Monday, August 31, 2009

an idyllic spot

those hills in the distance are the real watership down
berkshire, england
we're not looking for properties there.
it was just the most idyllic picture i had.
our project has progressed a long way since i last wrote. we've actually begun to look at properties to get an idea of what's out there. i can tell you it helps the process of imagination greatly to have a picture in your mind of a particular place, tho' we haven't yet found the right one. which is good, because we're not really that ready to make the move. we're taking it one step at a time.

we were discussing this idea with our very good friends the other day. most people we tell about it have some admiration for the notion, but everyone says they couldn't possibly do such a thing. because they couldn't stand to share some part of their house with someone else. there's even some hint of pride in people saying they're too selfish to consider such a thing.

but, that's where i think we're going wrong as a society. what we must do is wrap our heads around living more responsibly and less selfishly. why shouldn't we share the big things - furnace, kitchen, laundry facilities? you don't use your kitchen every minute anyway, so to have two families using one stove would be a kinder way to treat the planet and to get the best use out of that one stove.

i think we're going to have to change our minds and change our selfish ways of living and thinking only of ourselves. we owe it to our children. i shudder to think that sabin could potentially have a more difficult, harder life than we have had. the goal has always been that your children have a better life than you had. but the way we're using our resources and harming our planet, i really fear that it could be much more difficult for her as conflicts arise over scarce resources and space with rising sea levels. we have to take action now and it's difficult to see how we can do that as individuals, unless we change radically how we live our lives.

and i'm not at all saying that i'm good at it, i'm not. i'm still way too much of a consumer. but the will to change is there and it's coming in baby steps.

2 comments:

Elizabeth said...

We all have to learn to be less selfish. Our children will see us make the effort and the struggle to do so. Hopefully this will show them a way out of just being a consumer. Because it will take a number of generations to turn this business around.

Sarah said...

Couldn't have said it better myself. It really feels that, for the first time in my memory, is going to turn from getting better (environmentally at least) to getting worse. And I firmly believe that the next wars will be fought over water. And access to it. Without a significant shift in thinking by most of the western world, we are going to be in deep doo-doo sooner rather than later.

Congrats (again) on this project. It is people like you who are going to push everyone to make a REAL difference.