Your Right to Convenience

You have the right to have convenience. You have the right to make garbage. You have the right to waste water. You can do whatever you gull-durn please. If you want to triple-plastic-bag your leaky chicken at the grocery store, by good-goddamn it is your right to do so. You want to have a baby, and gosh-darn it, you are going to use plastic diapers, because gosh-darn it, you are going to be tired, and you know what? Shit stinks. And YOU do not want to have to deal with that.

Umm... yuck.

Yeah, I heard that from my own step-daughter. She NEVER planned to use cotton diapers, and now she IS pregnant. Even though the "disposable" ones (quotes on that, because they are NOT disposable, they are just moved away from YOU to another place) are bad for the planet, bad for the kid, bad for... well, ME. Yeah. They are getting added in to MY world. Why don't I have a say in that? Because YOU must have your convenience? Even though you KNOW babies poop and it smells bad, but you are going to have one anyway, but the rest of us have to revolve around that? What about OUR rights to a clean planet? No? Nuthin'? Not so much?

So you have the right to use plastic. And you don't think the government should step in and ban plastic bags, because that is an infringement of your rights, and, after all, where will it end?? You know - smokers as the same thing... no smoking on the beaches, public places, what's next? You're own home? Yes, actually, in some towns you cannot even smoke in your own back yard. Because smoking hurts people other than the smokers. Well, guess what - your water waste is hurting those who DON'T waste. Because, just like we share the air, and you don't want to smell their cigarette smoke, we share the water, and I want to have mine around to use when I want, and since I use it responsibly, YOU should too. But you don't. So we have to put bans and limits on water usage sometimes. But guess what? I have to follow the same bans and limits, even though I wasn't the problem.

Likewise, because YOU can't be bothered to ease up on the plastic, MY Earth is polluted, even though I have been enjoying it responsibly. Your gross dirty diapers are in my environment, even though I had nothing to do with them. But there they are.

So, I ask again: where does your right for convenience end, and my right for a healthy planet begin? It doesn't seem to matter, so long as things are easy for the masses.

Man, I would LOVE an answer to that one...

Whatever Happened to One Thing at a Time?

Are you an awesome multitasker? I am. I can multitask with the best of them. Women, I suppose have been doing it for ages in the home.... back when women were homemakers and that was it. Cooking, cleaning, taking care of kids and pretty much everything. Now, we are expected to do it all the time, everywhere. You are not an efficient worker if you cannot do 15 different things at once, and dammit do them all flawlessly.

Why must we move so fast? Are our lives better for our doing so much all the time? I don't think mine is. I long to just do one thing at a time and do it really well. I can see the benefit of doing many things at once if we were all getting to a better place. But all we are is more tired, more cranky, more anxious, more stressed.

But I don't have this many arms

Can we slow down a little? Appreciate things more? Care more? When I multitask, I am not all into ANY of the million things I am doing. It has its place, sure it does, but I fear we've taken it too far (as usual). Now it's expected in all aspects of our lives, it's expected of us in all we do. Doing one thing and doing it well isn't good enough. We have to be great at everything all the time and all at once.

In my o-so-humble opinion, I believe this is a big part of the problem. We want more-more-more, we have to do more-more-more so we can get more-more more. Except happiness. We don't get more happiness, we just get more stress. And in this all-consuming drive, we forget to appreciate the small stuff. And it's all small stuff. Small stuff adds up to big stuff.

This is when I yet again ask, Why are we here? For what do we do these things we do? If our insane schedules are not going to making our lives more enjoyable, then what's the point? And don't give me that nebulous future-building thing... sure, there is a point to that, and yes we need to secure our livelihoods... and make sure we do have a future... but remember our grandparents? They weren't nearly as crazed as are we with our cell phones and computers doing everything all the time always within phone reach always answering the phone always needing to to be doing something always in touch with everyone... and they were able to retire. Comfortably, a lot of the time. I'm not saying they didn't work hard when they worked. And maybe I am over-romanticizing things. What I do know is that the rats seem to be running faster and faster and yet falling further and further behind.

I, for one, am turning it all in. I want to enjoy my time here. I want slower, quieter, more appreciative times. I do not think we have to chase our tails quite so much. Because it isn't very much fun. And I look around... we surely are NOT making the world a better place to live.

Let's start doing THAT.

Waste of Resources - Waste of Life

Sooooo many questions on my mind this weekend. The following is harsh. Maybe it's where I live. But sometimes, I just look at someone and think, "Damn, why does that person have to be taking up MY resources?"

