I'm not a big fan of gambling references but here goes...When I was a youngster and had to deal with so many and such fallacious statements as I don't care to repeat, for even speaking them has proven to unleash great power for evil in the world. You know the kind, referring to how ours is the greatest country on Earth, or that we have the best medical system on the planet, or the best educational system, etc. The whole "free trade" B. S., nukes are carbon neutral, etc. Another pair that I really detest are the two that have sandwiched my personal social experience. When I was young, the right threw up the straw man about how liberals where commie freaks with their slogan, America, Love it or Leave it! and the current one, Freedom is not Free. Well, of course it is, no one in the social justice field is paid for their efforts! Every bit of that labor of love is provided on a volunteer basis.
Many of us have put our money where our mouth is for a long time. One of my first businesses was printing the image of the Great Lakes on organic cotton t-shirts. I had two main suppliers, one out East and one from Texas. I really liked the fellow in Texas, he was all about American made and even though his shirts were a bit more expensive, he was working on getting textile mills back up and running so that he would not have to ship the cotton overseas to be processed into fabric. The folks out east actually told me that a few of my first orders came at critical times when they needed capital. As the tiny, one person company that I began was about to shift gears and grow, my Texas supplier was put out of business by the state legislature of Texas who deemed growing organic cotton to be illegal. The East Coast suppliers went corporate and as soon as they found out that yuppies would pay for organic, their prices literally tripled, cutting my profit out with their rise in market share. I would love to begin again, providing ethically produced clothing at reasonable cost. I'm pretty smart, but miracles are not my specialty.
My thing is stories. I put my whole self into as many consecutive moments as possible and struggle to remember as many salient details of as many experiences as possible, so that I might convey the essential character of events that have the power to teach, enlighten and refresh those who take the time to listen.
As we pass through a typical day, there are a bewildering array of advertisements, commercials and messages that bombard our senses. Some clarity can be gained from beginning to understand who is paying for each and why. I loved my sister's idea for a bumper sticker that would say, "Whom do you serve?". I went to Target for paper toweling, a few shirts and not much else, $100! I was serving them in that moment, certainly. We need to begin to recognize that we are "all in" all the time. We are never just partly in, our whole being is enlisted in doing the work that our "maker" has set us to, but by definition, most of what we do will have no lasting impact on the world that we leave behind. My departed, ex-father-in-law used to say, "Don't matter, in 100 years, no one will know." and I mentally imagined that he was deficient in some way, like he was discouraging me from doing my level best. What took me years to understand was hat he was not voicing discouragement or the act of giving up, but the awareness that our pursuits were more important in the moment than they could ever be over a more grand scale of time. as grand an idea as we could come up with, time would have it's way at whittling away at the very core of our intention. He had turned the corner on hopelessness and realized that all one can do once one has become fully invested is bluff, hope for the best and roll with the punches.
We frequently try to change the way things are. Many dislike their homes so they remodel. Some don't like their children's teeth, so they install braces. In the old days, people would change schools or towns, jobs or their names to try to get a new start in life. As the information age tightens the purse strings on the global economy, fewer and fewer options exist for those who wish to drop out of the rat race. as long as we are all in, and all in together, perhaps there is a way to pool resources and divvy up the pot in a more responsible manner...My own vision is to give Mother Earth 10% for each and every building permit issued, there should be 10% of project costs which go to ecological reserves, areas that will never get developed. Imagine if the least productive 10% of each and every farm were to be planted as a conservation easement and turned over for wildlife. Imagine if we mandated 10% of utility customers' bills be invested in renewable energy sources and instead of wasting money on research into pie in the sky ethanol production, implement technologies with a proven track record.
So many changes are needed, yet we act as if we have all the time in the world to "figger it out." We certainly do not!
