Nothing says waiting room quite like linoleum and plastic chairs. Having spent 3 chunks of my life in the past week in these surrounds... I thought I'd express my disenchantment with motor vehicles. (It is amazing how the price of a car repair increases over the estimate by a factor of how many time chunks are spent in plastic chairs. This includes whether nothing was actually done (second chunk) or successfully done (first chunk.)) Though to say disenchantment might be putting it too grand, since I only owned a car for 1 year before I was about 32.
This reminds me of a conversation with my mother, of course. She said why don't Americans just conserve. And I'm like, you mean, spontaneous, without overwhelming necessity, the formerly fattest nation on earth go on, essentially, a collective diet? (I say formerly fattest, as rumor has it the Austrailians have overtaken the U.S. in obesity. Can't we be #1 at anything anymore?)
Maybe diets at the policy level would work... I mean, energy conservation. I don't know. I would not mind never ever driving a rattling money sucking time wasting space occupying oil dripping air polluting resource depleting monument of solo consumption again. That is, if there were a more convenient way to buy groceries.
*regarding this video... apropos of nothing, this was in my head while waiting. If you listen, it will be in your head too. ;P
3 comments:
This country's strength is consumption. We consume. Then when the supplies of whatever we consumed are drying up, we invent ways to consume more. That's what drives our economy. If we end up depleting something completely, that's when we stop.
It may not be to everyone's liking, but that's the way our system works. I wouldn't expect change soon...
(Wow! What a downer comment! Sorry!)
Patience is hard to have when you want to get somewhere quickly. In Japan, I don't have a car and walk everywhere, even it is going to take me 30 minutes. But I am in the city and everything essential is central When I am at home in California, getting around on foot is possible but not common. I seem to be one of a handful walking to the stores. Starbucks, the post office, a neighborhood market and major shopping center are near, but there is no large supermarket.
I refuse to watch that video because I am convinced it the the Baha dudes and I will not even utter the name of the song for fear I will be burdened with it in my brain all day.
It doesn't matter what country we come from, humans pretty much universally feel we are owed something and we are stealing it from anywhere we can. Sadly most of the time it is our planet. All us hippie types are going to sigh a big collective I told you so when the Earth dies. It is a tough battle to fight but one we have to try to win. No shopping centers within walking distance? How abut a bike?
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