Decision time
I’m not a tree-hugger. Not at heart. While I am acutely environmentally aware and I do a great deal of the reduce, reuse, recycle bit, I do want a car with absurd horsepower and no practical applications at all. I want a spacious house with high ceilings and a large yard. I want a myriad wasteful and wanton things that fly in the face of all the eco-gibberish out there. I don’t think this is a good thing. I know it’s not right. But I’ve realized that the vast majority of Americans are ok with that.
I don’t think the war in Iraq is about the oil directly. Not anymore. I don’t think it’s about making the American people feel like we’re doing something to help others. None of that. I think it’s diversion. One of the most dangerous variables in our world today is our own massive level of consumption. Between damage to the environment, changes in the climate, and damage to our food supply, the way we have treated the world in the last 200 years is coming back to harm us. The war in Iraq is being waged to give us an enemy. Initially it was Osama Bin Ladin- who wasn’t even in Iraq. Then that got fuzzed and became WMDs. None of those either. So we resurrected an old evil and made Sadam the witch to hunt. He’s dead so we’re setting our sites on Iran. And for those who don’t cheer the war, we’ve been given our grammatically challenged president. No matter how you look at it, everybody has somebody to hate and somebody to blame. It works well for us because we can sit in our large, inefficient homes with our piles of clothing and electronics then get in our shiny new cars with their horribly inefficient engines and drive alone to work 3 miles away and make sure we get up to the minute reports on whose fault this whole mess is for the entire drive.
We (being America) are consuming resources at an astounding rate. And not only is our government seeking to feed this addiction, our society has actively struggled against many opportunities to reduce this use. We will go to war to get cheap gas. We will divert money away from education to ensure that we can keep more money in our pockets. We strip mine forests and drill in our wildlands to avoid embracing the nuclear future.
When did we become weak? Slow? Thoughtless? Selfish? When did tolerance and freedom turn into “ME ME ME” and when did we start hiding from problems rather than fixing them?
I love my country. I love what we can be. But I hate what we have become. I hate hiding behind our “right to choose” when choosing to do stupid things. Part of maturity is knowing when it’s OK to be a goober and when you need to suck it up and do the right thing. What separates adults from children isn’t age and it isn’t earning a paycheck. It’s knowing that there is a balance between immediate results and long-term results. Kids want toys NOW. Teens want a new car NOW. They are comfortable ignoring that doing things wrong now will result in problems further down the road. Adults (real ones, not just people over the age of 18) are aware that splurging on yourself sometimes and having some fun is fine as long as you think about the future and those around you. I guess it boils down to being responsible for somebody other than yourself. Americans don’t act like we are.
We buy big-ass SUV’s we don’t need because we can and we want them. We buy large homes with large yards that require vast amounts of resources for a four-person family just because we can. Many Americans fight tooth and nail against things like bike paths and public transit. Far more are afraid of nuclear energy. While the rest of the technologically progressive world is embracing nuclear energy (There’s a consortium of 8 countries building a small set of fusion reactors- we opted out of that chance.) America hasn’t built a nuclear power plant in nearly thirty years. While other countries increase taxes on fuel and require buyers to pay the difference for inefficient vehicles (Many countries in the EU require steep taxes on vehicles over certain engine displacements) America simply subsidizes fuel sources to make it easier to get into the large, inefficient vehicles. We are comfortable in our fear rather than uncomfortable with it. We are happy to have our “wisdom” imparted by pundits, televangelists, novelists, and columnists. Why is this? It’s our right, as Americans, to choose. We have the right to choose anything we want. We can choose to be as silly, selfish, stupid, ignorant, and weak as we like. I will freely and openly admit that we have that right. But we have the responsibility to grow up. We have the right to be stupid. But we have the NEED to not do so. We need to be more. We need to be better. We need to be grown-ups.
January 18th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
See, I said you should write. What about tossing your prose like this into the local newspaper, or trying to get some of your poetry published where a larger group will see it?
You’ve got good ideas, you write well, and you’ve got a thick enough hide to take criticism.
