The other day I found myself in a Walmart supermegaloplex cemetary. I left Upstate SC in 1998 to move back to Southern California only to end up enlisting in the navy to become a nuclear engineer (which is another story that I've written several unfinished books about)...I'll share that story here one of these days. At any rate, when I got back from preferring not to in the Navy any longer (I went UA which stands for Unauthorized Absence and it's the same as the Army's term you may know AWOL..absence without leave). Basically I quit the navy by taking advantage of their "0 tolerance" policy as pertains to smoking natural herbs. When I got back from the Navy my high school was a level clay field the size of two or three city blocks. Now it's a Walmart supermegaloplex. I used to do push ups and sit ups in what is now aisle 253.5. While I was there I was struck by an overwhelming sadness for the drooling creitins that were lumbering about with their megalosupercenter, petroleum sugar catchments on a mission to guarantee themselves diabetes and heart disease. I was there because we needed an electric razor for the 67 year old we live with. I think Walmart is akin to hell, but how is it really any different from any other box store that you acquire consumer shit from? It's just cheaper. I avoid it like the plague but there it is.
I'm always struck by the people in Walmart. Where are these people the majority of the time? Walmart is the store for the working poor, the not working poor, and anybody else in America who doesn't want to piss their money away pretending like the green box store is somehow saving the planet. I support organic agriculture because it's the best thing we have going, but I also realize that the term "organic" is public enemy number one on the double speak front. If you want to understand how they change our language this is a good place to look. Organic used to mean a lot more than it means now. It used to mean food that was produced by caring small farmers who's goal it was to use the least amount of petroleum inputs as possible. I've met a chicken mentor who has said that "I was organic before there was a term for organic." We were talking about how he couldn't claim organic because he didn't meet all of the millions of bureaucratically generated bull shit requirements that our loving and caring government demand.
Yet looking around his chicken situation I was struck by how I could not think of anything else that he could do to be "organic." His chickens free range and the majority of their food comes from a large garden plot that he grows food for them in. Roosters are present and the eggs are all fertile. I sat and watched the lucky rooster of the day (he only lets one of his three roosters out at a time so as to avoid cock fights) inseminate probably 30 times in an hour and a half. The chickens stay in 10'X10' dog kennels with tarps moved to wherever they need to be moved to to provide the chickens with the most comfort possible. These were happy chickens. The hens were in hen bliss and watching them run towards me was my favorite experience. Something about a hen running towards me just makes me smile. However, my point is that this guy, Wendell is his name, is a 74 year old chicken maverick who should write the book on what is and is not organic (he's been foolin' with chickens since he was 14 and got in trouble for cock fighting). He can't claim organic cause he's not an international corporation who now control the term "organic" because they are the government.
So this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. The term "organic" has lost it's meaning. I do believe it's still better than conventional, but it's lost all of it's original spirit and intention. The intention was not to have the corporations maximize their profit by plugging into something good and fucking it up. They are only concerned with profit, not good stewardship of the Earth. They could care less about the ground water, or the quality of animal product. They don't care about creating value added products that are actually good for all life. So we need a new term for organic in the Post Petroleum Tribe. Sustainable has been rode hard and put up wet as well. "Green" is nothing more than how the corporations market "organic" to the rich liberals. But then I realized that I really don't give two shit's about the empire and their double speak. Yet, there I was looking at the end result of all of this double think in Walmart. People who have not one clue about what they are cramming into their petroleum sugar holes. I saw some type of lunch box, for grade school kids I assume, at a box grocery store today. It had some petroleum sugar to drink, some "chicken nuggets" with ketchup that was marketed as special cause it had "starch" added to the ketchup (which I still haven't figured out the angle on...is starch the new health food?), and an air head for dessert. It was just petroleum sugar through and through and the only difference between all of the contents was the amount and flavor of petroleum sugar. I suppose the kid was supposed to microwave the chicken shit in a microwave that I'm sure would be readily available at the government subsidized and controlled school.
