I hate positivism. I hate the general idea that by keeping an optimist outlook on things, everything will turn out for the best. Keep faith, be positive. Fuck it. Life is about ups and downs.
Although my live is literally littered with periods of harsh despair, I tend to regard myself as a fair deal more realistic than all these people having faith. I do despair about climate, not for climate or for the world, but for us humans, who will be the foremost victims of whatever oncoming climate-induced slaughter waiting for us in a not too distant future, literally saturated by long droughts and harsh storms, disease-vectors expanding and forest fires.
My idea we should handle this by means of reducing our Western lifestyle to proportions equaling - let's say - 10% of our current footprint, seems necessary rather that realistic, but we shouldn't go back to caveman suiting habits. We can take whatever knowledge we have managed to acquire with us, from understanding plants and growth to combining knowledge from distant parts of the planet. Of all things, it seems to me we've gotten lazy. In stead of marvelling at the amazing complexity and technical skill behind cars and airplanes, we nag about a delay of an hour on our yearly flight towards our required suntan stress-reduction weeks. Why not cut the stress altogether?
Do we really need to be online all the time?
We (I'm referring to me and some people, in stead of us humans) use a pretty amazing industrial made saw when we cut down trees. But we do it by hand. These cut trees will feed the rest of our foodsystem, as we try to close cycles. In stead of a powered saw using petrol and getting rid of the debris.
I like to drive my motorcycle (30 kms/litre of petrol) maybe once a week. In stead of a car doing 10 kms/litre, every day. I make my functional drives by bike. If I drive my motorcycle, it's to enjoy the drive.
And, besides this target of slowing down - there's a lot of quietude in cutting down a tree by hand, by cutting your lawn with a scythe - there a road towards it, paved on faith, slowing down and being content. We have a hedge of about 300 meters to trim. We could use a power saw, clearing it in a matter of hours. Now, we're doing it by hand, going at one tenth of the pace. Hardly.
Accepting the idea that we won't be doing that much else for the next days, and weeks but trimming that hedge - we work there once or twice a week - even thought there's lots of things we could and somehow should do, is an act of deep faith. Deeper than "everything will turn out for the best" as long as we stick to having faith in human capacities. By accepting a more mild outview on life, less anthropocentric - man is capable of doing anything - a deep sense of acceptance yields comfort into our lives. It's not possible to get grass to grow harder by pulling it. And that's ok.
I hope whatever gift reading this poses, the idea our world is doomed being one of the foremost, can bring you to viewing your life differently, and yield a more thoroughly balanced frame of mind. The idea our way of life is going to end, startles me with despair. And beyond the startledness, there's acceptance which makes me stronger.
We don't need to be online all the time.
Although my live is literally littered with periods of harsh despair, I tend to regard myself as a fair deal more realistic than all these people having faith. I do despair about climate, not for climate or for the world, but for us humans, who will be the foremost victims of whatever oncoming climate-induced slaughter waiting for us in a not too distant future, literally saturated by long droughts and harsh storms, disease-vectors expanding and forest fires.
My idea we should handle this by means of reducing our Western lifestyle to proportions equaling - let's say - 10% of our current footprint, seems necessary rather that realistic, but we shouldn't go back to caveman suiting habits. We can take whatever knowledge we have managed to acquire with us, from understanding plants and growth to combining knowledge from distant parts of the planet. Of all things, it seems to me we've gotten lazy. In stead of marvelling at the amazing complexity and technical skill behind cars and airplanes, we nag about a delay of an hour on our yearly flight towards our required suntan stress-reduction weeks. Why not cut the stress altogether?
Do we really need to be online all the time?
We (I'm referring to me and some people, in stead of us humans) use a pretty amazing industrial made saw when we cut down trees. But we do it by hand. These cut trees will feed the rest of our foodsystem, as we try to close cycles. In stead of a powered saw using petrol and getting rid of the debris.
I like to drive my motorcycle (30 kms/litre of petrol) maybe once a week. In stead of a car doing 10 kms/litre, every day. I make my functional drives by bike. If I drive my motorcycle, it's to enjoy the drive.
And, besides this target of slowing down - there's a lot of quietude in cutting down a tree by hand, by cutting your lawn with a scythe - there a road towards it, paved on faith, slowing down and being content. We have a hedge of about 300 meters to trim. We could use a power saw, clearing it in a matter of hours. Now, we're doing it by hand, going at one tenth of the pace. Hardly.
Accepting the idea that we won't be doing that much else for the next days, and weeks but trimming that hedge - we work there once or twice a week - even thought there's lots of things we could and somehow should do, is an act of deep faith. Deeper than "everything will turn out for the best" as long as we stick to having faith in human capacities. By accepting a more mild outview on life, less anthropocentric - man is capable of doing anything - a deep sense of acceptance yields comfort into our lives. It's not possible to get grass to grow harder by pulling it. And that's ok.
I hope whatever gift reading this poses, the idea our world is doomed being one of the foremost, can bring you to viewing your life differently, and yield a more thoroughly balanced frame of mind. The idea our way of life is going to end, startles me with despair. And beyond the startledness, there's acceptance which makes me stronger.
We don't need to be online all the time.
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