Dad
January 18th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Holy crap!! Your dad told you to write and you certainly did exactly that!!! So…. how do you plan on responding to your own plea to be a grown-up. What are you going to actually do about it in your own corner of the world???
Love you!!!
January 25th, 2007 at 10:04 am
I like your writing Geoff. Go nuclear- I agree with you on this one. About us over consuming, – live within your means and delay gratification for the sake of those sane, sensible and necessary things. But, then get what you’ve been wanting. It’s OK! The world would be much worse off without non-essential consumer spending. With the high productivity we have, the world does not need everyone working to produce the necessities of life. So what are those extra hands to do? Make a living with products and services we don’t really need, reducing unemployment, poverty, and increasing happiness.
January 25th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
I’m not saying don’t enjoy what you’ve got. I’m saying we should do it in a sensible way. twelve foot ceilings don’t serve any purpose other than making us FEEL like we have more room. in reality, it raises the costs of heating our houses by about twenty percent. As for fast cars, there’s no reason a fast car can’t be efficient too. A Corvette (one of my favorites) still uses a pushrod engine- a design roughly 100 years old with minimal useful alterations in this life. They have lower life expectancies, lower outputs, and lower efficiency than their OHC counterparts. I would purchase a 350z or an Audi S6 simply because the amount of power compared to the amount of fuel burnt is more sensible. Take that a step further and (I know it’s not a sports car) the Honda Accord Hybrid upped gas mileage by about 15 percent and also cut the 0-60 by about the same percentage. having fun, enjoying what you do and have, doesn’t always equate to being wasteful. To that end, GM is cutting jobs left and right while Nissan and Toyota are growing- Actually buying GM plants and jobs in some situations. Building a larger house doesn’t add to the job market either. Burning more fuel for heat and electricity doesn’t up the job market- just the cost of fuel.
February 21st, 2007 at 4:56 am
I loved reading this…dont know why I clicked on your link tonite, but did. It comes, suprisingly, very timely…We have been looking at a house in Swisher. This is a good thing for Dean and I; his parents live right down the street, and it is the town we both grew up in.
The house is nice enough…not to big, and has room for when we will someday have extended family over for holidays and such.
What is rather ‘miffing’ is the response from the kids. All these years growin up in our little house, all they’ve ever said is ‘why cant we move?’…They want more room…they want a place that is more like everyone elses…spread out so much that you literally wouldnt have to see each other while at home if you didnt want to. We chose our house because of the feel of it…the rhythm of it. It was a definite lifestyle change when we bought it. No room for a dryer, of which I have never missed…close enough to know what everyone else was doing…and in that I find comfort. And that damn heater…many a fight has broken out on a 40 below day for prime positioning when the snooze alarm goes off. The bliss of a giant blowdryer right in your own livingroom.
It was also a huge lesson in renovation. A 140+ yr old house needs constant maintenence. Our house taught us to change the things that you are capable of, hire out for the things that you dont know how to do, and tolerate the things you cant change….
But back to the new house… Yeah, this one would give us space. Space at a time when both our kids will be leaving soon, which is a little odd. The cool thing is that we would be keeping our current house, and giving the kids the option to rent it.
Dani had the most profound statement the other night. She said, “mom, its the kids that should leave home, not the parents”. Shes kinda right. Remember when you left home and got your first place? Man, I would hate to take that independent choice away… She already told us she wont move with us if we did go, and she didnt know that she would stay in the house either…dont know if this is just a diversion to force us to think a bit longer about the situation or not, but still a point to be made. A part of me knows that wherever they go from here, they will always be looking for the quirky little things that made our place special…
As I was reading Carly’s rant about feeling like she never really had a place to call home, I can say that we have given our kids a solid, loving, one-stop kind of a home in Fairfax. It is a gift that neither of the kids even gets yet… But I bet when it comes time to move, they are both gona have to take lessons in how to pack a box from Carly…as she said, she can pack a box like no other!
Nice to see you in the virtual world….stop by anytime, and blessings on your impending wedding!
