisms - such as plants that photosynthesize - make their own food. Some organisms - like most animals - find food in the world and put it inside their bodies, where it is digested and absorbed. Fungi have a different strategy. They digest the world where it is and then absorb it into their bodies. Their hyphae are long and branched, and only a single cell thick - between two and twenty micrometers in diameter, more than five times thinner than an average human hair. The more of their surroundings that hyphae can touch, the more they can consume. The difference between animals and fungi is simple: Animals put food into their bodies, whereas fungi put their bodies in the food. (p.51) 

This insight shows that mycelium turn the “simple” process of eating on its head, but it does not suggest that those wanting to follow the Way of Fungi must literally crawl inside our food and try to absorb nutrients - although that sounds like an intriguing experiment. Doing that would demand we wind back the clock two billion years and take a different evolutionary path. Luckily, it doesn’t need to be that dramatic. Instead, it can be done by simply reorienting our relationship to the primary sources of energy (food, ideas, goods, entertainment, etc.), broadly moving away from an outside-in approach to life, to an inside-out one. Instead of consuming the object of our desire and then moving on to the next tantalizing morsel (purchase, consume, repeat), what if we lived with it for a while, got to know it, savored all its particulars, and even learned a little from it before saying goodbye? It often takes fungi a hundred years or more to consume a dead tree. That’s a long time to live with your food. In fact, the fungi become an integral part of the log, which is still quite an active community of moss, insects, mammals, and birds all happily residing alongside the fungi for generations. 

Many of us are fairly removed from the source of what we consume. We see these things as separate from us and objects designed to meet our needs and satisfy our cravings. Following a fungi lifestyle doesn’t mean taking a hundred years to eat a meal, but it would mean slowing down enough to engage with it in a completely new way. This is not as radical as it sounds and doesn’t imply a huge commitment. In fact, it would take just a few simple steps. 

The first step would be to learn more about where our food, ideas, goods, entertainment, etc. come from, how they’re grown or manufactured, and the manner they get to us. This can all be accomplished by just watching a few YouTube videos - we don’t really need to get that deep. It’s amazing how much quality educational content is just sitting out there, begging for someone to watch it, and one viewing can change an everyday, unconscious experience into something quite unexpected. For instance, I recently ate an apple. Of course, I bit it, chewed it, swallowed it, and with the help of millions of fungi and bacteria cells in my gut, I digested it. But I’m embarrassed to admit that I’d never really thought about how apples got to my supermarket. My best guess was that the fruit grew on a tree (I had no idea where), was picked and shipped (I had no idea how) to (maybe?) a warehouse where it was sorted, put into some sort of shipping container (I guess), and sent to somewhere else (maybe another warehouse or maybe the store where I bought it?). Unfortunately, this was my understanding of how all my food (and pretty much everything else) got to me. But one video on how apples are packaged and distributed deepened my appreciation of, and developed a new curiosity about, apples - and all sorts of other foods. This has led me down some fascinating rabbit holes that have transformed my experience with eating and raised some concerns about how, when, and where foods like apples are grown and the manner I wish to acquire them. 

Learning the details about the production of the things that sustain us fosters a living relationship with them. This includes the food we eat, the books we read, the goods we use, and the movies we watch. Everything. I have a feeling I’m not alone in my ignorance on where they all come from. Many of us have no clue on what it takes to produce and transport them to our local stores where they sit like shiny presents just waiting for us to tear into. Developing this type of understanding would create context and broaden out the experience, lengthening the time we actively engage with a particular source of energy - thus beginning the process of living from the inside-out. It would open our eyes so that objects of desire are no longer something we just gobble down. 

The next step would be to glean lessons from how fungi interact with its food. As stated above, “They digest the world where it is and absorb it into their bodies.” This suggests that they are active participants in a process rather than passive consumers. For us, this active engagement may entail occasionally going directly to the sources of the energy. For instance, my daughter has a plot at a community garden, where I help to weed and water. It’s been a transformative experience watching the vicissitudes of weather and insects either wreak havoc or promote the growth of her various plants. Working a garden plot has certainly deepened my sense of wonder and informed an understanding of what it takes to bring food to the table. My relationship to zucchini bread is forever changed because I recently baked with a giant specimen from the garden rather than zucchinis purchased at the store. It just tastes a little better because I have “sweat equity” flowing inside. Another example that’s only a step removed from this, would be to purchase food and other natural products at farmers’ markets or roadside stands when available. Talking to the people who grow or process the food brings us a little closer to the source. Luckily, many farmers’ markets in the U.S. accept food assistance cards, which opens this resource to people with low income. 

Another lesson to take away from fungi’s approach to its food would be to examine how we access and engage with all sources of energy. An outside-in approach is like digging a hole and filling it with water. The water will always be absorbed by the ground and evaporated by the sun, so it is in constant need of refilling - an exhausting endeavor. An inside-out approach on the other hand, is like digging a well that taps into the aquifer, so it will always be filled by the hidden, internal source of water - a more elegant solution. To illustrate this distinction, I used to live in a tourist town, and I witnessed firsthand the difference between the behavior of tourists who swept in for a few days and the locals who lived there. Generally, tourists exhibited an outside-in manner, furiously hunting for souvenirs, gravitating toward obvious forms of entertainment, and filling up on non-challenging food while locals usually shied away from these things and were more concerned by the quality of the schools, job opportunities that paid a living wage, and forms of entertainment far away from the flashy attractions. This is not an indictment. It’s fun to be a tourist and hopefully, we all get the chance to do it occasionally, but if we want to follow the Way of Fungi, our day-to-day lives should be driven by mindsets that approach the world in a more inside-out manner. Another example: I am currently writing this essay on a laptop computer. What do I know about the machine? Well, before I watched some YouTube videos on it - almost nothing. But after watching, my mind has been boggled by 1) the immensity of such a technological achievement and 2) images of oppressive human labor and destructive environmental practices in China. It’s beyond the scope of this essay to get into a lengthy analysis, but suffice to say, it’s a complicated situation and if I’m going to live in an inside-out manner, I must take it all into account while using the product. Along with this kind of “moral calculation,” living with the laptop rather than just using it means I should also take the time to learn all that it can do. It has so many capabilities and currently I’m only scratching the surface. This process is ongoing, and as I play around with it, the machine becomes more familiar and my engagement with it deepens - one might even say that I’m starting to absorb some of it into myself. 

Finally, the third step would be to imagine how to generalize these insights into other relationships in our lives. This commentary that I’m calling The Way of Fungi is an attempt to live with Merlin Sheldrake’s book, Entangled Life just a little longer and in slightly more depth. I’ve read it three times (including the endnotes, which are fantastic) and I think I’ve absorbed quite a lot of it. I took notes in the margins while reading and transferred them to a notebook that I bring with me while I’m out and about. This allows me to conveniently consume the tastiest morels during down-times between other activities. These current essays are based on those notes. If there is a primary audience for them, it’s me. The process allows me to integrate the Way of Fungi into all aspects of my life. It’s an exercise that branches out into the micro details of my surrounding environment, homes in on related topics, and weaves them together in a web that increasingly informs my daily thinking and behavior. Sheldrake’s book is most definitely a source of energy for me - along with many other books that I’ve read and am currently reading. The same can be said about the food I eat, the products I use, and the entertainment I enjoy. The challenge is to maintain an inside-out posture rather than revert to an outside-in one while doing so.