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November 2009 
What would you whisper as a wish for the dawning year?
Posted on Jan 2nd, 2009
by 
tinkonthebrink
tinkonthebrink
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for January 01, 2009:
The economy is in a funk. Everyone in their right mind of course wants to see it get unfunked, but I'm not necessarily in the same kind of right mind that they are. I am terribly sorry for people who have lost jobs, lost homes, lost their 401k (mine is disappearing by the second), but on the other hand, the world itself is just the same. The real resources are still there, the real services are still needed, real work still gets done. Not endless growth, not inflated values of pieces of paper, not jobs that don't quite involve doing real things. Not giving mortgages based on inflated values to people who actually can't afford them, not selling those off without any financial anchor for the loans, not building more and more anthill condos and modular townhomes and planning to sell them for a quarter of a million each, not an ever growing pool of middle management jobs. I heard that two to three thousand malls are predicted to close this year nationwide. That just doesn't make me sad. What I would whisper, very very quietly so that no one hits me over the head with a brick from one of the houses that isn't being built these days (although those don't use much brick, it takes too much time and skill), is for the economy to hold back long enough that we all have to make an adjustment. I want to see manicured lawns turned into food gardens and rooftop gardens in cities and people helping each other out and scaling back and using less and giving more. I want to see people learning real life skills and protecting resources and reading books and having more sex because after all, that's (usually) free. Those abandoned malls would make great schools, or skating rinks, or schools with skating rinks in the middle. I hope we have to become more creative and resilient and useful. I hope we all have to stop shopping and exchange our used clothing with one another and eat real food made from basic, local things and drive less and walk more and ride our bikes. And I don't think we'll do these things unless we have to, so I'm whispering very very quietly. Oh dear, wait, I guess I've actually said it all out loud.
Access: Public
yes, I’d like to see my neighborhood….user friendly again.
Amen, amen, Amen! I am so with you in this thinking, indeed. There really is no need to succumb to such poverty consciousness unless one still has the need to learn slowly and painfully while steeped in the scarcity fears that are so prevalent. They too are just illusions and we do have the choice every moment. May we simplify and practice the 3 r’s in the new year more than ever before!
Reduce, reuse, recycle and I will add the 4th R—Reconnect! The latter is the thrust of the theme of my new year.
May yours be creative and beautiful!
The economic “crisis” is simply the response to the intention many in the world have had to “fix” the global warming / climate change issue. The way the economy was heading before all this came tmbling downwas in direct opposition to the changes which were needed. I agree, though many people are panicking and feeling fearful, this “crisis” needs to last long enough in order for government, industry and the general population to “get” that the way out of this is to embrace more people-friendly and earth=friendly industries. It’s interesting how many of the old ways of doing things not only employed more people, but were also less polluting too. Progress for progress sake isn’t really progress, is it? (you’re right, one still has to whisper it, especially with all the hand-wringing over the auto industry, etc.)
I’ve often shaken my head at the wastefulness and empty soullessness of those manicured lawns and empty malls. and at the (until recently) construction of what seemed to me to be endless subdivisional rows of cookie cutter houses all cramped next to each other. I think we need to find ways to use space consciously and generously. I’m not sure what that means, but I do think people are starting to think about it more. one of my students wrote a research paper for me this fall about how to convert my old school into a “green” school that used solar energy more. and I too hope we have to start to make these changes.
And when you think about it, the current ‘correction’ is a hell of a lot kinder and gentler that it has to be. We’re lucky as a species that we even have a chance for your whisper to to be heard.
I’m singing it out LOUD dammit. I won’t whisper!! I’ll argue and tick people off — I have indeed done so recently– in a playful and loving way and offer to share what I have.
Farland and I heard Thomas Friedman talk about his book Hot, Flat and Crowded at Explore Booksellers in Aspen on the 27th of December. It was a magical, terrifying and ultimately hopeful and uplifting evening.
I’m not whispering this – I’m shouting it from the rooftops.
and thank you for putting into words, dear, tink. you so often say exactly what I want to say, but with better words. :-)
I have to read this book next, Dawn - I loved The World is Flat. Thank you for reminding me of a book I wanted to read!