Dawnie
October 18th, 2007 at 7:18 am
[...] I am Geoff of Geoffandcarley.com and I blog for reasons as diverse and as fickle as my moods. Mostly I blog because I’m firmly convinced I’ve figured a few things out and that the world will benefit from my experience the same way I’ve benefited from others’ experiences. One post that I feel captures my emotional involvement and my ire (but not my humor as much) is Decision time. [...]
October 18th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
[...] I am Geoff of Geoffandcarley.com and I blog for reasons as diverse and as fickle as my moods. Mostly I blog because I’m firmly convinced I’ve figured a few things out and that the world will benefit from my experience the same way I’ve benefited from others’ experiences. One post that I feel captures my emotional involvement and my ire (but not my humor as much) is Decision time. [...]
October 19th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
[...] I am Geoff of Geoffandcarley.com and I blog for reasons as diverse and as fickle as my moods. Mostly I blog because I’m firmly convinced I’ve figured a few things out and that the world will benefit from my experience the same way I’ve benefited from others’ experiences. One post that I feel captures my emotional involvement and my ire (but not my humor as much) is Decision time. [...]
October 20th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
[...] I am Geoff of Geoffandcarley.com and I blog for reasons as diverse and as fickle as my moods. Mostly I blog because I’m firmly convinced I’ve figured a few things out and that the world will benefit from my experience the same way I’ve benefited from others’ experiences. One post that I feel captures my emotional involvement and my ire (but not my humor as much) is Decision time. [...]
October 22nd, 2007 at 3:42 pm
[...] I am Geoff of Geoffandcarley.com and I blog for reasons as diverse and as fickle as my moods. Mostly I blog because I’m firmly convinced I’ve figured a few things out and that the world will benefit from my experience the same way I’ve benefited from others’ experiences. One post that I feel captures my emotional involvement and my ire (but not my humor as much) is Decision time. [...]
October 25th, 2007 at 6:31 am
[...] One post that I feel captures my emotional involvement and my ire (but not my humor as much) is Decision time.My name is Judy and I am the Author of ~~Sugar Queen’s Dream~~. I blog because it’s [...]
October 25th, 2007 at 8:21 am
[...] I am Geoff of Geoffandcarley.com and I blog for reasons as diverse and as fickle as my moods. Mostly I blog because I’m firmly convinced I’ve figured a few things out and that the world will benefit from my experience the same way I’ve benefited from others’ experiences. One post that I feel captures my emotional involvement and my ire (but not my humor as much) is Decision time. [...]
October 28th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
[...] One post that I feel captures my emotional involvement and my ire (but not my humor as much) is Decision time.My name is Judy and I am the Author of ~~Sugar Queen’s Dream~~. I blog because it’s [...]
October 29th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
[...] I am Geoff of Geoffandcarley.com and I blog for reasons as diverse and as fickle as my moods. Mostly I blog because I’m firmly convinced I’ve figured a few things out and that the world will benefit from my experience the same way I’ve benefited from others’ experiences. One post that I feel captures my emotional involvement and my ire (but not my humor as much) is Decision time. [...]
October 30th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
[...] I am Geoff of Geoffandcarley.com and I blog for reasons as diverse and as fickle as my moods. Mostly I blog because I’m firmly convinced I’ve figured a few things out and that the world will benefit from my experience the same way I’ve benefited from others’ experiences. One post that I feel captures my emotional involvement and my ire (but not my humor as much) is Decision time. [...]
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:43 am
[...] I am Geoff of Geoffandcarley.com and I blog for reasons as diverse and as fickle as my moods. Mostly I blog because I’m firmly convinced I’ve figured a few things out and that the world will benefit from my experience the same way I’ve benefited from others’ experiences. One post that I feel captures my emotional involvement and my ire (but not my humor as much) is Decision time. [...]
November 7th, 2007 at 9:54 am
[...] Realm. Favorite post: On Trust and Relationship.Geoff of Geoffandcarley.com. Favorite post: Decision time.Judy of ~~Sugar Queen’s Dream~~. Favorite post: “The Myths of Smoking……â€Sindi [...]