[Sosfbay-discuss] "The Gospel of Consumerism"

[Wes Rolley]

Gerry Gras wrote:
<snip>
> It's about the implications for democracy of shorter vs.
> longer work week.
>
> It's long ...
>
>
>      http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/03/8686/
Well, among those things we could do with a shorter work week is to read 
things like this instead of waiting until we retire like I did.

Then, we might start actually writing stuff.... like I did.  Consumerism 
has been a subject of my last two Morgan Hill Times columns. 
http://www.morganhilltimes.com/opinion/241276-more-than-shopping-to-make-a-successful-downtown
and
http://www.morganhilltimes.com/opinion/240153-consumerism-will-permanently-damage-our-planet

When we moved back from Japan in 1993, I had to make some major changes 
in the property.  "Digger" pines were too big and too fire-dangerously 
close to the house and had to go.  Eventually, they were replaced by 
apple, apricot, cherry, loquat,  persimmon, plum, pluot and citrus 
(oranges, Meyer lemons, kumquats, grapefruit, pomelo). 

Every tree that went into the ground meant that a rock had to come out, 
or so it seemed.  At the time, I piled a wall just outside my office 
window, running the width of the house.  It is more like a two level 
terrace, each about two feet high allowing a planting on the lower level 
and with rosemary growing along the top level. 

Well, as Frost wrote "Something there is that does not love a wall."  
Eventually, it is starting to go and I am rebuilding it with mortar, as 
I don't think that my body can take rebuilding it again in another 10 
years.

By the time I had built the wall in the fist place I had developed an 
eye for finding just the rock that I need to fill a particular place.  
Now, laying it up with mortar, everything changes slightly and the 
practiced eye that I used years ago is out of practice. I takes me 
longer and if I mix too much mortar, it dries out before I can use it.

It is along way of saying that there are a number of skills that one 
needs to live these days and they are being forgotten, lost by the 
passage of time.  While laying up a portion of the wall yesterday, I 
remembers a mystery that I had enjoyed reading several years ago.  It is 
"No Colder Place" by S. J. Rozan and the main PI character has to recall 
and re-use bricklaying skills from an earlier lifetime just as I am 
doing now..  A mystery might not be everyone's choice for reading, but 
the sections that describe brick laying and the learned skills involved 
ring true in my mind.  (Author Rozan was an architect so this is 
familiar territory.).

Tian wrote of his search for good shoes and a cobbler who could make 
them. If we are not to be the consummate consumer then there are other 
skills that we will of necessity learn.  Even mixing mortar is a skill.


-- 
"Anytime you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, then you are wasting your time on this Earth" Roberto Clemente

Wes Rolley
17211 Quail Court, Morgan Hill, CA 95037
http://www.refpub.com/ -- Tel: 408.778.3024