Everywhere I look now I just see lie after lie. Society has become one large double think lie. Everything is the opposite of how it's presented. Health food is bad for you, allopathic medicine is bad for you, organic has become conventional light, diet products add more weight and are more toxic, media says the opposite of whats true, the government lies to you. Society has become a lie in total and I saw the end result of that in Walmart. Why is it that it's so easy to see the solution and yet it's nearly impossible to do anything about it? I don't believe that "the powers that be" are actively trying to fuck everybody, but that's what every action they do results in. Why? Micheal Ruppert has asked this question a lot lately. It's almost easy to believe in evil cause nothing else makes any sense. Is this just the dance that creation dances? It just requires duality to function and that's the way it is? So how do you believe in a creator god that created it that way? I believe in nature and all things natural. Maybe "natural" is the best word to replace "organic." I know they market with that word to, but at least it would be a bit harder to change the meaning due to it being a concept since we developed the ability to think. I have no doubt that they would, and so there is really no point in looking for a new word just so they can highjack it as well.
Since my resignation I've had many opportunities to "explain myself" to the people who are in my life (mostly through association with my wife since I'm mostly anti-social by nature and my entire family...both sides...are in California). "So what are you doing now?" Is what I get asked most often...as in how am I going to make money and support my family. "I'm practicing permaculture" is my reply. Blink...blink....inevitably followed by "what's permaculture?" Nobody has heard of permaculture. Even people I've been having an intelligent conversation with, literate, educated, intelligent people who have no idea about permaculture. I start talking about it and they can see the need for it yet somehow they forget about it just as soon as they take a bite of the next petroleum sugar laced whatever. I think petroleum sugar blocks critical thinking.
I have been told by everybody who I have interacted with, who knew me before the resignation, that I am much happier now (they usually tell my wife that when I'm not around actually). Well...yeah...bending over for the man while scrubbing the under belly of society has that effect on you...you tend to have a pissed off and crass demeanor. Granted..I'm still crass...but some things are just genetic. Yes, I am much happier now and I can't stress enough that if you can do this you should. Really take a look at your life and ask yourself what your time is worth. Is it worth 15 dollars an hour? 30? 100 dollars an hour? What if it's your last hour? We are guaranteed a last hour, but we aren't guaranteed that we haven't just burned through the first 59 minutes of it are we? So what are you waiting for? Look hard at your life situation now. The first place you should look is to your boomer elders cause a lot of the wealth of this nation (stolen wealth no doubt) went to them and they still have it in the way of houses and land that are paid for. I'd be willing to bet that my family is no different from yours. I bet you have an elderly relative (or in my case in-law) that is languishing in their own lonliness. I know I've said this already, but it warrants repeating, drop out of the rat race and get on natures time now. What are you holding onto anyways? Medical insurance? What about that last minute?
If any of you have any questions for me about what I am doing, please ask, the goal of this blog is rapidly becoming to assist in the liberation of minds and bodies from the Matrix. I'm kicking around a blog in my mind that will outline exactly what that means to me.
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8 comments:
There are many people whom I currently work with who would love to follow suit and do what you've done. But sadly, they still consider it foolish and romantic (or worse) to quit a 'stable' job to go practice permaculture, (whatever that is). One day it will no longer be considered foolish, but necessary to learn such things.
Meanwhile, I am in hot pursuit of you and your escape back into the natural world. My own ETA is set for less than 30 days time (or less, depending on the kindness of our HR office) and it can't get here soon enough.
I've mentioned my escape before, but always had a twinge of doubt that I would actually go through with it. Well, something clicked over the last month that has really accelerated this process of leaving the corporate wasteland and getting back in touch with nature. Gone are worries about losing health insurance and funding my retirement, replaced instead by a flood of relief knowing that I can instead have my life back. Now that the die has been cast and the tangible end is in sight, I feel as if I've just awoken from a deep sleep, with the worries they held me in check fading before I can even remember what they were.
Your posts of late have been wind in my sails, and for that I am grateful. Come to think of it, there have been synchronizes all over the place lately that have all been pointing in this same direction, that now is the time, and that any other choice than following our bliss is no longer worth doing.
If you haven't heard of Joel Salatin, North of you in Virginia, you should look into his work. There are few greater models of what the post-petroleum life might look like. That, and he knows his chickens. And pigs, and cattle. And people. See: Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal.
