Explaining ourselves to death

"... explanations are unavoidable; we are constantly explaining - that unexplainable complex of being and feeling and explaining ourselves; life itself demands explanations for us, as do our surroundings and finally as we do, demanding explanations from ourselves until, finally, we manage to minimize everything around us, ourselves included - that is to say, explaining ourselves to death. Thus I expound to the philosopher with that disgusting (to me) and yet irrepressible urge to speak, that which always seizes me when I have nothing to say, the urge, I suspect, which lies at the root of my habit of giving far to generous tips in restaurants, to cab drivers, to driving officials or semi-official representatives, and the like; it almost might have something to do with my politeness, exaggerated to the point of self denial.. as if I were continually apologizing for my existence, for this existence." -Imre Kertesz, "Kaddish for a Child Not Born"

I read this novel a few years ago, bought it randomly in New York. It's about a guy who survives the Holocaust and his psychology and life after going through such a thing. How his PTSD as a result keeps him from feeling a part of society, keeps him from love. He "explains to a friend that he cannot bring a child into the world where the Holocaust occurred and could occur again."

Explaining ourselves to death. We can rationalize anything with explanations. I also find that often times things can lose their beauty when explained. Now after Botany I have a hard time looking at a tree without thinking of the flow of the sap and the meaning and scientific words for its parts. Something lost something gained though. There is something really mechanical about thinking of a tree (or anything) in science.

Born seeking explanations because the world doesn't make sense. So we the unsure make definitive explanations for the earth. Making explanations for me and my existence as if knowing better than I do. Their mere ability to explain set to shape me, but I have my own eyes, and ears. I know now to question the hardest those who claim to have the answers, the users of big words, the over-explainers. It's a lot more work paddling up stream.

How do you quantify the wildness of birds?

"How do you place a value on inspiration? How do you quantify the wildness of birds, when for the most part, they lead secret anonymous lives" (Terry's Grandmother)

-Terry Tempest Williams, "Refuge"

Leave the Driving

"the moral of this story
Is try not to get too old
The more time you spend on earth
The more you see unfold

And as an afterthought
This must to be told
Some people have taken pure bullshit
And turned it into gold"

-Neil Young, "Leave the Driving"

The Cost of Food

Our current system for providing food is severely unsustainable, most of it illogical and possibly insane when put into perspective. To help frame where I am coming from let me tell you about my school lunches at Sparta, Michigan. Then I will go into more detail about the statement.

Sparta, the self proclaimed Apple Capital of the Midwest, is a small country town about 20 minutes north of Grand Rapids, Michigan. A faint smell of cow manure always trailed down the halls. A few of my classmates already had plans of inheriting there parents farm, so most didn't care to try much at school. For lunch there was always a main course of some sort of pre-packaged burrito or the 'grand slam' burger. All of which arriving by semi-truck labeled Sysco. There was also a beverage of choice, Country Fresh milk, juice, or a soda. Then after paying, the line wrapped around to a salad bar. The lettuce was iceberg lettuce with bits of cabbage and shredded carrots out of a Sysco bag, to the end was the fruit. Usually there were usually apples, oranges and bananas. The apples were always disappointing. They were a deep burgundy, high-glossed, and thick skinned. They lacked flavor, often tinted green signifying they were picked too soon. There was always a sticker to peel off; they were often from Washington or Chile. I didn’t think much of any of this back then besides being disappointed.

Now I look back at this and wonder why in Sparta, Michigan, the apple capital of the Midwest, we were not eating Sparta apples. To me this is illogical. Why would it make sense for an apple travel over 2000 miles, when they are growing outside our door?

In this region of the world apples aren't just apples, they have different flavors colors and textures. Some are good for caning, others good for pies, some better for storage, all of them good fore eat'n. Though some preferred to others. My grandma likes the Northern Spy for her pies. The Gala's used to be the best for just eating but now that the trees have aged or maybe its been the weather, but they haven't been as good the past couple of years. At the farmers market the buzz is all about the Candy Crisp which seems to be the predecessor to the honey crisp which was all the buzz last 2-3 years. There are so many different flavors though, each a little different then the other. So what I am saying is that apple isn't just an apple, it's an experience, each apple is unique.

Did you know that there are 2,500 known varieties of apples grown in the United States (some sources now say 1000) and over 7,500 grown world wide as of 1999? 15 apples accounted for over 90% of production in 1999. These numbers have been greatly reduced over the past 100 years. At one time there was said to be well over 7000 in the united states alone.

