Becoming something…

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http://www.storyofstuff.com/
Watch the above video (click the link). Awards won and such, it’s just a god damn good message to hear and internalize.

Another Way : 10 Little and Big Things You Can Do

1. Power down! A great deal of the resources we use and the waste we create is in the energy we consume. Look for opportunities in your life to significantly reduce energy use: drive less, fly less, turn off lights, buy local seasonal food (food takes energy to grow, package, store and transport), wear a sweater instead of turning up the heat, use a clothesline instead of a dryer, vacation closer to home, buy used or borrow things before buying new, recycle. All these things save energy and save you money. And, if you can switch to alternative energy by supporting a company that sells green energy to the grid or by installing solar panels on your home, bravo!
2. Waste less. Per capita waste production in the U.S. just keeps growing. There are hundreds of opportunities each day to nurture a Zero Waste culture in your home, school, workplace, church, community. This takes developing new habits which soon become second nature. Use both sides of the paper, carry your own mugs and shopping bags, get printer cartridges refilled instead of replaced, compost food scraps, avoid bottled water and other over packaged products, upgrade computers rather than buying new ones, repair and mend rather than replace….the list is endless! The more we visibly engage in re-use over wasting, the more we cultivate a new cultural norm, or actually, reclaim an old one!
3. Talk to everyone about these issues. At school, your neighbors, in line at the supermarket, on the bus…A student once asked Cesar Chavez how he organized. He said, “First, I talk to one person. Then I talk to another person.” “No,” said the student, “how do you organize?” Chavez answered, “First I talk to one person. Then I talk to another person.” You get the point. Talking about these issues raises awareness, builds community and can inspire others to action.
4. Make Your Voice Heard. Write letters to the editor and submit articles to local press. In the last two years, and especially with Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize, the media has been forced to write about Climate Change. As individuals, we can influence the media to better represent other important issues as well. Letters to the editor are a great way to help newspaper readers make connections they might not make without your help. Also local papers are often willing to print book and film reviews, interviews and articles by community members. Let’s get the issues we care about in the news.
5. DeTox your body, DeTox your home, and DeTox the Economy. Many of today’s consumer products – from children’s pajamas to lipstick – contain toxic chemical additives that simply aren’t necessary. Research online (for example, http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/) before you buy to be sure you’re not inadvertently introducing toxics into your home and body. Then tell your friends about toxics in consumer products. Together, ask the businesses why they’re using toxic chemicals without any warning labels. And ask your elected officials why they are permitting this practice. The European Union has adopted strong policies that require toxics to be removed from many products. So, while our electronic gadgets and cosmetics have toxics in them, people in Europe can buy the same things toxics-free. Let’s demand the same thing here. Getting the toxics out of production at the source is the best way to ensure they don’t get into any home and body.
6. Unplug (the TV and internet) and Plug In (the community). The average person in the U.S. watches T.V. over 4 hours a day. Four hours per day filled with messages about stuff we should buy. That is four hours a day that could be spent with family, friends and in our community. On-line activism is a good start, but spending time in face-to-face civic or community activities strengthens the community and many studies show that a stronger community is a source of social and logistical support, greater security and happiness. A strong community is also critical to having a strong, active democracy.
7. Park your car and walk…and when necessary MARCH! Car-centric land use policies and life styles lead to more greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel extraction, conversion of agricultural and wildlands to roads and parking lots. Driving less and walking more is good for the climate, the planet, your health, and your wallet. But sometimes we don’t have an option to leave the car home because of inadequate bike lanes or public transportation options. Then, we may need to march, to join with others to demand sustainable transportation options. Throughout U.S. history, peaceful non-violent marches have played a powerful role in raising awareness about issues, mobilizing people, and sending messages to decision makers.
8. Change your lightbulbs…and then, change your paradigm. Changing lightbulbs is quick and easy. Energy efficient lightbulbs use 75% less energy and last 10 times longer than conventional ones. That’s a no-brainer. But changing lightbulbs is just tinkering at the margins of a fundamentally flawed system unless we also change our paradigm. A paradigm is a collection of assumptions, concepts, beliefs and values that together make up a community’s way of viewing reality. Our current paradigm dictates that more stuff is better, that infinite economic growth is desirable and possible, and that pollution is the price of progress. To really turn things around, we need to nurture a different paradigm based on the values of sustainability, justice, health, and community.
9. Recycle your trash…and, recycle your elected officials. Recycling saves energy and reduces both waste and the pressure to harvest and mine new stuff. Unfortunately, many cities still don’t have adequate recycling systems in place. In that case you can usually find some recycling options in the phone book to start recycling while you’re pressuring your local government to support recycling city-wide. Also, many products – for example, most electronics - are designed not to be recycled or contain toxics so recycling is hazardous. In these cases, we need to lobby government to prohibit toxics in consumer products and to enact Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws, as is happening in Europe. EPR is a policy which holds producers responsible for the entire lifecycle of their products, so that electronics company who use toxics in their products, have to take them back. That is a great incentive for them to get the toxics out!
10. Buy Green, Buy Fair, Buy Local, Buy Used, and most importantly, Buy Less. Shopping is not the solution to the environmental problems we currently face because the real changes we need just aren’t for sale in even the greenest shop. But, when we do shop, we should ensure our dollars support businesses that protect the environment and worker rights. Look beyond vague claims on packages like “all natural” to find hard facts. Is it organic? Is it free of super-toxic PVC plastic? When you can, buy local products from local stores, which keeps more of our hard earned money in the community. Buying used items keeps them out of the trash and avoids the upstream waste created during extraction and production. But, buying less may be the best option of all. Less pollution. Less Waste. Less time working to pay for the stuff. Sometimes, less really is more.

