So this week, I've been thinking a lot about that fundamental question "how then shall we live?" I mean, I guess I'm always thinking about this, more or less, but this week, with things looking clearer and clearer like maybe I shouldn't be in Portland much longer, I've been thinking a lot about "well what the hell do I do next?"
Getting a regular job doesn't sound appealing or even possible; half of the girls in my midwifery class are unemployed at the moment, and with the unemployment rate in Oregon overall being at about 7%, what makes me more qualified then other people out there to get a job? I've been doing day-labor construction type stuff, but I don't even want to do that much longer...every time I use caulk, or primer, or stain, I think about the environmental impact of the product I'm using. As I help build this house, I can't help thinking over and over "this is not the way humans should be living...we should be building a long house out of cedar or some type of wigwam or something, not this mostly petroleum-product based shit-structure..." More and more, every aspect of my life feels wrong, for lack of a better term. Printing homework at school, riding the bus to places, buying out-of-season and even out-of-this bioregion foods with my food stamps, even showering is starting to take on a "wrongness." My Nonviolent Communications teacher wants me to believe that there is "no wrong and no right, only jackal voices and giraffe voices..." But I believe that is a bunch of New Age bullshit...come on now, you can't tell me there is no good and no evil in the world when there are nuclear bombs, toxic rivers, dams that keep rivers from being the vibrant waters of life they are suppose to be, pharmaceuticals that make people crazy and commit suicide, war, refugees, starvation and disease because of political shit going on, Gardicil, rain forest still being cut down at crazy rates to make stuff like toilet paper and grazing land for McDonald's beef, animals going extinct every single second, babies being raped, women in domestic violence shelters, books like Skinny Bitch and A Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy (both of which are completely degrading to women,) slavery, Nike shoe factories, sex "work", factory farms, children being in HIV-drug trials without their care-providers knowledge or permission, public schools, jails, prisons, factories, dogs being chained to doghouses their entire lives, women being chained to oppressive ideas/lives, electric fences...need I go on? With all of the evil in the world, I begin to wonder what I should/could do to make a difference...is Birthingway College of Midwifery really my time best spent with all the craziness in the world right now?
I was at a meeting of Cascadia Wild this week; well, it was actually a wild-food potluck, not really a meeting, but it was really interesting none-the-less. First of all, I learned that there is a group that is searching for the wild wolverine in Oregon...the popular option is that the wolverine no longer exists in Oregon, but "sightings" continue around the state, so the survey continues. My heart breaks when I hear things like that; I don't even know very much about the wolverine, but the few stories I've heard about the creature, and the fact that I had a cousin who wanted to be a wolverine when he grew up when he was three, makes the wolverine dear to me. It just breaks my heart that such a unique and fiercely wild creature might be gone..forever gone, from one of it's native habitats. I begin to think, when I hear things like that "what can we do to ensure that the wolverine can come back, if it wants to?" Is there anything we can do, or is it too late?
I also went Balkan dancing this week; and although Balkan dancing isn't as close to being extinct as the wolverine is, it seems like another precious thing that is dangerously close to extinction. Why is it that we don't spend more time, in this culture, in this world, dancing in ways that are neither sexual nor provocative, but that just foster a sense of community, exuberance for life, a chance to hold the hands of strangers, a chance to meet the eyes and smile across a line of people, weaving in and out of each other? This seems like healthy, important stuff to me, but all-to-rare at the same time.
Anyway, I've been looking at the website http://pullingforwildflowers.org and dreaming of a simpler, more gatherer-hunter existence.
Love ya,
Carrot
ps. I conquered my fear of heights this week while working on a roof at the construction sight, so I guess the work I've been doing isn't all bad!
I agree that most of the evils you listed are indeed just that, evil. But the fact is that good and evil are relative terms, everything that we find wrong is right to someone else, if what is evil was a universally accepted fact, then there would be far less "evil" in the world. Those "Crazy pharmaceuticals"that you mentioned were not made to make people commit suicide-they were made to help people with serious mental issues. The question of whether they are fundamentally good or evil can be answered differently by different people. People disagree on what is good or bad, right or wrong, all of the time, that is why tonight's presidential debate is even possible. I believe that your teacher was not saying that there is no such thing as evil, but that it all depends on perspective. A jackal would say that people are tall, but a giraffe would say that they are short.
That's a fairly long list of difficult issues that you've racked up. Honestly I feel the same way many times. Things seem very difficult, morally, to work around because as humans we're ALWAYS making an impact. The only thing I can say is: our role, you and me, is to realize that even Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, and nomadics in Asia all had impacts on their environments, and to work towards the least impactful lifestyle we can juggle. If you read the book Collapse by Jared Diamond, he addresses this.
