Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - 558am

Watched three decent documentaries last night. Black Gold, Corporation and Objectified.All three illustrate the exploitative nature of corporations and the unsustainable trends in modern society. There were few revelations, but the fact that the docs are available means that there are alternatives available to those of us who object to what most folks see as inevitable circumstances.

So many of us continue on with processes that we vaguely sense are unsustainable and dehumanizing, because we have become accustomed and habituated to our ease and convenience. We have attenuated our connection to the natural world, such that switching off the power is a truly frightening prospect to most of us, not the least of which is myself, who would die without air-conditioning in the summer here in Texas. However, while clinging to my creature comforts, I also crave a connection to the processes that sustain me. So I persevere in my quest to at least incrementally strengthen my attachment to and participation in more of the steps in those systems. I want to reclaim my responsibility for participation, since I am, like all of us, accountable for the consequences, whether I like that or not.

We all are accountable.

Some questions that bear asking:

Why are commercial electronics built from materials are not biodegradable, if the technology is going to be obsolete in a year? If my cell phone is no longer current next year, why is the instrument itself built to last fifty-thousand years in a landfill?

Why are corporations given a free hand to plunder natural resources that belong to all of us on the planet without a thought to future generations or sustainability? How do we make corporations accountable for the unsustainable nature of their endeavors and the long-term costs to all of us?

Why has BP's corporate charter not been revoked and its assets liquidated to pay for cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico? How do we hold shareholders accountable for the environmental misdeeds of the companies they own? There is more to business than just profit. It does not exist in a vacuum.

How do I as a consumer use my dollars to influence conditions around the world, such that farmers who create those items I cannot grow myself are adequately compensated for their labor and allowed to fully participate in the process competitively? How do I establish a more direct relationship with the people who create those items I cannot create myself? It is the layers of business that grow up between us that distort the transaction.

I should also question, perhaps, if there are some things I just don't really need that badly or can do without, at least some of the time, because demanding the convenience of out of season produce and exotic ingredients, rather than eating seasonal produce when available and preserving what I grow, is part of the problem. There is enough variety in just about every region to sustain a quality of life we all can enjoy. We are all of us a little too in love with our comforts. It is killing us and killing the ability of the planet to sustain us.

I cooked tilapia with fresh-picked squash and English peas from the garden last night. It was delicious. And while I think it's important, to me anyway, to be responsible for growing my own food as much as possible, it is not a sustainable practice the way that I currently do it. My garden isn't outside the back door, it's seventy-five miles west of here. Everything I grow comes from seed or plants that I purchase, rather than seeds that I have saved myself. I use a tremendous amount of gas in my 1988 3/4 ton pickup with 300,000 miles on it, and I'm sure my carbon footprint is distorted as a result. However, with two trips each week to the river to work and harvest, I am at least creating meals for the rest of the year for me and a few other people, hopefully, and that is some small compensation. It is, at least perhaps, a step in the right direction.

But what if I want to go further?

If I wanted, I could move out to the river and live there for the rest of my life. I could go off the grid. I could raise more animals and provide my own sources of animal protein year round. I could raise dairy animals - a serious commitment of time and resources but also a serious portion of factory-farm systemic animal cruelty that I would be eliminating from my life. It isn't meat and dairy that I see as cruel to animals, so much as the industrialization of that segment of our lives and our removal from it. The failure of average people to cathect with those processes that nourish and sustain us is what creates that largest portion of that barbarism. Until I hold the knife myself at least once, I shouldn't eat the meat. See the life leave its body, and thank the animal. I can own that. Can you?

I feel less helpless than I used to. However, I am also a tad daunted by the prospect of living within the bounds of my own awareness and accountability. And I wonder what level of convenience and comfort I am capable of maintaining in my life without increasing my dependence upon technologies I cannot understand or control. What quality of life can I have without being trapped in technology and removed from the processes that sustain me?

ROXY MUSIC - Love Is The Drug (1975)

The Small Faces - Song Of The Baker - 1968.

HUMBLE PIE- Stone Cold Fever

154pm - Oak Cliff

Growth is not inevitable. Growth is not progress. Growth is just growth. The mindset that says it is inevitable is the only thing that makes it so. There can certainly be viable communities and economic activity in its absence. The idea that the two are mutually exclusive is a pitch that's been sold for decades, but only just.

North Oak Cliff could continue to grow in the same way that it has grown in the past, slowly, the way communities grow that build lasting connections for people. Unfortunately, it has too many advantages for its own good in Dallas. The idea that we must act now or forever somehow lose this chance has been cranked up a bit lately, and to good effect.

I'm sure that this plan is preferable to some other possible eventualities this neighborhood could endure. I'm sure some of the people will remain who are here now. Some. I'm also sure that this area will begin to change more dramatically, the crowds will get thicker, the prices will rise substantially, the well-known brands and logos will begin to pop up with more frequency. The organic nature of the community will finally be Certified Organic, such that we'll all know it's safe to consume.

1014am

Great week, perhaps. Just nailed a $1000 sale to an Air Force base, so that's $250 toward Chaos in Tejas next week, and I can use every penny of that.

I say all the time that I love going to shows and seeing bands, and my fondest memories seem to revolve around bands I've seen. You'd think that, anyway. What I end up thinking about most of the time, however, is the money and the trouble of getting up and leaving the house and doing anything. I may have become a tad agoraphobic as I've gotten older. It's either that or sloth, but usually it's a mixture of things. I resent spending any money when I've forever felt in the hole materially. I resent the time involved that I'd rather be doing nothing, or doing something tangible that will produce lasting results.

