Feeling Helpless

[erzats]

Well, if we can all agree that the current pace of consumption that our economy demands is unsustainable, then we have to somehow decrease this pace. However, when the economy becomes stagnant or shrinks even a little, there is serious hell to pay in terms of jobs lost. There is a direct connection between GDP and environmental impact under the current energy producing schema that we operate under and which we will operate under for at least 20 more years, and probably substantially longer. Given these facts, the only way to substantially reduce our impact (not just the rate at which we are impacting, but the overall impact. People don't understand differentials, which is a problem) is to shrink the economy. The only way to do that is to ask people to earn and spend less money. Reductions in N cell phones/sneakers/pontiac Vibes/flat screens/coffee beans/and schmancey chocolate bars will follow.

Such a reduction would be fine and dandy if it could be introduced at a steady pace and spread equally across all economic classes. Unfortunately, that's almost impossible. What will happen is the disparity between rich and poor will grow and the number of rich people will shrink. This will leave many in what we now consider abject poverty who have never experienced such a lifestyle and will suffer because of that. Overall, this phenomenon is not entirely bad. It's possible that we educated middle class who get swept down into the lower class will be happier. We'll no longer have to work jobs that are completely disconnected from the community and the peers that we need social interaction with. No longer will you have to work multiple jobs to pay for a house you cannot afford, or for sneakers for your teen, or for that flat screen. Maybe once you are at the bottom you will find the way back to that 3 hour work day in which you craft something or take satisfaction from pulling bushels of potatoes from your plot of land to sell at market.

I'd like to add that, in a lot of these end-of-days discussions, the notion that one will have to protect oneself and also the family arises and this often entails purchasing a gun, or more guns to do so. Please give more thought to this idea and the hypocrisy that it represents. Buying a gun ads no net security to the world, no net happiness, and only supports the industrial machines that most here would like to see banished from the world.

[Doc]

I’m thinking of some simpler time…where I wouldn’t sit at a computer and write meaningless tripe to no one in particular, where my words would have meaning and where I am on the hunt for literary meat. Instead I sit and type.

I’m thinking of some simpler time…where I wouldn’t hop in my car with it’s complex fuel injection system and commute to my workplace with its computer, where I compose offal that no one wants to read. Instead, why can’t I walk to work, armed with a stone knife and a loincloth, killing dog and roasting it over a small fire? Because I’d be arrested. It doesn’t seem fair.

I’m thinking of some simpler time where the inner mechanics of a wristwatch are unnecessary and unimaginable. Where, when the sun rises; I rise…where the sun sets, I drink beer. And not some beer out of a can, with its pop-top and its dangerous sharp metallic edges, but a beer that has fermented naturally, on its own, in Belgium, near monks in a remote mountain abbey, in a puddle on the ground. I lap at it like a dog; prone, naturally.

I’m thinking of some simpler time where economic difficulty does not exist…sure there are other difficulties; like skin parasites, guys that are way bigger and beat you up and take all the women, no toilet paper, toothaches, and the ever present risk of being mauled by a bear or something. But at least you don’t have to live paycheck to paycheck driving a 10-year-old car and watching your budget.

I’m thinking of some simpler time where there aren’t 80 different ointments you can rub on your @ss…a time where you’d mash up leaves and medicinal herbs in your mouth until they became a healing poultice and spread them on thick. Where even if you die because you chewed up something poisonous, at least that @ss rash feels better and maybe someone learned from your mistake.

I’m thinking of some simpler time where you needn’t be bothered with trivialities like manners and proper behavior. Where you could eat with your fingers, like in India; or you could burp or fart with impunity, like in high school; where if you had a scratch, you itched it.

I’m thinking of some simpler time where there aren’t machines with gears, pulleys, stupilators, and buckbooster transformers. Where computers don’t need to be always faster, ever smaller. Give me a big old stick and let me hit someone. Dig a hole and call it good. Drive a hard bargain. Sell the cow. Get back to basics!

I’m thinking of some simpler time where you don’t throw away blenders, cell phones, VCR’s…where there isn’t a culture of planned obsolescence. Where there aren’t superstores, frozen yogurt or radial tires; instead, tell stories, own a goat, go for a walk. If you go too fast, you crash, you die. Finis…that’s Latin. Simple.

I’m thinking of a simpler time where you don’t have to read the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and the National Enquirer each day, every day. Where you don’t need subscriptions to Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report, and the Nation. Where endless analysis and interpretations are the norm, where you don’t need to speak English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Hebrew, Japanese, Malay, Chinese and Navajo just to get a job at McDonalds or Burger King or Wendy’s or Carl’s Jr. or Taco Bell. Just Latin and you’re self-employed. If you want to know what’s going on you gut a cat and look at its entrails, or maybe a horse if you need to know more than the usual amount.

I’m thinking of a simpler time where I only have to count to 10, or 9 if I lost a finger…19 or 20 tops! Not 37! Or 1003! Or a google! Or infinity! I don’t want fractions…round off! Or geometry, or statistics, or quantum physics or particle accelerators; give me the haunch of a wildebeest, or the liver of the bison! Let me hunt! My belly is full, that’s math. I am nature, hear me roar.

