0037

Received the price list that I recently asked for from the local wind generator company. I would dearly love to get off the grid, but - sheeesh! these prices are phenomenal. I manage to dig up my hand-written note from a few months ago, listing a few of the prices, and they've gone up about 30% in just that short period. The target clientele for this technology must consist of 1) those who have no choice, who have no access to the grid, and 2) rich folks.

As I recall from grade school history, the automobile was originally just the toy of the rich man. Henry Ford saw an opportunity and made a car which six-pack Joe could afford. The result was a technological and social revolution, a revolution we might have been better off without. So how about a wind generator revolution? Where's the Henry Ford of the wind generator industry?

0036

More thoughts on the Waste Management mentality, and its ideological opposite: In principle, it comes down to a difference between thinking in terms of a linear process ( the industrialized, 'Waste Management' mentality), and thinking in terms of natural, circular processes. Simply put, lines vs. circles. Here's the Waste Management schematic:

raw material -> process -> process -> consume -> waste

We stupidly measure our standard of living by how much we are consuming, and by how many jobs are being created by all the processes involved. But we cannot ignore the hard fact that there are problems with both ends of this linear method. We consume stuff that is often scarce and is not replenished, and we generate waste that must be forever banished from our world because it is often toxic and we can't or won't neutralize it.

The 'ism' part of consumerism is when this becomes our belief system, when we even more stupidly assume that this is the only way we can live, that human life must by definition be toxic and wasteful. And if we think this way, even subconsciously, we will begin to loathe our very lives, and we will begin to assume a collective death wish.

Herein lies the connection to the Culture of Death. We secretly cringe at the news of another baby (another hungry consumer), and we secretly rejoice at decisions to abort or to engage in sterile sex. Contraception, abortion, sterilization and population control measures are accepted because, deep down, we believe human life is the problem.

Here, by contrast is the natural, circular schematic:

material -> process -> use -> changed material -> process -> another use -> etc.

This ideological concept has practical, concrete ramifications for me, and provides a very real motivation. I must, as part of my focus, look for ways to live in a non-consumerist way, and so test for myself whether the principle underlying the Culture of Death can be dismissed. For example, rather than relegating the art of recycling to a special every-other-week extraordinary effort, the challenge is to incorporate the circular mentality into my everyday life, a complete lifestyle thing. That is what I must be attempting.

0035

A rainy day today, so I'm working indoors, tearing into areas where I intend to install some plumbing. I try to carefully remove and save for reuse as much of the old sheetrock as I can, but some is so decrepit already that it is beyond salvaging. It's messy and tedious work, but I try to look beyond the present mess, and envision the way it will be when it's all fixed up (still years off, I fear). I distract myself by singing Johnny Denver songs, hymns, or 'American Pie' (which is good for killing 10 or 15 minutes in one song). Talk to myself, sing to myself, full voice, who's going to mind? That's one of the perks of living back in the woods.

I take piles of the broken pieces and pitch them out the back door. Waste. Which gets me to thinking again about the Waste Management foolishness.

Now wait a minute. Think about what you're doing, Jerry. What is this stuff you're pitching? Old sheetrock. And what, exactly, is sheetrock? Gypsum sandwiched between two layers of heavy paper. And isn't gypsum used to sweeten sandy, acid soils like mine? Bingo.

So, between showers, I use the wheelbarrow to haul the pieces out to the grassy knoll west of the house, where I scatter them about, and smash the bigger chunks by dropping the sledge hammer here and there. This is more like it. In fact, this is exactly what I had in mind.

Again, I need to look beyond the present messiness, and see the future goodness: This gypsum given over to the elements of Nature, and Nature knowing what to do with it. Time will see the chunks crumble, soften, and return to the earth, enriching the cycle of Life. Yes, the broken, irregular pieces lying on the ground are pretty icky looking at the present, definitely not in the Waste Management style. But it's OK, and better than OK. It's as right as the rain that is beginning again to gently fall.

