“Ever felt pangs of guilt for being born in Canada?”
“Not sure what you mean.”
“Well, I mean, my wife and I watch HGTV all the time. She’s a designer, so when the kids aren’t monopolizing the TV we flip it onto HGTV. It’s one channel we can count on not showing anything inappropriate or upsetting for the kids. Personally, I’d watch CBC Newsworld all day if it was just me, but… Anyway, so we watch these shows on design and renovation and, you know, people are doing beautiful things to their homes. But what strikes me every now and again is how utterly and completely spoiled we are.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. I mean you sit there watching these shows and you listen to people lament about how their kitchen doesn’t ‘flow’ very well or how white appliances are out and stainless is in, or how the wallpaper in the living room is so horribly revolting that the homeowner cringes every time they see it. Designers talk about style, colour, and flow as if they’re the most important things in the world — leaving things as they are would be to commit some kind of sin.”
“Ayuh. Uh designers can be –”
“Right. But it’s not just designers. Everyone has bought into this idea.”
“Which idea?”
“The idea that we must renew and refresh on a perpetual basis. That everything old me be ripped out with extreme prejudice and sent to the dump. The waste is unreal.”
“Well there’s nothing stopping people from reusing stuff.”
“No, but by and large people aren’t doing it.”
“Why not?”
“Because sadly — ironically — it’s more expensive to reuse.”
Mike squinted quizzically.
“But at any rate, that’s not where I wanted to go with this. What started me off on this was the realization that while we are all a-flutter about the latest trends in fabric and colour there are other people in the world — most of the world, actually — that feel lucky if they’ve got a piece of tin over their head. I mean, people struggle every day to survive under conditions you and I can’t even imagine, and here we are without a worry in the world sipping lattes and keeping ourselves occupied by finding less egregious ways to arrange orchids. I mean, the disparity is mind-blowing. It’s shameful really. Absolutely shameful.”
“Ummm…. I feel awkward reminding you that you are a renovator and your wife is a designer…”
“I know!” Terry threw up his arms in despair. “That just makes it even worse! I see this disparity. I enable people to make these — in the grand scheme of things — frivolous and selfish changes to their property, and yet I continue to do it! And why? Because I like it, and because I make decent money from it. I’m such a fucking hypocrite.” He shook his head. “I used to chuckle at a friend of mine, Steve, many years ago — we’ve lost touch now. But anyway, he was this moderate libertarian. Do you know what a libertarian is?
“Not really, no.”
“Libertarians believe in self-responsibility, self-reliance, and generally a greatly reduced form of government. Oh, they’re anti-taxation as well.”
“Anti-taxation? How’s the government supposed to run at all? Who pays for roads and stuff?”
“User fees. Whoever uses pays.”
“Aah.”
“Yes. Well anyway, he ended up taking a job doing IT for some government agency here in town. Made pretty good money at it, too, apparently. When I pointed out that his salary was being paid out of tax money he was a bit sheepish about it. Didn’t have much to say, really. I understand why he took the job, sure. It was interesting work for good pay. Completely understandable. But in that I came to understand that the way people want the world to be — or think it should be — and the way they contribute to the world are two completely different things. Except in very rare people those two things never meet.”
“So if you’re not Ghandi you’re a hypocrite?”
Terry laughed. “Well, no. I don’t think you have to go to that extreme, but I think it’s a very small group percentage-wise that actually walks the talk. Vegetarians who wear leather shoes are suspect. Anyway, it bugs me that I feel this way about things and yet I continue to do what I do to make a buck. Lots of bucks, hopefully. The irony is biting.”
“Well, it would appear that hypocrisy is everywhere and inescapable to the point that we even choose to perpetuate it when we know it’s there.”
“Sadly, yes. It seems to be a component of the human condition. Imagine what a different world it would be if people felt truly obligated to the values that they profess to hold.”
It would be a world not populated by people.
Truly.
ramblings…Pangs of guilt…only pangs…?
Our foo foo world of designer lives and money treadmills punch out cookie cutter lives that instinctively strive to survive while they stand in their designer jeans messaging on their Blackberries about the color of their walls.
With blinders and narrow paths the western world marches progressively forward – collectively, unconscientiously knowing that they, that we, that I cannot look back.
We would surely turn into a pillar of salt, melt down, cry forever and render ourselves completely impotent and unable to survive. Survival instincts.
Don’t look. Don’t cry. Don’t see. Touch only with gloves…
Give a donation, volunteer, buy fair price. feel good. smile. be happy. We do our part.
But right now, at this very second, people are killing people, people are suffering without measure, tortured, starving diseased and crushed with poverty…a baby dies alone – right now.
And you, and we, and I and they…cannot stop it -ever.
How many tears would be enough?
Fast sports cars and long shopping sprees, latte and yet another book about foriegn countries and great hardships.
Images from the internet, television and fun holidays to poor countries, are seared and branded in our minds. You cannot escape the images. Perhaps dejunk your homes and hide anything ugly and make everything pretty.
The guilt, the horrific reflection and the ‘feeling that way’ should be the normal reaction. Why is the world NOT crying more? Crying should be a normal reaction to the state of much of the world. What is the normal reaction anyway?Probably insanity…
Is the world unknowingly suffering from
Collective World Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome – perhaps it pushes us forward.. ‘They’ aren’t surviving but we will…we’re cool.
Are we convinced?
Do we really believe that? Are we just afraid to look back? Are the values we profess true but we are hamstrung by our inability to change the world?
If the world starts to cry with empathy could it ever stop?
hmm? dunno
Another think over another Latte…another distraction
we can’t control where we had the priviledge or bad luck to be born.. a line on an arbitrary map decides effectively who laments over orchids and who lives under a tin roof… or what baby dies alone.. crying a world of tears will not change this… i have no answers and am guilty of all of the above… but i try in my own small ways… i fail… but i keep trying..
We’re all guilty. We’re all unwitting and participating parts of the machine. But step 1 to resolving any problem is becoming aware of it. Step 2 is figuring out how to solve the problem. Step 3 is doing it. Extricating ourselves from the machine is no mean feat — and likely quite impossible without a complete change in the fabric of our society. I believe it is only through small changes in our collective daily behaviour that any progress will be made. As Ghandi declared “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” Wiser words were never spoken.