Somehow industry has managed to produce a variety of apple for our school lunches that is consistently of horrible quality by my standards and lacking any character. To industry apples are burgundy, yellow, or red. That's it.

At Sparta, “All meals served must meet patterns established by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.” The department of agriculture is run by representatives from Monsanto. Large corporations have monopolized the market, making it hard for smaller local farms to compete.

“Agri-business,” as some call it, receives most of the federal subsidies, making it possible to produce food more “cheaply”. 10% of the farms are collecting 71% of the subsidies, an average of $123,909 annually and the bottom 80% receiving less than $586 annually. This is OUR tax dollars used to make it possible to make it possible to for these large farms to be able to sell their produce for cheaper than our local farmers. I wonder what an apple from Chile or Washington would really cost if they weren't receiving these subsidies, or tax breaks.

when wagering the costs of producing "cheap" produce the environmental, social, and ecological costs are often not taken into account. What is not factored in is the packaging, the unknown health effects of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the amount of oil used (to transport the product, to make and transport the packaging, used in fertilizers, used in production), unfairly paid labor, lack of connection locationally and psychologically to food and how it is produced and where it comes from, the effects of Genetically Modified foods to us and our environment, Mono-cropping (large fields of one crop), how modern practices are effecting our depleting top soil, the list goes on.

I think the first and most important step is to support local. Then start advocating for more sustainable practices from these farmers, from restaurants, and from our stores.

In investigating why my former school system would choose not to use local suppliers I found a document that presented all of the hoops that would be 'necessary' in order to use local produce. Making it seemingly intimidating, difficult, and risky to use local suppliers.

It's focus is on food safety. But in reality most of the problems with food have come from the large industrial farms.

http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Guidance/foodsafety_onfarm.pdf

The Yin and the way

It’s ironic taking any amount of time reading explanations of the Tao Te Ching, let alone the Tao Te Ching. The Tao Te Ching can be translated from Chinese as ‘the path of truth’ or ‘the way and virtue.’ It is said to be have been written by Lao Tzu though there is little evidence that he had ever existed. Taoism has become one of the three pillars of thought in China along with Buddhism, and Confucianism. It is written as a collection of 78 poems focusing on states of being (and non-being) and its' intrinsic interconnection with nature. Tao cannot be described, it is said that if you can name something then it is not ‘the way.’ So the irony lies in the fact that the Tao is meant as a guide book to help us return to that which cannot be explained. The fact that the Tao has been written implies to me that we (civilization) has already skewed from ‘the path’ and this could be why it has been written.

In addressing this idea we must first consider some thoughts on the possible roots of this imbalance and consider how we may return. One thought, which will be the focus of this paper implies the lack of feminine involvement in the structure of society. In “China: Its History and Culture” the author expresses an imbalance by connecting Taoism to the yin component of the yin-yang by writing, “[the] yang has been overemphasized and the yin must be restored to its rightful place” (Morton 39). The yin represents the feminine, dark, passive, empathetic half of the yin-yang. The author suggests that we are living in an unbalanced society dominated by the yang.

The Tao arose out of the bloody decay of the Zhou Dynasty (ca. 1027-256 B.C.) from the time of the ‘Warring States’ (403-221 B.C.). During this period several states were reduced to seven, the wars were fought over territory and leadership. The ideals of warfare, which prior had been considered a moderated gentleman’s activity, had shifted from acts of honor to fighting for less noble territorial and personal gains (Welch 18). Weapons were also introduced during this period, which also may have aided in the shift in thought. Weapons can be seen as extending masculine authority both literally and metaphorically, leading to an increasingly masculine minded society.

To me the Tao may have been written as a direct response to an emasculated society. The Tao says, “Know masculinity, Maintain femininity” (Laozi 72). Implying that there needs to be understanding of both to maintain harmony. Another important school of thought that was birthed from the Easter Zhou Dynasty was Confucianism. Confucianism has became an integral part of historical and modern Chinese ideology, taking hold for the first time in the Western Han Dynasty (202 B.C.-9 A.D.) (Wasserstrom 7). It emphasizes on morality through the importance of knowledge, hierarchy and division of labor. In considering the Tao as the yin, Confucian thought and masculinity could be compared to the yang.

