Life- Boat Building
What does it take to convince people that they need life boats? It is hard to think ahead and imagine a time when you won’t be able to get in to your car and go buy food when ever you please. This doesn’t mean that people are happy with their lives as they are right now, but they have such an abundance of the essentials for survival that it drowns thoughts of change. In addition everyone is always referencing. This is a comparison either between you and those currently around you, or you in the world now and in the past. When we leave our house and quickly scan those around us, realize our environment and act accordingly nobody is running home from the grocery store anxious about making sure that he has stocked up the house with enough gallons of water and canned foods. And so we all take a look around and say to our selves “relax, maybe it will all be taken care of, after all we have come this far and we can do anything”.
Even if information about peak oil and its implications was widely available and known it is still hard to create change. It is hard to have the will to change your whole way of life and plans for the future if there is no direct or significant impact on your life in the present.
It takes either, media and general discourse of fear establishment in a culture where it will be the accepted attitude of “we are all going to die, if…” or it takes a noteworthy disturbance of your daily routine.
Where are the instructions? A good preamble to a “how to live sustain-ably” manual would be Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael, because in order to change the way we live we must change the way we think about the world and our existence- Ishmael goes even further back(because we need it) and teaches us what it actually is that we are thinking. Mother culture (the embodiment of civilization’s whispers) tells us that the world was created for man; the world was not created for the jellyfish. Because the world was created for man (since he is the last so far in the evolutionary line up) man must conquer it- it is man’s purpose to conquer the world. When man conquers the world he occupies every part of it and takes as he goes what he needs and pleases. Man never accommodates any other living being unless he is forced to. Man does something that no other known species has done- he utilizes and exploits what he needs until it is completely gone, for example animals which are extinct. In short because man never gives back to the Earth he cannot live in harmony with it.
How can we coexist with other beings? I don’t know yet, Mother Culture often shrieks in my ears, infatuates my eyes, clouds, enslaves my mind and stifles my spine.
Skills needed to survive in the Northeast without civilization (or at least as we know it) in a post peak world
1. Fire building without fire starting liquid and if possible without sparkers.
2. Successful vegetation gardening specifically permaculture, because unlike our current large scale farming permaculture is sustainable. i.e. tomatoes, potatoes, carrots
3. Heating water using the sun’s solar energy.
4. Making a bed out of dried leaves, sticks and grass in order to keep warm enough to survive. (If we are not organized enough but still manage to make it out of the city I imagine us living in the forest and not in urban areas.)
5. Before the human race made the worst mistake in history, hunting and gathering food was essential. Since gathering made up more than 85% of their diets it seems that it would be important to know how to gather food. In terms of what foods have lots of nutrients and calories for energy, also what should be avoided due to poisonous effects.
6. Even though there are many lakes in the Northeast with drinkable fresh water. It will be important to know how to access underground water and be able to tell if it drinkable.
7. Learn how to effectively communicate with others. Social skills must be developed to nurture a healthy and efficient community dynamic.
8. Learn how to heal without technology; be knowledgeable about natural medicines. Also learn what different sorts of infections and diseases [which can be seen] look like.
9. We should develop our muscles because we will be doing a lot more physical labor in order to survive. In addition we should start to eat less; since we eat so much more than we need to live our stomachs have been stretched and are bigger than our bodies need. This is why we should allow them to come back to their natural state, and it will be easier to fill them, requiring less food (assuming we won’t have a lot of food to eat in the post peak world).
What does it take to convince people that they need life boats? It is hard to think ahead and imagine a time when you won’t be able to get in to your car and go buy food when ever you please. This doesn’t mean that people are happy with their lives as they are right now, but they have such an abundance of the essentials for survival that it drowns thoughts of change. In addition everyone is always referencing. This is a comparison either between you and those currently around you, or you in the world now and in the past. When we leave our house and quickly scan those around us, realize our environment and act accordingly nobody is running home from the grocery store anxious about making sure that he has stocked up the house with enough gallons of water and canned foods. And so we all take a look around and say to our selves “relax, maybe it will all be taken care of, after all we have come this far and we can do anything”.
Even if information about peak oil and its implications was widely available and known it is still hard to create change. It is hard to have the will to change your whole way of life and plans for the future if there is no direct or significant impact on your life in the present.
It takes either, media and general discourse of fear establishment in a culture where it will be the accepted attitude of “we are all going to die, if…” or it takes a noteworthy disturbance of your daily routine.
Where are the instructions? A good preamble to a “how to live sustain-ably” manual would be Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael, because in order to change the way we live we must change the way we think about the world and our existence- Ishmael goes even further back(because we need it) and teaches us what it actually is that we are thinking. Mother culture (the embodiment of civilization’s whispers) tells us that the world was created for man; the world was not created for the jellyfish. Because the world was created for man (since he is the last so far in the evolutionary line up) man must conquer it- it is man’s purpose to conquer the world. When man conquers the world he occupies every part of it and takes as he goes what he needs and pleases. Man never accommodates any other living being unless he is forced to. Man does something that no other known species has done- he utilizes and exploits what he needs until it is completely gone, for example animals which are extinct. In short because man never gives back to the Earth he cannot live in harmony with it.
How can we coexist with other beings? I don’t know yet, Mother Culture often shrieks in my ears, infatuates my eyes, clouds, enslaves my mind and stifles my spine.
Skills needed to survive in the Northeast without civilization (or at least as we know it) in a post peak world
1. Fire building without fire starting liquid and if possible without sparkers.
2. Successful vegetation gardening specifically permaculture, because unlike our current large scale farming permaculture is sustainable. i.e. tomatoes, potatoes, carrots
3. Heating water using the sun’s solar energy.
4. Making a bed out of dried leaves, sticks and grass in order to keep warm enough to survive. (If we are not organized enough but still manage to make it out of the city I imagine us living in the forest and not in urban areas.)
5. Before the human race made the worst mistake in history, hunting and gathering food was essential. Since gathering made up more than 85% of their diets it seems that it would be important to know how to gather food. In terms of what foods have lots of nutrients and calories for energy, also what should be avoided due to poisonous effects.
6. Even though there are many lakes in the Northeast with drinkable fresh water. It will be important to know how to access underground water and be able to tell if it drinkable.
7. Learn how to effectively communicate with others. Social skills must be developed to nurture a healthy and efficient community dynamic.
8. Learn how to heal without technology; be knowledgeable about natural medicines. Also learn what different sorts of infections and diseases [which can be seen] look like.
9. We should develop our muscles because we will be doing a lot more physical labor in order to survive. In addition we should start to eat less; since we eat so much more than we need to live our stomachs have been stretched and are bigger than our bodies need. This is why we should allow them to come back to their natural state, and it will be easier to fill them, requiring less food (assuming we won’t have a lot of food to eat in the post peak world).
posted by Nina Jankovic at 23:11
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home