Monday, September 09, 2013

Did YOU sign up for this? (Part UNO)


I am finding that my posts are alternating between uplifting and concerning. This topic is concerning to me and also really huge (so i am splitting it up into multiple posts). Once again, inspired by a chapter in a book, I write today to encourage you to question everything. And by everything, I mean every. Single. Thing.

The concept that sparked my writing is that of a "tribal consciousness" or "collective consent". In other words, I'm going to examine some of the many facets of our society's "normal" practices (that most of us seem to be ok with, otherwise we would be changing things, right?) and explain why I think we are all being mislead in a huge way.  I don't have all the answers...I ask you to come to your own conclusions:


Water
We all need it. It's not optional. How do you like yours? Tap? Spring? Reverse osmosis? Vitamin enhanced? Fruity? Perhaps with a bit of fizz? When did something that falls freely from the sky start belonging to the world's governments and big corporations? How is it even possible for some places to deem it illegal to catch your own rainwater? How did our environment get so filthy that we have to treat our water like its toxic waste and run it through a series of contraptions in order to drink it or bathe in it? Gulp


Food
Also not optional, except for a handful of folks (called Breatharians. What? You don't know one? Geez.) who have apparently surpassed the need for food. Once upon a time, people around the globe grew their own food. Mhmmmm, pretty much everyone. Most of them hunted for something too. So that would mean if you were lazy, you would likely starve. These days most of us would call producing food "dirty work". We have much more glamorous goals to achieve, so we mindlessly roam through the mega "food" stores, piling carts full of processed packaged stuff labeled as edible.


  At your next meal, quiz yourself to see if you know where any of your food was grown or how far it travelled to arrive in your fridge. As Joel Salatin joked, but was actually frighteningly serious, some kids on his farm tour asked to see the salsa tree. Yikes.  If you don't live in an agricultural area of the globe, you are really missing out on seeing where many of your staple foods are coming from. The next time you eat anything containing conventional (and verrrrry likely GMO) wheat, corn, or canola oil (or a myriad of other cheap, scary fillers), consider this series of images.


It starts in the expansive fields where the crops (and surrounding homes and schools etc) get a routine shower of poisonous chemicals several times a season...

Then it all gets sprayed one last time to ensure that it all ripens perfectly just in time to harvest...


It all eventually ends up in your kitchen...And...in a frighteningly huge percentage of anything that comes in a package, box, can or bag...or a restaurant. 


I have watched the spraying on a very regular basis while riding my bike around rural Alberta. Even got sprayed once while riding. It burned my skin. I was told to smarten up and not bike around crop sprayers. Also, every minute counts in farming, so we don't stop spraying when a human is nearby.   Gag. Choke. Head shake. Huh??!


Education
I have a hard time even calling it that. It really seems more like "fill your brain, limit your creativity, think...but only inside the box, this is how it is, leave out the actual life skills portion (like taxes or budgeting or healthy eating or proper communication skills), oh and sit still and stop talking for 12 years-ucation."  


Then...if you are wealthy, a superstar athlete OR want to pay back mega debt for the next few decades, university is totally for you! What? You're not going?! You'll never make it in the real world!!! Might as well just give up now. Or work your butt off at ____ and give away a huge slice (wait, no. You keep a slice and we will take the loaf) of your hard earned money to the government. Oh, don't you worry. They are going to use it to help make your life better. Ahahaha *snort* Oh, gosh. That's funny. 


Well then. I think that's enough for everyone to question for one day. 

Ps. I plan to elaborate on all of these topics in the near future. Stay tuned for Part 2...

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