My nudgy friend Bill regards posts like the previous one with some disdain or at least, ‘it-ain’t-enough’ disapproval. He never lets me off the hook. He believes it isn’t fair to just vent. It’s not enough just to hang your opinions out on the line like soiled laundry, you’ve gotta have some positive suggestions. What kinds of things should someone do to counteract the current conditions, and perhaps lay the ground work for something fresh and new to emerge?
In that spirit, here’s a short list, though it’s just a beginning:
1- Grow something, anything. Preferably grow something you can eat, but growing anything is a good first step. Ideally you should start something from seed, but that isn’t necessary. Seeds are like prayers, or good thoughts. Once you plant them they have an innate urge to grow and proliferate. They require some nurturing and attention, but with time you can make them flourish. Plus, with seeds there is always the magical moment of seeing the leaves emerge from the soil and flex towards the sunlight. If you’re comfortable with a bigger move, start a garden or help someone out with theirs. There’s nothing quite as invigorating as the fragrance of moist warm soil on a fresh Spring morning!
2- Turn off the TV and READ! Here’s a short list of authors that will/can provide some information and/or inspiration. Not all of them are readily available; not all of them are positive tonics. To stoke your worries but open your thinking: Derrick Jensen, Richard Heinberg, Joe Bageant, Jim Kunstler To explore some new ways of looking at the world: Daniel Quinn, Alan Watts, Rob Hopkins, Sharon Astyk, Gene Logsdon, Kirkpatrick Sale, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Wendell Berry – probably start with him.
3- Learn how to cook. This is a skill everyone can use and share.
4- Repair or recondition something -- A bicycle, a wheelbarrow, a chair.
5- Make something by hand. A wooden spoon, for example. Just try carving one and you'll discover just how rewarding working with your hands can be.
6- Give something away. It has to be something you like and something that is useful, not a piece of junk.
7- Consume less. Yeah, I know, everyone says this and for most of us it is a reality anyway these days. In some, but no means all instances, you can reduce the pain by making your choices more conscious and deliberate. From energy to water to gadgets to clothing making conscious choices about what and how you ‘consume’ helps to make those choices not only less wrenching, but actually fulfilling. I know you may not believe it but it’s true.
8- Buy used whenever possible; you can’t exist without some consumption after all. Even better than used, is free. Join ‘Freecycle’ in your community and ask for what you need. If there isn’t a freecycle group nearby, go here -- to find out how you can start one.
9- Consider starting a Transition Initiative in your community. Go to this website for more information: http://transitionculture.org. If that seems like an insurmountable task, start small and organize some REGULAR potluck meals with some like-minded folks. You can probably find quite a few souls wandering around who share your concerns but feel powerless or at least stymied. You can use ‘Meetup’ (just a Google click away) or similar sites on line. Church congregations can be another good place to look.
10- When you shop, shop at locally owned and operated stores. Support the merchants in your own community. Going to BBS (Big Box Stores) may save you money, but BBS don’t tend to keep much, if any, of their profit money in the local community. Worst of all, they are relentless predators and muscle smaller retailers out of business. Not only that, if you have to drive more than 10 miles one way to a BBS, you may not be saving any significant amount of money any way, at least not on small to medium purchases. Moreover, you will be adding CO2 and other pollutants to the environment as well as putting wear and tear on your car.
11- Form a shopping pool. When you must go shopping, try as often as possible to buddy up with someone you know who is likely to be wanting or needing to go on a similar errand. It may add a little extra time but it will pay you back major social dividends and save some money too.
12- Go find a vernal pond and listen to the peepers for about half an hour.
Addendum to the previous post: It is actually important to Immerse yourself in all your dark fantasies about the present and the future. If you don’t explore that side, it will just keep infecting your thoughts. Don’t just ignore and push away the despair, frustration and fear. It’s there and it’s real. But it doesn’t have to run you all the time. Then try to envision a fresh future that has in it only those things that truly fulfill you. What would that look like? How would it feel? Go on, run with it. Envision away!