The way to get through each day? I think we must realize we're all shotty people to begin with--our lifestyles 'squish' people in other countries (the banana growers, the coffee bean growers, the people who fight resource extraction and industrialization). Once you come to this realization, existence seems grounded and I think you have the opportunity to build good work out of it. Keep up the good fight, my biennial plant friend.
my documentary...
"some folks say that a hippie won't steal,
but I caught three in my corn field"
--John Hartford
By the way, I'd like to hear what you think about this conservative blogger's viewpoint?
http://dontfearthetruth.com/2008/03/02/conserve-all-you-want/
my documentary...
"some folks say that a hippie won't steal,
but I caught three in my corn field"
--John Hartford
(If you know where those song lyrics come from, and you tell me your snail-mail address, you'll receive a special prize from the legendary Carrot...)
Anyway, I agree completely with the "conservative" bloggers viewpoint. We've seen this to be true...it's a cultural shift we Portlanders refer to as "greenwashing", or the idea that buying green products will save the environment. Not true. As the blogger points out, when energy (in the form of electricity, money, time, whatever,) is "saved" it is in turn used to make/buy/manufacture something else; some other cheap plastic something from China.
A great book all about this subject is one I recently reviewed, called "As the World Burns: Fifty Things You Can Do To Stay In Denial." The book has a cute cartoon in it, in which a hippie-girl is talking with a rabbit about how recycling aluminum cans will save the planet, to which the rabbit flippantly responds "no, aluminum recycling allows aluminum smelters to make more aluminum, thus releasing more toxins into the environment and helping bring about more diabetes by putting more soda in cheap cans on our selves..." Later in the book, a fat businessman character says something like "saving three plastic bags saves enough fossil fuels for a car to run ten miles.."
You get the picture, gentle readers! But all is not lost...oh no, all we need to do is overturn this destructive civilization and start living in a truely sustainable way...without aluminum, toys from China, computers (gasp!,) and even energy star products..because every little bit of energy you save gets turned into profit by a big business...
Greenwashing is very real my friends!
Love ya,
Carrot
Leave Canada, please - Canadian Dude
Do you want a special prize sent via snail mail? I'd love to send one...
Love ya,
Carrot
I don't even know what snail mail is
Leave Canada, please - Canadian Dude
is a nickname for regular, USP mail...you know, physical letters as opposed to e-mail....
the link to the other blog says that as we get more efficient, we produce more and we consume more. this is a basis of our current society. we are consumption driven. we have to change our values. we must value work more than laziness and consumption.
human relationships more then work and consumption...
Maybe we should value the environment we live in most of all...
I'm not sure where laziness fits in...in my understanding, lazy people have less money and therefore use less resources....sounds like a win/win situation to me...in the Peace Corps, part of our "job" was to teach Africans to be less "lazy," but as I began to see, Africans aren't lazy so much as they put more value on family and friends, more value on afternoon naps under a shady tree with a lover, more value on more time spent around the village well, chatting with the other ladies in the village....I began to see the values the Peace Corps wanted to bring to this part of Africa where bogus...that I needed to change my value system, and become more "lazy," not the other way around!
When I am being the most "lazy" in my life is generally when I have the healthiest relationships with other people, the best sex, the most time to play with pets and babies, the most time to sit by a river and think, the most time for bike-rides, foraging, daydreaming and many other activities that are way more important to me then accumulating energy star electronics and flat screen things.
Anyway, my point is, when our utopian dreams are most realized, we are probably seen as the most "lazy" from the view of a capitalist.
Love ya,
Carrot
Whoa, I've never quite fit those things under a lazy category before. In Montana they just seem like recreation, which oftentimes feels like you're doing work. Hiking, conversing, sharing a beer.
I think of lazy as unproductive under any system--capitalist or another dominant system, but also under my own system. The things you and I have mentioned don't seem to fit!
Still, I do dig your sentiment. What would our parents say? heh Mine definitely want me to buy more bright green technology.
my documentary...
"some folks say that a hippie won't steal,
but I caught three in my corn field"
--John Hartford
I'm just saying you aren't really adding anything to our capitalist system when you are doing these things, so some would call these activities "unproductive" or maybe even "lazy."
I say we all need more "laziness," and I'm calling for the four-hour work day!
The rest of our time/lives should be spent loving each other...
(Oh god! That sounded so damn hippiesh! Yick!)
Love ya,
Carrot
Major yick-age. All I read was yach yach yach, four, hippy. But I liked it.
my documentary...
"some folks say that a hippie won't steal,
but I caught three in my corn field"
--John Hartford
Are you saying this blog is completely pointless? are you calling me a hippy?
Love ya,
Carrot