The 2010 Gist: A New To-Do ListShare
Today at 5:57am
To me, this isn’t just the flipping of another calendar year. It’s a landmark event. With The New Year comes a New Decade and with every decade we see actions and attitudes that define its generations.
A decade will host at least two Presidents. In a decade, you will be grown up and moved out, possibly married and a parent of your own. In 10 years, our planet’s population will be almost double what it is now while the possibility of losing your own parents are even greater. The food demand will almost-certainly still be supplied by a military-industrialized system while our armed forces will either be assisting and rebuilding the world or adding more fuel to the fire. No matter what age group or demographic you’re in, 2010 is now and you are its generation.
Today I made a list of the things I’m passionate about that I am committing myself to in the coming decade. As I began the writing exercise, a sickness stirred up inside. Both my stomach and head dizzy as I think about how grand a task I am setting myself up for. Somehow I fear our heavy handed human horded world is beyond a certain tipping point, that our industrialized ways, those that require every last drop of bloody-oil to stay afloat, to stay fed, to stay warm, have pimped our population to such great heights that we couldn’t afford to stop the machine now. The thought of all the imbalance caused in the last century makes me to want to withdraw from any and all ways of participation in a modern world, vowing to never have kids, eating only concentrated astronaut food while surfing my numbered days away with fins crossed hoping that our coastlines don’t become too polluted before I do. Even being on the Internet, sucking up energy from the grid is no longer a turn-on. It’s a luxury I don’t feel I deserve. Even though my home operates on an array of Solar Panels, my participation online invites people to recharge, log in, and potentially ignore their own environment, sitting hunched over, morphing into a creature dependant on software updates. I just talking about myself now.
This is why I prefer to use Blogging, Twittering, and Performing as a place to continue any kind of “Conscious Conversation.” This is why I love SuperForest.Org and Ted.Com. This is why I raise my hand to play Farm-Aid, to Support Equality for All, to fight for legalization of natural herbs and alternative medicine, to sit at the feet of Gurus, my elders and peers, and learn whatever I can. If life is my college then blogs are my homework assignments. The Internet becomes the safeguard of my reputation. By sharing my hopes, dreams and ambitions, I’m more likely to walk whatever I talk. And if I inspire one person in the process, perhaps that person will continue the conversation, even starting a blog of their own to back their word, and so on. And feeling like there’s others buzzing out there in the world, I sleep better knowing our species is indeed awake.
The resolutions or missions I’m committing to may read like conspiracy theories and I apologize in advance for typing so excitedly. So in an effort to peacefully and powerfully inspire anyone, I’m breaking the list up and making it my topic of blogs for the remainder of the week, counting down to New Years Day. Please check back daily, lending your eyes, ears, and open mind to a loving transformation of our beautiful life on Earth. This is the only home we have and these are its only moments. I do believe in the power of possibility.
Top 5 Conversations Worthy of My Commitment in 2010
# 5: Buy Local or Die: I Will Support Natural & Organic Food Sources
Did you know that processing one pound of meat requires 5000 gallons of water? Did you know that 1 cow used to produce fast food and grocery store ground beef requires 35 gallons of oil (1 barrel) to support it’s force–fed life? Did you know that cows are natural herbivores (grass grazers) and are force fed corn feed, cow parts and other animal bi-products to speed up the process to where they are fat enough to be slaughtered? Did you know that for a cow to not die in this process, a cow that sleeps in its own manure, is pumped full of antibiotics and other drugs to stay “healthy?” The chemical waste of a cow is no longer suitable as fertilizer as it would kill the plants. Cow piss is toxic and of course floats downstream throughout the food chain in all forms, one way or another, to us. When you buy this meat, you are supporting a Military’s action for oil in the Middle East. You are supporting pharmaceutical companies as well as the unethical and environmentally hazardous treatment of the only home we have. Buying quick and easy meat is like biting the hand that feeds you. Modern industrial agri-business is THE #1 contributor to the dying world.
It doesn’t just stop in the beef business. Every kind of processed food that comes from a factory farm is a derivative of genetically modified corn – the growing and manufacturing of which destroys soils, covering ground with chemical fertilizers made up of ammunition seeping downward, polluting the water table, or evaporating into the air causing acid rain and adding more heavy metals to the overheated global climate crisis.
Pretty much all of the food not found in the produce section of a grocery store has no nutritional value. You’d be better off eating cardboard. Even our non-organic produce puts up with a lot of bad juju before it ever leaves the farm. This is why I choose to live on raw, organic, live or concentrated foods (powdered foods i.e. from Healthforce Nutritionals and Sunrider Brands.) Even farmed fish are forced to eat corn and are also pumped full of medicine to ensure it survives the journey (somewhat) to your dinner plate.
There is another story here about the kind of dinnerware we use. Are you using Styrofoam or Plastic Plates and Cups? Because only the most arrogant of Kings would use synthetic table settings just once before throwing them away. The more we use them, the less safe our soil and seas are as these materials fail to biodegrade adding, yep, more toxic uh-oh to our ground, river, and drinking water.
Last centuries’ ideas for efficiency (created to keep companies like McDonalds and our Military thriving) have screwed farmers and only fattened the now cancer haunted consumer. In the new decade ahead, we either boldly adopt new practices or bravely continue down the path to forgive and forget and hope that what we eat doesn’t kill us.
In addition to raising your voice about global health and environmental concerns, YOU CAN VOTE WITH YOUR FORK. The way we consume WILL dictate where and how our food is grown. Our role can be the greatest in the food chain if we pause and say a blessing once in a while, acknowledging the food itself and those who grew it, packaged and delivered it, making it safe and possible for you to eat.
If we all shifted our attention back to grass-fed meat, we would be supporting farms that participate in a natural turning of land, from sunlight to grass, grass to proteins, protein to fertilizer, rinse and repeat. Not to mention, we would be treating our divine bodies better.
Buying organic produce makes a powerful statement about how you prefer your food grown - by people, without the use of chemicals. The Best Fertilizer is a Farmer’s Footsteps. And the best place to stock your kitchen is your local Farmers Market where you can actually talk to the farmer and his wife.
This Year I Resolve to Buy Local, to Buy Organic, and to lend my voice and practices to the Family Farmers who need us.
Etiketter: 2010, jason mraz, local, organic
