Sunday, October 17, 2010

Ranting

Disclaimer:

Note, dear reader, that this blog is primarily just me doing some therapeutic (which incidentally was a difficult word to spell..) ranting, just so your warned and don't expect anything particularly exciting and edifying...

Reading a book about climate change (this being a negative, but possible true, book about global warming. Negative that is in the sense that it takes a pretty bleak outlook on the future. Which is rather fine by me, right now I have a rather bleak view of the future as well, so were kinda linking on some level or another, me and the book..) called "Requiem for a Species" by Clive Hamilton, somehow linked to climate change he makes this statement, or possibly he quotes someone (talking about growth and the fixation thereof) :

It would be a society in which we nurture things the things that really do improve our wellbeing, rather than dreaming evermore of the things we that only money can buy

Now I sort of agree with him, but the thing (and I can't exactly find the quote so I'm not sure if my slightly gloomy mind invented it all by itself) that annoyed me is when he allures to the fact that we instead of buying stuff should focus on the things that really matters. Well, that is fine, but often what may "really matter" that money can't buy are things we cant have. Or at least I can't have. I apologize profusely, I should not generalize (bloody american spell checking and their Zs) and assume you, dear reader, are like me. So I buy stuff, not necessarily because I think buying stuff is all that fantastic and I really need this random thing I found that "will change your life from grey to sparkling red and orange!" is of all the much interest to me, nor that I think my life somehow will become all sparkling or red and orange. No, I buy it because it's a substitute, it's something I can have, all I have to do is type some numbers into a little box on the computer and click a button, or give a little plastic card to some person in a shop. Easy. What I really want isn't that simple to get. So, to say I'm somehow a slave to consumerism...??

It's the same with a lot of things, porn for example, crappiest piece of shit ever, gives you nothing, degrades everyone involved, but it's an easy substitute for something that we as humans tend to want. Crap. I think it's the same with, hmm, chocolate, I bet it's a substitute for something as well, mangoes perhaps? You know you really want a mango, and you know that a mango is good for you, but can you get a mango? Yes, you can, so crap example.. But still, when you go to the shop where they sell both mangoes and chocolate, by some reason it's much easier to justify paying $4 for 200g of chocolate than for a mango.. And the mango is heavier than the chocolate.. Nor does it pollute the environment quite as much (unless of course you live in ripe chocolate growing country, with no mangoes anywhere within 10000km and the only way to get the mangoes to your remote part of the world [that have heaps of chocolate factories] they have to travel, one by one, on an oil tanker) or make your throat all sticky and yucky.. Weird.

Wonder if were just (including you somehow, see how I sneak-illy used the, possibly to interpret as first person, "you" earlier?) weird as humans? Why do we do the things we do? Why do we think the way we do? Why do we say the things we do? Why do we say things we later regret? Why do we take ourselves so seriously? Why do we have hair on useless places? Why do we believe in things we can't see? Why don't we believe things we can see? What would happen if we could see everything, like bacteria etc? Why do we like to see others get hurt, or hurt others? Why do we want more than others? Why are we so terribly short sighted? Why do we have emotions? Why do we fear? Why do I write all these things right now?

I do wonder about these things though, not all of them all the time, but at various times I do wonder about them. I also wonder stuff like "what happens if I were to jump from this very high building? Would I manage to miss the ground?" and "am I a product of my environment?", mostly though I wonder about what to eat, what to wear, what to say to someone, what to do on the weekend, what to do at night, how to score that important goal? And, how to somehow for the moment forget I'm feeling very sorry for myself? Drugs? Have you ever tried them? Useful are they? Strongest drug I have ever tried is, hm, coffee I think, or possible one of those green sticks the ambos give you.. I like those sticks, makes you happy.. But figure it would look a bit silly going around sucking on a green stick all the time...

I may have somewhat lost my thread, although I have a feeling there never was much of a thread to start with so if that is the case I cannot have lost my thread. I'm good at loosing things though, one of my strengths. And forgetting things. Another one. Being somewhat absent-minded is also one of my strengths. Pretty awesome skills to have these. The things you can do with them! Forget to lock your car, forget to close the sunroof of the car, forget you wallet, forget your keys, lock yourself out of the house, forget to do something else that may or may not have been important to a third party. Somehow get surprised by the fact that you did all these things, and suddenly forget about it as a cow was chewing grass..

Eh, maybe should stop here.. Even though this being somewhat creative is good for my mind and helps me do something else than brood.. Still, there is only so long you can write about very little. I could write about our minds.. How they trick us into all sorts of things? No, that would be bad of me as I know very little about how our minds actually work, except from some book I have read on the subject that most probably are very populist..

Out.