We are all in and if we don't do something soon, we will be facing a crisis, as permanent state of affairs, position that will be virtually impossible to extricate ourselves from. We all know what to do, what needs to be done and for many of us we are beginning to understand the reasons why most politicians are so tight-lipped on many of these issues. It is high time that we as a society backed slowly away from many of the unsustainable practices that we are involved in. We need to redesign our urban areas to become more humane, encourage people and their money to come closer to the city center, and re-build a sense of stability by sharing ourselves with others. If it were not for this phenomenal tool, there would be no one to share this sort of information with you, unless you came to Wisconsin and visited me. I would be honored to receive your request for information on the next big thing. we are always working, and would like to tell you more about what we are up to...
Many of us have put our money where our mouth is for a long time. One of my first businesses was printing the image of the Great Lakes on organic cotton t-shirts. I had two main suppliers, one out East and one from Texas. I really liked the fellow in Texas, he was all about American made and even though his shirts were a bit more expensive, he was working on getting textile mills back up and running so that he would not have to ship the cotton overseas to be processed into fabric. The folks out east actually told me that a few of my first orders came at critical times when they needed capital. As the tiny, one person company that I began was about to shift gears and grow, my Texas supplier was put out of business by the state legislature of Texas who deemed growing organic cotton to be illegal. The East Coast suppliers went corporate and as soon as they found out that yuppies would pay for organic, their prices literally tripled, cutting my profit out with their rise in market share. I would love to begin again, providing ethically produced clothing at reasonable cost. I'm pretty smart, but miracles are not my specialty.
My thing is stories. I put my whole self into as many consecutive moments as possible and struggle to remember as many salient details of as many experiences as possible, so that I might convey the essential character of events that have the power to teach, enlighten and refresh those who take the time to listen.
As we pass through a typical day, there are a bewildering array of advertisements, commercials and messages that bombard our senses. Some clarity can be gained from beginning to understand who is paying for each and why. I loved my sister's idea for a bumper sticker that would say, "Whom do you serve?". I went to Target for paper toweling, a few shirts and not much else, $100! I was serving them in that moment, certainly. We need to begin to recognize that we are "all in" all the time. We are never just partly in, our whole being is enlisted in doing the work that our "maker" has set us to, but by definition, most of what we do will have no lasting impact on the world that we leave behind. My departed, ex-father-in-law used to say, "Don't matter, in 100 years, no one will know." and I mentally imagined that he was deficient in some way, like he was discouraging me from doing my level best. What took me years to understand was hat he was not voicing discouragement or the act of giving up, but the awareness that our pursuits were more important in the moment than they could ever be over a more grand scale of time. as grand an idea as we could come up with, time would have it's way at whittling away at the very core of our intention. He had turned the corner on hopelessness and realized that all one can do once one has become fully invested is bluff, hope for the best and roll with the punches.
We frequently try to change the way things are. Many dislike their homes so they remodel. Some don't like their children's teeth, so they install braces. In the old days, people would change schools or towns, jobs or their names to try to get a new start in life. As the information age tightens the purse strings on the global economy, fewer and fewer options exist for those who wish to drop out of the rat race. as long as we are all in, and all in together, perhaps there is a way to pool resources and divvy up the pot in a more responsible manner...My own vision is to give Mother Earth 10% for each and every building permit issued, there should be 10% of project costs which go to ecological reserves, areas that will never get developed. Imagine if the least productive 10% of each and every farm were to be planted as a conservation easement and turned over for wildlife. Imagine if we mandated 10% of utility customers' bills be invested in renewable energy sources and instead of wasting money on research into pie in the sky ethanol production, implement technologies with a proven track record.
So many changes are needed, yet we act as if we have all the time in the world to "figger it out." We certainly do not!
We are all in and if we don't do something soon, we will be facing a crisis, as permanent state of affairs, position that will be virtually impossible to extricate ourselves from. We all know what to do, what needs to be done and for many of us we are beginning to understand the reasons why most politicians are so tight-lipped on many of these issues. It is high time that we as a society backed slowly away from many of the unsustainable practices that we are involved in. We need to redesign our urban areas to become more humane, encourage people and their money to come closer to the city center, and re-build a sense of stability by sharing ourselves with others. If it were not for this phenomenal tool, there would be no one to share this sort of information with you, unless you came to Wisconsin and visited me. I would be honored to receive your request for information on the next big thing. we are always working, and would like to tell you more about what we are up to...
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