It Seems That We All Need Our Space

We grow up in a household full of family members, then after a certain age, we are off to “start our own lives”. Other cultures find strength in family. We find a burden. We loathe the fact that we need to take care of our elders rather than supporting them and looking to them for wisdom. Is this because our world is changing too quickly? Is there no wisdom in age anymore? Are we wiser than our parents (or just believe we are)? When information was not at everyone’s fingertips, wisdom came from passing down information slowly. You paid close attention to this wisdom because you relied on it to live well and progress in thought. Now it seems as though our paradigms shift radically with every generation and this causes us to grow in thought exponentially. Is the availability of information what ended slavery? Brought women’s rights? Will it help stem environmental destruction?

I digress. We all have been brought up to be in our own space. Our own lives lived out in our own home with our own lawn and our own weed eater. We do not share our lives with three generations of family. We feel trapped by old thoughts and antiquated ideas. This slows us down, stifles growth in thought. I want to embrace the old ways, I want to respect old wisdom. Is it worth it, though? Shouldn’t respect for ideas be mutual?

Plastic Water Bottles

I figure why not start this thing off with a bang.

I hate plastic water bottles. Really. I do. It feels so ungrateful to me to live in a country where tap water is clean and abundant to wastefully consume energy and resources to supply ourselves with bottled water. Huge companies are laughing at us…SUCKERS!!! Go ahead and pay for us to take a normal resource, add no value, consume energy then create waste that your children will live with. Sounds like logic to me. All I ask is that you think about it next time you grab a bottle of water. Ask yourself why. Is it absolutely necessary in this situation to use a plastic container that will only be used once? Where will this bottle go when I am done with it? Can I put a filter in the fridge if I want clean, cold water on hand? We need to start asking questions like these in regards to every decision we make.