Put this in a blender: college professor, dean, PhD in environmental science, post-doctoral work at Harvard, project manager at IBM in Silicon Valley, and funding from the National Science Foundation. Hit the button and let it all whir. Go ahead.
Then try not to act surprised when the resulting concoction contains a dumpster tricked out as a residence, an extended trip without luggage, and a lot of couch surfing.
Say what?
This is the beauty of Jeff Wilson. The surprise. The feeling of, what next?
“How much does one need to have a good life?” he asks in a talk he gave for Creative Mornings in Austin, Texas.
You know the people who wonder things like this and then never take the time to really reflect on them? That is not Wilson, a.k.a. Professor Dumpster. It is his starting point, his impetus for creativity.
One of the first things I feel compelled to ask him in our recent interview is whether there was any sign in his early life that one day he might do an experiment that would result in him picking up that nickname. He seems amused as he ponders it.
“Weirdly not,” he says.
In fact, even in his post-college days working as a project manager for IBM in Silicon Valley, there was little about his lifestyle to suggest that one day he would come to stand for minimalism and its vast rewards. Back then, how could he have known that an existential crisis would lead to burying his Rolex in the Mojave Desert? And a transition to academia? And then, well, experiments?
Yes, experiments.
As he explains in that Creative Mornings talk, he is a scientist who is fond of scientific method. So The Dumpster Project involved making a dumpster into a fully sustainable home. This particular container was on the Austin campus of Huston-Tillotson University, where he is currently dean of the University College and associate professor of Biological Sciences. As has been chronicled in major media in the United States and abroad, he pared down his possessions, had access to the bathroom/shower facilities of the college, and dealt with issues as they arose.
But why do it at all?
“To continue to grow,” Wilson says. “To find out new things about yourself. You have to get into the mindset of a mad scientist.”
Plenty of people would be comfortable with the ‘mad’ part of that term when it comes to Wilson’s experiment. Wouldn’t you have to be, just a little? The interesting thing about talking to Wilson, though, is that he comes off as refreshing. Who ditches the comfortable financial lifestyle just because it has you tied up in a big knot? This guy.
He tells me his criteria for whether to take on a big project is its potential to have a ripple effect through society.
“Could the universe potentially learn something about itself?” he says.
So logically the question follows – what did the universe learn about itself through The Dumpster Project?
“Even at the very outer limits, when you make a choice to live on less, it does actually still work,” Wilson says. “My life became richer and fuller. It was a more free, interesting life.”
While that is not necessarily universal, there is more. Wilson cites the quote “Know thyself” from the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.
“It’s pretty difficult to know yourself when you have a 30-year mortgage and a 2,480-square foot home,” Wilson says.
He explains this further in the Creative Mornings talk, which had as its theme the word ‘minimal.’ His conclusion goes something like this:
More minimal = more freedom = more moments.
So while the experience of leaving his Silicon Valley life meant loss of a job, nice things, and status, what he gained was new direction. That resulted in not only academia, but an experiment that is on its way to becoming a book and a movie. Wilson posted a profile on OKCupid.com, met writer Clara Bensen, and after just a few weeks of dating asked her if she’d like to accompany him on a three-week trip to Europe.
She decided to go for it, but then Wilson revealed he’d like to do the trip with only the clothes on his back. They went and the ensuing book, called No Baggage, is a travel memoir that will be published later this year. It has also been picked up by New Line Cinema, so a film is in the works.
From that experiment, Wilson says he gained freedom, choices and a partner. In fact, Bensen – along with photographer Jasmine “Bobby” Oliver -- is an integral part of a new project called 99 Nights that essentially involves Wilson sleeping on the couch in 99 homes around Austin. They are taking this approach to learn about a city in flux and so have solicited volunteers to host him.
“The 99 Nights project intends to profile 99 of these homes and the stories of the diverse inhabitants who live inside them,” it says on the 99 Nights website. “By doing so, we hope to come to a broader, richer, and more nuanced understanding of what home looks like in Austin and highlight the broad spectrum of neighbors that make Austin what it is.”
Wilson calls himself the guinea pig.
“The real work is what the writer and the photographer have to do,” he says.
He basically shows up at dinner time with an apple pie, requires no linens because he brings his own sleeping sack, takes an evening walk with his host around the neighborhood, and he leaves before or after breakfast depending on the arrangement. As of this writing he began the project with a stay in the home of a city councilwoman.
At one point we talk about what has changed in him and he speaks of not being comfortable with the system, including some of the most powerful education entities in the world.
“There are not a lot of cracks,” he says. “Sometimes you have to swing the hammer and make a couple of cracks.”
The man who says he lives a pretty good life and that each week gets better as a result of his first two experiments is at it again. One has to wonder what he’ll get from all this couch surfing. Such an intriguing idea coming to fruition.
Another surprise to add to the mix.
By Nancy Colasurdo
Photo Credit: Sarah Natsumi Moore