This is just a starter list. Add to it whatever works for you.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
The Worm is Stirring
Here in NE, things are thawing out from a kind of so-so, mundane winter, not a lot of snow, not a lot of really bitter weather, just a lot of cold, grey days. But now, the temperature is creeping up and the days are reaching out a little longer. As a kind of automatic emotional reflex we want to believe that things indeed are getting better. We really want to believe.
Consequently, most people, whether they are from the left, the right or the middle politically, are still drinking the Kool Ade of the Kulture. “We’re Amreica!” “This is all going to blow over.” “The economy’s going to bounce back.” “Look, it’s already beginning to turn around.” Etc Ad Nauseum. To question this blind boosterism is tantamount to heresy. While none of the folks I talk to would claim to be believers in the tooth fairy, fakirs, magicians Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, in fact, they DO! They are perfectly and placidly content to believe, almost unconditionally, in levitation. They are convinced that through the sheer force of their collective belief, they can ‘raise’ the economy. It may be the only collective thing they actually believe in. After all, there’s still a suspicious odor about anything that smacks of ‘community’ or ‘collective efforts’ in the mainstream media. Just remember the recent feeding frenzy of the right wing as they gnawed away at ‘socialism’. Obviously for many, the spectre of communism still evokes frightful nightmares of wandering Red zombie husks hoping to suck your neck. But even today, ‘collective’ is a word to avoid; it probably isn’t wise to point out ‘collective’ delusions.
So, back to the real as well as the economic weather: things do seem to be getting warmer that’s true, but, ‘better’ is damned relative don’t you think? For those folks who have lost their jobs and their unemployment benefits are running out, things certainly aren’t getting any better. There are fewer jobs available and there are more people chasing them. Not only that, as many economists, even those of the home-grown variety, have observed, the jobs that are available pay less and offer less in benefits and even less security. More and more highly educated and highly skilled people are working at low-paying, unsatisfying, no-benefits, no-future ‘jobs’. Moreover, many of them are getting those jobs through ‘temp agencies’ that take a slice of the $$$ from someone, the employer or the employee, and sometimes both, I suspect. In these times, planning and practicing a professional work trajectory, except for a handful of niche spots, like brain surgery, is almost an antiquated idea. Instead of the soft and fuzzy economy of ideas and services that we thought we would get, we have devolved back to a bloody-toothed economy.
I have three friends who are in the ‘contracting’ business. I know it’s a small and unscientific slice of reality, but bear with me. Two of them are construction guys, and one of them is in the landscape business. All of them report that there has been a lot of ‘interest’ lately. They say they have ‘been getting a lot of calls’. Lots of potential work is bubbling up it seems. Most of it is either rather small and very-limited, short-term sort of stuff, but there are a handful of very high-end, very costly, longer-term projects. My landscape contractor friend tells me that’s where all of his potential work will come from. The middle-class projects are all gone. For these ‘million dollar’ jobs the competition is something that resembles hand-to-hand combat, and the ‘clients’ can grind the price down to levels not seen for at least ten to fifteen years. To me this isn’t surprising, but it isn’t exactly a picture of a rosy economy. Right now there is a bit of chum in the water and all the fish are tasting it. Food on the table and all that. But it is axiomatic in this system that there are sharks too, and as they sense blood, they will winnow down the school of fish, efficiently, relentlessly, remorselessly.
Though this should be a time when all of us are pulling together and looking out for one another, our culture, our society, our ‘normal’ way of life, our economy is stirring us to practice just the opposite. A few of those are pushing for a kind of national ‘tough love’ policy. Some politician even suggested the other day that “people who don’t have jobs really don’t want to work.” I think it was some Republican representative from Texas. In our real world, not his obviously, there are fewer and fewer places at the grown-ups table now, and yet there are more mouths to feed. More and more of us are going to be subsisting on leftovers and scraps. It is predictable that most of us will be forced to go through more and more subservient contortions, emotional, psychological and social, just to get those. Already ‘employers’ are shaking down their ‘employees’ to give back ‘benefits’ they have ‘won’ over the past 60 years. If you think this is a scenario for future well-being and contentment, or progress and health, perhaps you should think again.
Even TIME magazine has recognized that the times they are changing. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1971133_1971110_1971126,00.html
Well, it isn't just the youngsters that are making the necessary changes. Us oldsters may even have an edge on this trend. Anyway. It can now be said aloud: Resilience and relocalization are the new 'red menace'. Bolt your doors America!