I’m thinking of a simpler time where the earth is the center of the universe, where the ocean is big and scary, where I can be top dog, a big fish in a little pond. I don't want to contemplate the vastness of space, theorize about relativity, create god in my own image, or seek to know the unknowable. I’ll take a rock and fashion a tool, scrape a hide, invent the needle, rebuild a carburetor. Forget it.

I’m thinking of a simpler time where if you get sick you die; where if you get hurt, you’re lame. A time where you can’t take a pill to get a hard-on, where you have 7-13 kids and you die in your 20’s. Where if you have a hump, you’re a freak; if you’re born at 6 months they don’t incubate you. A place where suffering is a way of life, and comfort is for the birds. Don’t cure me anymore, let come what will. No more antibiotics, penicillin, or sulfa. Let’s hurt a little. Don’t suffer me the little children; let the little children suffer. If I get eviscerated, I want people to say, "Bummer".

I’m thinking of a simpler time where animals aren’t domesticated. Where cows, pigs, horses, chickens and dogs are a clear and present danger. Where Fido does bite the hand that feeds him. A time where you can shite where you eat, sure you might get sick and die but that’s what freedom’s all about. I want to do what I want…if it doesn’t meet with your approval, tough.

I’m thinking of a simpler time when you didn’t have to follow endless sets of rules like the Ten Commandments. Where you can covet stuff and you don’t have to honor your father. Sure, I’m a father and I’d like a little honor now and then, but that’s another story. I want honor ‘cause I earned it, not because of some damned stone rulebook. And I generally don’t steal, lie or covet…but if I do, I don’t want to feel all guilty about it, y’know?

Well, I’m about done. In looking back I’m kinda thinking that maybe I’m being a bit extreme. But see! That’s the problem, due to the complexity of my world I’m second-guessing myself again. I want to live with my choices. No more express lanes, one-hour photos, or In ‘n’ Out Burgers (even though those things seem pretty simple?). Damn!

Doc

[pro moe]

doc
i've got it
and you can have it too
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/435/45308

only 3.99 @ trader joes

[Gazsurf]

Here's how BP is doing the job............ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AAa0gd7 ... r_embedded

[Tatonka]

Doc,

That is by far the greatest thing I have yet to read on this worthless forum. I'd like to share some foul beer with you out of a rancid leather pouch then paddle out on a piece of axe chopped wood to meet our fate with the sharks.

But what's with "give me the haunch of a wildebeest, or the liver of the bison!"? WTF did I do...? plus you don't want my liver it's getting toxic.

[speelyei]

Doc, you're thinking of living in Waldport.

[Wilbur Kookmeyer]

I just want to know why Doc has a rash on his @ss......

[escondido_vida]

I’m thinking of some simpler time.....

But really were these times "simpler" perse, there seemed to have been much more complexity to everyday life compared to what we go through today! Everysense was engaged, every movement for a purpose, and every word meant something. Food could be miles and miles away and on that journey you would know the plants and the animals and you would watch them change just as you watch a small child change.

We sit at a computer, strain our eyes, work out at the gym, go to target feel exhausted at the end of the night, but what really have we experienced? Are we really that complex? Or have we been brainwashed to think we are complex because we "do" so much but in reality we are simple now? It seems simple to have our bodies wake up to a loud abnoxious alarm clock, it seems complex to have our bodies in tune with the sun and moon, being in tune with the cycles of the planets and trying to be aware and understand these cycles.
I think alot about the complexity of what life once was. I am sad to read about my ancestors and realize how much I have lost, but alternatively it makes me want to be like them and live a more full, rich life with less stuff yet having so much more. I really dig this topic as I feel helpless too.

"I'm so tired, I'm so tired, and I wish I was the moon tonight."- Neko Case

[nm]

"I'm so tired, I'm so tired, and I wish I was the moon tonight."- Neko Case

Here I stand, the goddess of desire
Set men on fire
I have this power.
Morning, noon, and night, it's dwink and dancing
Some quick womancing
And then a shower....
Stage door Johnnies constantly suwwound me
They always hound me, with one wequest.
Who can satisfy their lustful habits?
I'm not a wabbit!
I need some west.....

I'm tired....

~Lili Von Shtupp~

[Spent]

To eco what EV was getting at, the Hobbesian contention that primitive man's existence was 'thuggish, brutish and short' has been convincingly challenged by more and more anthropological studies. And the emerging field of eco-psychology further backs up that we just might have been happier in these 'simpler' times.

[bluesilver]

was reading recently about the Amish. They get it done. With animals, Spent.
I'd keep horses, dogs and food animals around.
I'm not a vegetarian or a vegan and no matter how much bitching you overly vitaminated
pulp-eaters do.

[bluesilver]

"I’m thinking of a simpler time when you didn’t have to follow endless sets of rules like the Ten Commandments"