As to replacing the word organic, natural is well used for anything but, and any replacement would turn into doublespeak before the year is out. The only solution is thinking for yourself. Then again, I suppose we could try and undermine the doublespeak, call food grown with love, "corporate/industrial crap", but the cynics could probably find I way to doublespeak that too.
I've ceased to talk to people about anything I'm doing or think (outside of my blog), unless I'm prompted. If I so much as hint to people how I view the world, I'm often treated like a threat. You think the Walmart folk are lost? I've got a neighbor who used to work for the nature conservancy, and another who's been gardening organically since the 70's, and I can't say a word to either about what I really think about this culture, without both of them getting uncomfortably awkward, like I've just condemned Christ.
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MWK...I'm happy to hear that you're dropping out of the pointlessness. The best weapon we have is to just turn our backs on the nonsense. Like Dimitri Orlov says...one day the government will just go away cause nobody takes them seriously any longer...same with the corporations (since they are the same). I just hope they go away for my grand kid's lives.
WHD: How is that? That's what I'm getting at though...people who aught to know better and don't...wtf? I just can't wrap my mind around it. It's like that dude I wrote about in "Post Petroleum Man Poser" a while back. They are more vile than the drooling Creitins IMO.
I don't think of them as vile. Most people just want to believe that no great difficulty will ever confront them, and that is what our whole society is structured to make them believe. I think of it as sad, because how can you deal with collapse if you spend your life believing in everlasting middle-class bliss?
MWK, I'm glad to hear you have found your way. I'm sure the dogs of responsibility have been hounding you relentlessly.
Lucid: No one really wants to be a lumbering cretin walking around Walmart buying fake food and cheap junk. Not one person in those places ever ever EVER looks happy. Their whole body carries the weight of a life in a perpetual state of responding to a deeply unconscious feeling of dull lack. An ache that is pitifully eased with cheap junk and horrifyingly nutrient depleted, yet plentiful, "food". It's a tragedy. Do yourself a favor and avoid those spots unless you can prepare beforehand by fervently thanking your lucky stars and a mantra of "but for the grace of god(dess) go I".
As for the PPMPs of the world- I live in a town filled with the type. They're infuriating with their self serving pseudo green posturing. Satan's (or is it Oprah's?) little helpers. I have to bite my tongue a lot and I've definitely often been the only one dropping the farts at a cocktail party. ("crass", you say?.. ha)
As WHD pretty much said above- people don't really want to be uncomfortable. When you say "permaculture" to someone who believes himself to be engaged... but who hasn't been willing to make the sacrifices you have made for his ideals, it's challenging. You are reflecting shadow.
But people commenting to your wife how much happier you are.. You are unconsciously reflecting light. Witnessing that genuine happiness and value can be found doing some 'funny newfangled gardening thing called permaculture' inspires curiosity, shifts perspective, changes minds, opens eyes.
Keep digging in that dirt and don't let the cretins or the PPMP's suck your energy!
I look forward to more posts (or a new blog? cool!) about what it means to you to have unhooked. Very much so. Those are the posts that inspire someone to give it a go and you have a couple of us here hot on your heels, apparently.
Love the pics of the homestead, btw. Very nice!
Chela, it's funny that you say "a new blog," somewhat synchronistic for me actually. I've been thinking about leaving blogger cause it's google and I have problems with their format all of the time. I use open office, and when I copy and paste my blog it always places all of my paragraphs together. I have to go through and compare to the original documents to figure out where my paragraphs are and space them every time..it's frustrating. On top of that, often after I do all of that work and post the blog, it will appear as it was before I went through and separated the paragraphs.
Yet I just wrote my 50th blog here...I'm invested...and people are starting to read it more and more. I'm thinking about starting a new blog at wordpress? Anybody have any suggestions or experience with wordpress?
I suppose it would be easy enough to change and just leave a last blog here with the link...I know I haven't heard anything good about Google lately.
And Chela...btw, what does PPMP mean? It escapes me.
PPMP= Post Petroleum Man Poser
now that's just funny
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