Becoming something…

If you're new here, you may want to register as a member of this blog and check out the first post! As member you can comment, participate, and share. Enjoy! Subscribe

The rebate check came into the account today (yours may be $600). I’m supposed to spend it on none-debt like things in a trained consumer kind of way. Grumble…but I have debt, loans, and some decent foreign ambition (which costs some money).

Fueling casual consumption will only be a short-term boost to an economy that has long-term issues. Government debt mimics ours and we no longer know how to save. We average a -1% savings rate when global neighbors are much higher (50% in China). Can’t we be our own safety blanket? We lost something after World War II, thrift. We all have that grandma (or mom for some) that saves aluminum foil pieces. This isn’t as absurd as it sounds. It is a reaction to finite resources. Isn’t that a global reality today?

Nothing much brings a smile like “free money.” Yet use with caution. If you succumb to consumerism, then do it wisely.

• Local
• Useful beyond yesterday
• Socially and environmentally sensitive
• As financial space to build to better habits
• Experience something new

If you get those damn sexy jeans that cost too much then make sure wear the hell out of them.

Spending Your Tax Rebate Wisely, Don’t Spend Your Tax Rebate!, Stores Offering Bonuses For Spending Your Rebate Check, Luxurious ways to spend your rebate, Ten Tips: What to do with tax rebate?, How to wisely spend your rebate check, How Will You Spend Your Rebate?

Edit: A useful link, Likely Effects of the Tax Rebate

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

“You emerge victoriously from the maze you’ve been traveling in.”

Life sure does feel like a maze, does it not? Wandering looking for the right direction, knowing at any moment we might walk right into a wall. The worst part is that we are often doomed to back-track. At best, we find ourselves busting through the wall but only to find ourselves lost again, with little frame of reference. It is part pre-determined and part under your control.

There is no alternative to being yourself. I think mostly it has to do with your attitude along the way.

You have experienced parts of the maze behind you, but not all of it. Has it shaped you? A product of our experiences or not, we have got to start listening to the scale to which we define ourselves. The confusing reality is, often the walls are miles apart and filled with millions of people. Life isn’t long enough to assume you can deduce the way out through guess and check. The cheese might not be as close or as far as you think. Without tangible walls to give a sense of direction or a map to the maze ahead (or the one being built), why are we full of this concern. You can define ‘this’ how you like, but even if the concern is not to have one, what is it in context to?

We often look to our most local of mazes through which we see ourselves traveling, forgetting the immensity of the one we are actually in.

Leave your home, find your car (or the nearest bus stop), and think about how well you seem to navigate the most local of mazes. You are probably doing just fine along life’s maze. Stop looking for the walls, looking for the end, and fearing the retracing of steps. Otherwise, the cheese won’t have a smell anymore and your sense of direction will be localized to the smaller of life’s mazes. Because the local maze you might be stuck in, is the one inside your head.

“You emerge victoriously from the maze you’ve been traveling in.”

Don’t create context, walls to define yourself against. Self, defined, is limited to the scale of what you define it against. There is no alternative to being yourself, amidst walls you can’t see and contexts you can’t begin to define.

Are adults made? A recent article by Kay Hymowitz from City Journal suggests something about young men today in our society:

Today’s single young men hang out in a hormonal limbo between adolescence and adulthood.

Child-Man in the Promised Land by Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal Winter 2008

The suggestion is that for various social reasons, we are bypassing the previous generations’ milestone of marriage and a family when we supposedly begin our adult lives with the start of our careers. That first main job and first step now equals independence. Am I socially stunted, stuck in a culturally locked puberty (video games, the internet, and career changes)? I’m not in college anymore and much of that activity has gone by the wayside. There isn’t much like the structure of a full-time job, other personal pursuits, and a growing long-term relationship to have other things take favor. Yet, I still long for the long nights, long papers, and long haphazard days.

My relationship and new job is the cornerstone to a growing foundation that I think is moving me beyond this immature middle ground. Priorities change and whether or not I like to admit it, I’m heavily invested in both. This is by choice. This implies that this stage is under our own self-control. Is it important to take action?

Action would be contrary to what is rewarded in our culture; action which requires forward thinking loses to the many short-term excited battles our cultures supports. How can the weekend (or even every day) be one of exciting battles if you are settled into a life track, one long battle with something or short ones with quick feedback and results? Immediate gratification is clearly our cultural winner. It usually takes an event or emotional commitment to be able to recognize the importance of the former, long-term action, possibly to just return back afterwards.

Even today, they say SYM (Single Young Males), Hymowitz’s term, or this millennial generation in general is distracted by many new things, a world of instant gratification. Take your college life for example.

[Jones, S] (2002) indicated that 72% of all students check their email daily, and 26% of college students use instant messaging on an average day. A similar survey in 2005 found that 83% of adults in the 18-29 age range participate in online activities [Demographics of Internet Users] (2007 ).

Digital-Distractions

We learned in and with this environment. Conveniences have become crutches.

So what of women? I don’t necessarily think they are excluded from this phenomenon but they sure are talking about it. The child-man article continues,

In Internet chat rooms, in advice columns, at female water-cooler confabs, and in the pages of chick lit, the words “immature” and “men” seem united in perpetuity…Men feel threatened by female empowerment, these thinkers argue, and in their anxiety, they cling to outdated roles.

Child-Man in the Promised Land by Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal Winter 2008

The CEO phenomenon is one example of the ever growing worth and exchange value of a single individual. Females with this power, on this scale, is historically rare; they have a right to enjoy it, even in the face of the above mentioned masculine uncertainty. It would be wrong to not point out that only twelve of Fortune 500 companies are headed by female CEOs, which debunks Hymowitz’s argument above.

I’m not sure if I see it as gender specific because I feel like many women face the the same cultural pressures that us males do.

Are these trends any different from the activities of young women who are often unwilling to surrender personal freedoms to be “shackled” by motherhood? The Sex and the City generation who see marriage as an anchor and drag on their personal lives, who embrace disposable relationships and are obsessed with designer clothing?

Editorial: Beware the Child-Man?

I’ll admit my cravings and notice that I see many peers expressing their freedom. I even would go as far to say, because of a different social experience in my youth while dealing with my sexuality, I am even more immature in certain areas. My immaturity is supported. More than ever we are rewarded for growth of self and not of family or relationships if it is in the way.

So, do we continue because we can?

We all may need to read more, converse more, and look at how thin we are spread in our social world (especially if it’s virtual). I keep wondering if I should be focusing harder or caring less? I am not a SYM, the relationship disqualifies me of that title, but the cute voices on my shoulders are both telling me that the SYM life is calling. Most of us now have the freedom to develop in the context of something, say a relationship, or develop outside of that structure.

The child-man, gay-infant, and adult-girl are real. Stuck playing video games, exploring deep relationships for the first time, and keeping time with image and power, we are our own segment of society. We will become a generation around it. It feels good, but I feel detached. Our 30s will come soon, but should our goal be to cum as much as possible before it does?

Adults don’t emerge. They’re made.

Child-Man in the Promised Land by Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal Winter 2008

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.