Consequently, most people, whether they are from the left, the right or the middle politically, are still drinking the Kool Ade of the Kulture. “We’re Amreica!” “This is all going to blow over.” “The economy’s going to bounce back.” “Look, it’s already beginning to turn around.” Etc Ad Nauseum. To question this blind boosterism is tantamount to heresy. While none of the folks I talk to would claim to be believers in the tooth fairy, fakirs, magicians Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, in fact, they DO! They are perfectly and placidly content to believe, almost unconditionally, in levitation. They are convinced that through the sheer force of their collective belief, they can ‘raise’ the economy. It may be the only collective thing they actually believe in. After all, there’s still a suspicious odor about anything that smacks of ‘community’ or ‘collective efforts’ in the mainstream media. Just remember the recent feeding frenzy of the right wing as they gnawed away at ‘socialism’. Obviously for many, the spectre of communism still evokes frightful nightmares of wandering Red zombie husks hoping to suck your neck. But even today, ‘collective’ is a word to avoid; it probably isn’t wise to point out ‘collective’ delusions.
So, back to the real as well as the economic weather: things do seem to be getting warmer that’s true, but, ‘better’ is damned relative don’t you think? For those folks who have lost their jobs and their unemployment benefits are running out, things certainly aren’t getting any better. There are fewer jobs available and there are more people chasing them. Not only that, as many economists, even those of the home-grown variety, have observed, the jobs that are available pay less and offer less in benefits and even less security. More and more highly educated and highly skilled people are working at low-paying, unsatisfying, no-benefits, no-future ‘jobs’. Moreover, many of them are getting those jobs through ‘temp agencies’ that take a slice of the $$$ from someone, the employer or the employee, and sometimes both, I suspect. In these times, planning and practicing a professional work trajectory, except for a handful of niche spots, like brain surgery, is almost an antiquated idea. Instead of the soft and fuzzy economy of ideas and services that we thought we would get, we have devolved back to a bloody-toothed economy.
I have three friends who are in the ‘contracting’ business. I know it’s a small and unscientific slice of reality, but bear with me. Two of them are construction guys, and one of them is in the landscape business. All of them report that there has been a lot of ‘interest’ lately. They say they have ‘been getting a lot of calls’. Lots of potential work is bubbling up it seems. Most of it is either rather small and very-limited, short-term sort of stuff, but there are a handful of very high-end, very costly, longer-term projects. My landscape contractor friend tells me that’s where all of his potential work will come from. The middle-class projects are all gone. For these ‘million dollar’ jobs the competition is something that resembles hand-to-hand combat, and the ‘clients’ can grind the price down to levels not seen for at least ten to fifteen years. To me this isn’t surprising, but it isn’t exactly a picture of a rosy economy. Right now there is a bit of chum in the water and all the fish are tasting it. Food on the table and all that. But it is axiomatic in this system that there are sharks too, and as they sense blood, they will winnow down the school of fish, efficiently, relentlessly, remorselessly.
Though this should be a time when all of us are pulling together and looking out for one another, our culture, our society, our ‘normal’ way of life, our economy is stirring us to practice just the opposite. A few of those are pushing for a kind of national ‘tough love’ policy. Some politician even suggested the other day that “people who don’t have jobs really don’t want to work.” I think it was some Republican representative from Texas. In our real world, not his obviously, there are fewer and fewer places at the grown-ups table now, and yet there are more mouths to feed. More and more of us are going to be subsisting on leftovers and scraps. It is predictable that most of us will be forced to go through more and more subservient contortions, emotional, psychological and social, just to get those. Already ‘employers’ are shaking down their ‘employees’ to give back ‘benefits’ they have ‘won’ over the past 60 years. If you think this is a scenario for future well-being and contentment, or progress and health, perhaps you should think again.
Even TIME magazine has recognized that the times they are changing. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1971133_1971110_1971126,00.html
Well, it isn't just the youngsters that are making the necessary changes. Us oldsters may even have an edge on this trend. Anyway. It can now be said aloud: Resilience and relocalization are the new 'red menace'. Bolt your doors America!
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