Another Way

This entry is coming from an interesting experience I had yesterday. Shedding light on my cultural background and growth I realized that your environment can really influence impulses. I found myself wondering why I picked oranges over minorities.

I’d just enjoyed some nice gulps of water, post workout. I was waiting for my fair weather friend to change. I say fair weather because she ditched driving me home because the roads were getting poor and I was left to wait for a fair weather bus that was a cycle late. I digress. While waiting, I looked at a photo representing the writing/academic center for the campus I work on. I noticed something peculiar. What do you notice?

I saw oranges. I was so tickled by my discovery that I asked the same question of miss fair weather. Turns out everyone is white in the photo, this being what she noticed. Stumped, I asked her to look harder. By time the oranges were of mutual discovery, she was antsy to leave and I was fumbling for my own explanation of our differing perspectives.

Was it that I came from a college with beyond Caucasian diversity around 15% (not to mention other missing groups)? Was it that I don’t remember seeing much color in my suburban environment? Why did I choose oranges over minorities?

It hit me though, in one of those I got it before but now I really understand it kind of ways, that our life experiences are unique. Not only unique, but they are the molders of how you see the world. It was important to realize that all the education in the world hadn’t taught me to see, instead I was blind. We will see things differently, all of us. Your boss or supervisor that just doesn’t seem to make sense, probably isn’t doing it on purpose. This experiential intelligence is hard to measure because it has as much to do with how much you experience as it does with the quality and variety of an experience. In the work setting, the ability to recognize this is the biggest step in being able to manage up (7 ways to manage up or Managing Up: An Overlooked Factor in Career Success). In your personal life it can help relationships grow and drama dwindle.

Can we challenge ourselves to see things differently? If you saw white people, begin looking for the oranges, and vice versa. I think too often we find ourselves in conversations where we are more concerned about the other person not seeing the oranges that you did. Instead, why not notice that they saw something different and wonder why you didn’t see it at all.

Life is one big learning opportunity. If you aren’t listening you might just always end up with a bunch of white people or oranges for that matter.

