Thursday, January 07, 2010

Truth, Whine and Cheese

Sometimes I wish I could be the kind of person who does not think too much about anything, does not know much of anything, and just does what she is told to do. A sheeple, as they say. Sometimes it is hard being different. It would be so nice to just look to the TV, the mainstream culture, "everyone else" and just follow along. There would be no uncomfortable feelings of uncertainty, no worries about whether I am doing the best thing, and lots of other people to blame if things do not go well. I wish I could send my kids to school and feel pride in the test scores or commiserate with the other parents about our kids failures or how the school is failing them. I wish I could go back to being blind to the big picture issues and be clueless to our coming crises. I wish I could turn up the heat, turn on the all the lights, use my dryer all year long, buy a plasma TV and watch it all the time, eat food from across the globe and out of season, and toss cardboard in the trash, all without guilt. I wish I didn't know better, so I didn't have to do better. It would be so much easier, right?

Nevermind me, I just needed to whine. Can I have a nice Brie with that?

5 comments:

Eli said...

What pray tell is wrong with plasma tv's?

Miranda said...

Oh, nothing, Elizabeth, other than the energy they use and the fancy rare metals in them that we mine in 3rd world countries, leaving destruction in our wake. Did you know CA is thinking of banning them to save energy? Or maybe it was large screens in general, over a certain size. Anyway, I was using them as just a metaphor for anything extraneous that consumes energy and time and resources. Other than that, I want one! ;-)

Tara W. said...

I hear ya. Awareness makes life harder.

Not that I'd really want it any other way. Just that "easy" sounds good sometimes.

I think if we had the communities we used to have, things wouldn't feel so challenging at times.

Annette said...

You are so good at being non-mainstream! So passionate and inspiring. I don't really think you'd want anything else. Perhaps you're feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment? Try getting back to this moment now, put your "to do" list aside and take some deep breaths. love, A

flowers said...

I love it. Oh, so needed when you live on the edge.

We do the best we can, but we've also lightened up here and there.

ie. we were just gifted a new flatscreen tv and after being tv free for a gazillion years I'm ignoring the blech and enjoying the bling.

Once in a while I have that feeling about school. Oh wouldn't it be fun to send him off all smiling and school was good for him and walk him home and pack him lunches. But it's not so easy to lighten up there as it is with the tv ;-)