But this is just my grumbling. I love seeing bands.

I've begun reading again, though still only when I walk. It has me thinking that I should commence an inventory of my library and see what all I have. I could load it in Excel, I would think, and sort it by any filter I like afterward. I could use it as a means to sell off some stuff I don't read and make a little extra room and cash for the coffers. Or, since I don't have Excel and don't know how to use it, I could find some other method to get it online and sortable. There are, I think, a few thousand titles.

I'm reading The End of Nature by Bill McKibben. It's a little odd reading a book from 1988 or so about climate change with dire predictions for 2010. It's also a tad unsettling to see some of the predictions borne out in the present. We are changing the world. We really are. I have another book by McKibben titled Eaarth that I'll begin next. He writes well enough, and surprisingly it doesn't seem too dated, despite the nature of the content.

It's 1035am, and I'm done working for the day. I'll shake out of that and make a few more sales before lunch.

2010 April 21

538am -

Waking up
I take my lumps
But what seemed precious
Soon becomes a pale reflection
Of the greater All that glitters
And reflects throughout Creation
Until I am blinded I
Mistake mere signs for destinations.

Breathless wonder is its own
Reward for looking after years
Spent wandering in dark deserts
I, most willful, have created
Desert has a beauty of its own
And retrospection is a trap
I lay to hold on vise-like
To the toys and baubles, shiny objects
Garish city-lights beneath
A starry, starry night.

If I would just look up
And then within.

The gift I have is not for words
But tears and laughter
Inarticulate; holding in my hands
And over-flowing, plentiful
I stand amazed
Walk forward like a Child.

So begins another day. I woke up with a tummy-ache this mornin from overdoin it on the fudge'n divinity last night. Neither was a great success, but I still got more sugar and mess than I cared for.

The garden is overgrown and out of control. This weekend could be pretty critical in getting it cleaned up and in order, and I'm just not feelin it. I'm dreading getting started, just because it's a tad overwhelming thinking of the totality of it. This is still perhaps the best garden I've had yet, but it is quickly becoming so weedy that I'll never get caught up.

I reckon the thing to do is stop whinging and steel myself to the notion of spending some real time and effort getting things tidy. Perhaps I can find volunteers. That'd be fine, except that I don't want to divide up my harvest. And I don't care much for company in any case. Besides that there's dad. He and the house are in such bad shape that neither bears much scrutiny anymore. I know he's a tad self-conscious over all that, though he plays it off as misanthropy. If he had his druthers, he'd still be entertaining people at dinner and showing out, and I wouldn't blame him. I miss that guy. I see his ghost several times each week when I go out to work in the garden.

I've felt a pull in my gut over recent months. I want to know the processes that sustain me. I want to participate. I want to know where my food comes from and what's in it. I want to know where my money goes and what effect that has. I want to know what I have, and I want to know how much of it I really need. I am a reef. Over years I form accretions of material to hold me in place. These attachments usually take the form of books, but it can be as simple as scraps of paper that reference some event or circumstance - a ticket stub or receipt for something. It doesn't matter. I am reluctant to turn loose of them.

Alternately, I will on occasion throw out loads of stuff without paying much attention in what I think of as the "Royal Douche" on my environment. I'm not sure how some things continually make the cut, such that I have scraps of paper and little odds and ends that have followed me around for decades in some cases.

I'm not looking for a sense of control so much as simply an awareness. Perhaps I can document that. There seems a sense of proper proportion, simplicity and, well, my own sort of righteousness in living within the bounds of my own awareness. It would seem natural that I should know where my food comes from, as in, which animal or set of plants. No, really. It would seem natural and just that I should know what I am purchasing, what choices I am making above and beyond my immediate needs, simply because of what and where I trade. I know in my gut that I talk more than I walk; perhaps everyone does that to an extent. But in order to make it to another place, I should first determine where exactly I am right now. I have many times sought to make change in my life without first accepting where I was as a starting point, because the humility involved in that sort of operation was more than I was willing to chew. It always works better when I can swallow where I'm at in order to get to where I want to be. I'm better about that than I used to be; it's the size of the task that seems daunting.

Once I accept that this is a mindset, a process rather than an event - a new method, then, perhaps, it will prove easier. It is an ongoing inventory of sorts, in order to discard what does not work and bring my actions more in line with my talk. To perhaps gain a little integrity in my structure.

Every morning I wake up around 5am or a little earlier. Every morning I tell myself that I'm going to cook myself breakfast. Every morning I sit and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and do a wake'n bake and have a wank and shit, shave'n shower and discover that I'm almost late for work. Then I stop at Kim's Donuts at Zang and Centre and get six sausage rolls (three with jalapeno and three with just cheese) and a dozen holes and a chocolate milk. I eat the three jalapeno rolls and one of the regulars and a few of the holes and then put the rest on the table in the office for whoever wants them. That usually carries me until after work, so lunch is free for cleaning house or burnin a bowl and watchin the news. Today is just like every other day, except that I've done this instead of goofing off on Facebook or the Dallas Morning News blog (I should write something about that soon and then stop bothering those people. My participation in that forum is not productive of anything worthwhile).

I'll gather up my stuff and head out for Kim's and the soap mines now, there to scratch out a decent last day to a pretty good sales week.