You ever feel like that? I'm surely not talking about someone sick, or infirm, or handicapped - no, no, no!! Nothing like that. I'm talking about those people who don't give a crap outside their own little circle and their own well-being. People who can't think beyond their own nose. The entitled. Those who don't think twice about the double-plastic-bag even though the rest of us are all screaming at the tops of our lungs about it. With their plastic bottles and nary a second thought. No, nary a first thought. Do those people ever get to you?

Imagine if we had listened then, where we would be now.

They get to me. What's the point to life if you are not working to make the world a better place? If you are not enjoying your time here? If you are not making a positive contribution to the race? WHY are you here?

I know, I know, I need to move to where people are less all about themselves... and their cars and hair and clothes and.... blah. What's the answer? Will people ever change? Can we change them? Do we try? Do we just hang around like-minded people instead? That can't be right, then we wouldn't have any impact on those around us. It has to be a balance. We need to be able to run to our groups, I guess, when the rest of them get to be too much. Balance.

I feel like we really really lack balance these days. It's like... it's like it's all or nothing. Full force. Full speed. Full time. I'm not sure what the point to that is. Again, if we aren't enjoying the ride, why are we on it?

Let's start asking random people that very question. When someone is whiny or complainy or just plain miserable to be around - I mean, constantly, not when someone is just having a bad day - let's ask that! Oh, hell, let's just ask it all the time! MAYBE - and I know this is quite a stretch here - maybe people will stop to think. Just a little bit.

It's a start. Even if it just makes ME a little less crazy. Ha.

It's a Choice

OK, back to the business at hand.

We make choices every day. I have chosen to have a glass of wine this evening. I choose to not use plastic any more than necessary. Some people choose to use single-use bottles, plastic throw-away bags. It's a choice, right? I choose my thing, they choose theirs. We all go our own way, right?

Wrong. When someone's choice is to the detriment of the rest of us, it is no longer just their right to go their merry way, is it? If someone is choosing to waste water, that hurts us all, does it not? Can we not call out those people on their choices?

The other day, I really wanted to get some ranch dressing. I love me some ranch dressing. Mmmm. Ranch. I wanted to put out veggies and have some ranch for some dippin'. So there I stand, probably quite comically, in the dressing aisle, tapping on the bottles to see which ones were plastic and which were glass. (I've long since stopped caring what people think of me in such situations.) Every single brand of ranch was, alas, in plastic bottles. So a made a choice to NOT enjoy ranch with our snacks. It was a tiny little choice. Does this choice make a difference? Well, if we ALL made such choices every time they presented themselves, then yes, it would make a difference.

Do we need government to legislate plastic bag use? Yes, because we do not make the choice to NOT use them. Apparently, we must be forced to give them up. Is that right, fair? It is what it is. People do not stop to think, to make a small choice. Could the 3-5 minutes I stood there puzzling over something as insignificant as to ranch or not to ranch have been better spent otherwise? Sure. Would it have killed the planet for me to buy that ranch. No. Could I have eventually found some in a glass jar in another area of the store? Probably. but I was over it. I survived not having ranch. LOTS of our choices, IF we stopped to make them, would be just like that. Maybe not monumental, maybe completely insignificant, but... maybe not.

It's all about the choices. Let's start making some, shall we?

Non-Mothers Need Not Apply

A celebrity died. I shed a tiny tear at first, because it was a great waste, but I really felt she did it to herself. I felt she could have turned it around if she really wanted to. She had more opportunity than do most. I've never gone through anything like that. I've had misfortune, I've had relatively bad things happen to me at times, but mostly I do pretty well. I never had an addiction, so I'm sure I don't know and maybe I have no right to comment.

Comment, though, I did. Silly Rhonda. Silly, silly witch. And after much goings-on back and forth, I was finally told I do not have the feelings a mother does. It would change me.

Wow.

So I get to thinking, as I frequently do, why I do what I do. Why I give a shit. Why I bother to have compassion at all. After all, I don't even have a womb anymore. What do I care that the world will not be fit for us to inhabit if we don't change? Why should driving down the street and seeing homeless people, forgotten elderly people, litter, stray animals... why should that hurt me every single day? Why should I get choked up every single day about random things? I should not have these feelings; I am not a mother.

Wow.

I can't get around this one. I really can't. I thought writing it out would help, but nope. Why DO I do what I do? What don't I just run around using as much plastic as possible, because, after all, why should I care? I'm not a mother. I should just hang it up.

I'm stuck. I'm stymied. I started to write something else altogether, but I couldn't go on. Oh, I'll get over it, but it may take a few. Days. Hours. Weeks. Dunno. Silly me. I thought I loved too much. I thought loving the whole world was good enough. I thought that mattered.

Apologies for the pity party. I'll buck up soon and be back to snark in no time. Thanks for reading.