Saturday, September 1, 2007
I had a conversation with a good friend of mine recently in which he expressed his deep discontentment with the materialistic lifestyle built up around him. He was telling me that despite his dissatisfaction with the way things are, he feels that there are few alternatives available within our capitalist framework.

He expressed to me that he doesn’t have a choice.

On some level I see where he’s coming from. When we consider that most people alive today were raised in a post industrial revolution reality, we also have to consider that we haven’t ever really known any other program. As my friend tried to justify his choices, or lack thereof, he blamed everything on 200 years of programmed responses. It’s just the way it is, the way it has been, the way it will always be.

I would never begin to argue with the idea that many of our responses are programmed into us. I think when it comes to the daily grind, we have so many thought processes occurring simultaneously that our routine actions have simply become unthinking mindless responses, instilled into us by the larger system that surrounds us. Most of us don’t ‘think’ about where to buy gas, where to shop, the impact of our actions on a global reality, etc. There is just too much else going on, and it’s always easier to go with the flow.

This idea of going with the flow spurs on another interesting idea. I always argue that we need to go with the flow, but the question becomes, what happens when the institutions around us begin to capitalize on our flow. In other words, what happens when the things in life that were intended by nature to be rote decisions, become part of a bigger machinery that cares nothing about us or the wellbeing of our planet.

The more I think about it, I believe our flow has been subjugated into the realm of big business. We need to take back the natural flow, and then go with it.

Living with the Blackfoot over the past few months I’ve had countless conversations about assimilation by the white man. But more and more these days I’m not looking at assimilation at the hands of the white man, but instead assimilation OF the white man AND everyone else by our capitalist superstructure. We’re all being molded into good corporate citizens, into good consumers, good environmental plunderers, good mindless unconscious organisms.

In the past 200 years we’ve been deprogrammed of our connection to nature and programmed on the laws of the industrial revolution and capitalism. We no longer have any idea how to live in this world. Honestly, think about it, most of us no longer have any idea how to live in the world. Sure, we know how to live in the world we’ve created, we know how to shop till we drop and make sure to grab hold of the newest hottest trend, but if we were cut off from fossil fuels, electricity, and all the infrastructure that puts food on our tables we’d probably last a little over a week.

This was one of the statements made by my friend, “I don't even know how to grow or hunt my food, so I must comply with these big stores to survive??”

I think he’s right, but also wrong, I think in the immediate situation most of our world is frankly F$$$D! ;-) but at the same time I think we DO have the power of consciousness and conscious choice. We have the power to plant gardens, eat locally, work less, spend more time with family, and grow up. And I think every one of these choices we make, brings us closer to one of two potential outcomes; either a sustainable vibrant world, or environmental disaster and human distress,

we make the decisions around here.

peace,
d