0034

Today is recycling day, so I put the same garbage out, but put those broken canning jars into the recycle container where they really belong.

I didn't actually see the Waste Management truck go by today, but I'm down by the road now to get the mail, and see that they picked up my neighbor's garbage, but have ignored mine again, and have also left the broken jars. Pat is out to get her mail, too, so I ask what's the deal here? She shrugs, "I don't think they like broken glass in the recycling."

So... Waste Management will manage only certain kinds of waste. First off, you have to be a true consumer, producing enough waste at a regular clip, so that they will remember to stop. And the waste must meet certain standards, too. Nothing icky allowed. Hmmm...

The real question may be, why am I buying into this? As a culture, we have so sterilized our lives that we think we must have all our refuse wrapped in individual plastic bags, hauled off to a landfill where it will be wrapped in more plastic, then shrouded within a layer of impervious clay so that all of our icky leftovers will be completely banished from our universe for ever and ever, amen. A select percentage of this refuse, meeting certain strict standards, will be recycled with much fanfare and self-congratulatory pride, as if recycling were not the ancient rule of nature, but something we moderns have ingeniously invented. I will henceforth refer to this whole silly attitude as the Waste Management mentality.

0033

Remembering the discovery made on last Sunday's bike ride to and from 8:00 Mass, this morning's ride took an alternate route: off onto the service road, around the service gate, and through the park campground area. This is a much better route, providing a more pleasant biking environment, and eliminating almost a mile of biking up and down a long hill, for my aging legs.

I check at the ranger station to make sure this is OK with them, and am told quite warmly that bicyclists are always welcome to use the park grounds, free of charge. Ah, that's more like it - a balm to my social humanity, and antidote to the sense of alienation.

On the return trip after Mass, I take more time to ride slowly here and there on the park trails, enjoying the rather spectacular vistas provide by Nature, and made more accessible to this poor man by the commonwealth of society. A man has need of beauty.

0032

Discouragement can take many forms. The vague feeling of estrangement from society, a sense of loneliness or isolation. Today it took the form of bugs. Ticks becoming more numerous as the weather turns warmer, the little gnats that fly into my eyes and ears, the ravenous mosquitoes. I remind myself how much I really want to do this; will myself to tough it out. "I'll get these tomatoes in the ground, or my name ain't Elmer Fudd!"

Then the reminder I need finds me, as if seeking me out. I come across the first corn emerging, the miracle of new life. Takes me back to my childhood, living on the family farm near Amiret, MN. I would get a tin can, fill it with dirt, and plant a kernel or two of corn from the corn crib. A little water, then set it on a window sill, and check it every day. For several days nothing seemed to be happening, but this farmer's son knew the seed was waking and growing. Then my faith would be vindicated. Seeing that seedling emerge always gave me a little rush, almost a sense of the divine. Still has that effect.

0031

For just the second time since coming out here, I put together a small plastic bag of odds and ends that cannot be burned or composted (plastic, broken glass). I saw the Waste Management truck go by earlier. But now, walking down to get my mail, I see the garbage still sitting where I left it. This is a puzzle. They took my neighbors' stuff; why not mine? So, I pick it up and carry it back to the yard until next Monday. Maybe they just didn't notice my bag because it is so small in relation to most. Or maybe the fact that I don't put a bag out every week, so they don't look for it.

I have to be careful not to make too much of a possibly isolated incident, but this does fit a larger pattern that I have begun to notice. Namely, that there may be social and cultural consequences to this desire to live the plain life. The cultural assumption is to produce a certain minimum bulk of garbage every week. The failure to do so puts one outside the norm, and so outside of normal expectations. Another unstated expectation, governing most social activity, is that of easy transportation. Make a conscious decision to avoid reliance upon the automobile, and social connections become difficult and strained. The concrete steps in moving away from consumerism may turn out to be relatively easy. The tough part may be the tension of being divorced from the expectations of one's own culture and society.