On living Real, all the Inconvenience – twice the Passion

From CFI

On living Real, all the Inconvenience – twice the Passion. (Essay 1 of 3) An anonymous essay (Dear author; please identify yourself)

In considering what could be done to better prepare for life without push button convenience, many questions come to mind. The first things I remember are what was taught in grade school, the hierarchy of needs (food, shelter and clothing) as contrasted to the wants (comfort, ease, and luxury). The wants have cost me a great deal of money and effort in my life, the basic needs haven’t been that difficult. I’ve been blessed to live in pretty ideal circumstances. The shelves on the stores have always been well stocked, the money has usually been there to buy what was needed, and most of the time that included luxury items. Energy has never really been much of a question, its cheap, forget about it.

The first real awakening for me happened in the 70s when the lines at the gas stations started forming during the oil crisis. The fights, the line cutting, shoving, all predicting a chilling forecast of what happens when some people don’t get their luxuries when they want them, like right now! A luxury? Yes, gas at 1/3 the going rate of what most other countrys pay is a luxury. Having a reliable automobile to make a daily commute is a luxury. We have lost sight of what constitutes a luxury, as opposed to a real need for healthy human existence. And herein lies the start of a blueprint for Living. If we want all the luxuries we’ve become accustomed to along with the real needs as we lay out a plan for getting back to basics, it is going to be much more difficult to have a sustainable model that can exist independent of outside resources. If we can redefine what it is that we really need to be healthy and happy, the task becomes much easier.

As I look around at night and see all the lights left on in rooms and houses without people in them, and hear big pickup trucks left idling for 10 minutes in the morning to “warm up” before taking (1) person to a job, And see entire dumpsters of dated food and produce get hauled off to landfill, its pretty clear there are many places where progress could be made immediately, with very little effort.

At the last meeting (Nov22) a person said it well “The best way to get a unit of energy is to save one”

A great step towards a mindset that will support a sustainable model.