I remember taking a “purity test” back when we were all on livejournal spilling our guts and taking quizzes to find out which Muppet I am most like. I don’t remember being told that I was the purest thing around. I really wondered how perverse that made me. I still don’t feel pure, but upon recent thought, I’m not even sure I know what it is.

Perverse is defined as being turned away from what is good: improper, corrupt, and wrongheaded.

Don’t we all feel this way sometimes?

In fact, it feels like it is all over the place these days. A search on Google News for “perverse” in the last day of news turned up over a thousand results. The commonality of something isn’t a reason to claim appropriateness, but it doesn’t bring any clarity. It is tough to make our own judgment calls in this type of climate. Here, though, it can be a blessing to grow older, as experience brings more and more things to compare and ponder. In my head I do have a rule of thumb.

Perversion is what has hurt you as it will probably hurt someone else; it is what your mind may accept but your heart rejects.

Easy nuff?

But…you see it and you know something or someone that is perverse, deeply perverse. You think, I’ve thought that, I’ve fantasized that, but I’ve not actually acted on it. This is of course bothersome. Are we not all perverse?

I’ve thought up a litmus test:
Be alone. Feel alone. Now add what you are questioning. If it hurts, it’s perverse. If it interrupts, you have some more thinking to do. If it enhances, embrace it.

Thoughts?

Recently I was hooked on this mini-series on the history of the English language. It turns out the language played a back seat for a while but thanks to its versatility it held on throughout the years. Often as a symbol of rebellion and the common folks’ vernacular, the shapes the language took throughout invasion and change of rule is remarkable. We owe it’s difficulty to the mutt of a language that it is as well as to the traditionalists in the English Chancery. They, in printing national texts and laws, after going English, often chose versions/spellings of the words that weren’t written as they were pronounced but stayed true to their various roots (of which there are many). Many initial texts, even the first prints of the Bible, are the first time it is believed certain spellings and many new words were chosen/added into everyday use.

I’ve been inspired. Write on, speak on, and read on. Story sharing, adaptability, the Bible, and rebellion should all be something to be inspired by.

A fun poem Continue reading »

Like a strong dialect, we speak different languages within the same. “I don’t understand those kids,” from the g-rents telling us more about the language we speak than our peers. My friends have trouble speaking the language of relationship, a topic to cover later. It appears as though that as we get older the WEs and the USs enter our vocabulary more smoothly than the I and ME of independent youth.

Are there intergenerational dialects? Songs speak different and cultures can be worlds apart, that sounds like grounds for a different language. Thinking of ourselves, is the youth that different? I still don’t think I have the vocabulary for my relationship and my friends still leave out the WE and US when referring to it.

I was recently told that this is the time of life to think of ourselves. It can be hard to really look at life beyond the simple sphere of ME.

So we aren’t alone and we can’t ALWAYS focus on ourselves. So heres some tips on acting and speaking in a healthy selfish head space while acknowledging the US and WE in those around ourselves.

1) Take pause because sometimes when you feel extended, taking some time to pause and center yourself can actually enlighten yourself to others around you. I think in a time of when we are supposed to be focusing on ourselves we need to remember to do just that. We’ll get the language and get the awareness of the spaces around us through this openness to others. This openness which comes through recognizing and appreciating ourselves first.

2) Don’t hide from what you do and don’t know. Age brings experience, not always knowledge. Experience will build off of knowledge, one depends on the other. The fear of letting someone know that you don’t know something really says I’m not open to learning. It’s called being real, in our language, or honest in theirs.

3) One IS the loneliest number. Thinking only of yourself, just yourself and no one else, isn’t expansive. I encourage a focus on a group of people but not at the expense of forgetting that you are more through others. To look at this from a selfish angle, people can and will enhance you. Interact and learn from everything around you. Feed yourself.

Live to learn because that will help you to learn to live. Know that time and space won’t stop for you so the best way to “grow up” is to move with the times and the spaces. WE will get through it, even if I am using you to do it.

Am I casual in my use of others? Can being selfish be a good thing?