In syncretism, a common practice in China involving using all three pillars as religious practice, a person uses mostly Confucian and Tao portions of the three pillars in their daily life. Confucian thought used at jobs and in conversation during the day, Tao for evening meditation, and the third being Buddhism reserved for prayer. So in theory, the yin and the yang, Taoism and Confucianism, masculinity and femininity, organization and reflection are both essential to a culture. The Increase in trade, which also emerged out of the fall of the Zhou dynasty, also increased a focus on commerce which utilized Confucianism, the masculine thought (Morton 27). This idea is most obvious in today’s consumption driven society, more interested in GDP’s as opposed to integrity of humanity, associating success and doing well with the ranking with a growing GDP. As these ideas have grown, GDP seems to be the inverse of happiness and satisfaction in humanity.

In the United States, and across the world, wars are waged over non-renewable resources, more cities and stores and factories are materializing, imperialism is alive and well. Consumer culture has spread like a disease across the world. Nature is seen as a resource as opposed to a holy place for meditation. The idea of masculine dominated society seems to be an inevitable symptom of ‘civilized’ society. Not to say that femininity is strictly reserved for women or that masculinity is strictly reserved for men. To me, Sara Palin and Hillary Clinton are both faces of the yang or the masculine part. Just the same I would consider Martin Luther King Jr. as speaking on behalf of the yin or of the feminine portion as his speeches advocated for a more empathetic society. This is why the ideas Taoism are important for us to consider today.

To me the Tao is kind of like driving a truck full of water, if one takes a curb too hard the water splashes hard in the opposite direction so the truck feels as if it is tilting so naturally one swing the wheel fast in the other direction, which the water sloshing back from the other direction gains even more momentum, hitting the other side even harder, the truck wobbles back and forth until it either winds up crashing on its side or working together with the rhythm of the water to calm itself back down, to complacently fallow the road. Tao is harmony, it is driving while knowing (or not knowing) the potential influence of water to the amount of control (or lack of) one has over the truck. The Tao Te Ching is a guide to teach us how to get back in rhythm with the water, through feeling and non-action, this is nature and the yin, this is the dark and the feminine. The beauty of Tao, and Eastern thought is that everything is cyclical, that whether we try or don't try balance will be restored and the forces of nature will prevail, through earthquake and tidal wave, this is the nature of things.

Works Cited:
Laozi. Tao Te Ching: The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way. Trans. Victor H. Mair. New York: Bantam, 1990. Print."
Morton, W. Scott, and Charlton M. Lewis. China: Its History and Culture. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005. 22-44. Print.
Wasserstrom, Jeffrey N. "School of Thought." China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York, NY: Oxford UP, 2010. 1-18. Print.
Welch, Holmes. Taoism: The Parting of the Way. Boston: Beacon, 1966. 1-34. Print.

Feminism and popular environmentalism

Feminism and environmentalism are more intertwined than they first appear. To me they are almost interchangeable terms. The feminism and environmentalism I speak of are not the ones that can be defined by our popular culture. Both can be associated with inexplicable beauty, emotion, and ability to nourish. The emotions of this earth expressed thru tidal waves and thunderstorms; it’s breathtaking beauty found in the mountains and the valleys; it nourishing us with berries and greens. Unfortunately the agenda's of these movements to preserve these things seem to be working against themselves. They seem to have been hijacked and manipulated by our capitalist system, by money. The modern feminist movement seems to be working towards molding itself to fit into our masculanized society. Popular environmentalism seems to be sucked into the same market that has enslaved the wilderness, selling it to us and seemingly capitalizing on it. That mainstream environmental movement seems to be more focused on sustaining its office than seeking real solutions for our open spaces. So I think that both environmentalism and feminism trying to work within the system, have become a part of the system that has enslaved them.

Feminism isn't about men and women. It's about sense and sensibility. "Sensory perception is the glue that binds our nervous system into the surrounding ecosystem" (David Abram). We need to have empathy and sensitivity in order to feel connected and to achieve harmony. Fallowing industrialization being a man has become almost a synonym for machines. This association has unfairly defined men as being aggressive, competitive, and without emotions. There duty in a relationally, to provide and protect. Which providing and protecting is now defined in financial terms, financial stability and security. This is how femininity, being nurturing, was ripped out of the hands of the male gender.

The women's version of feminism became hijacked at the point when money became the focal measurement of self worth, women wanted to be a part of this culture too, to feel more valuable. In the current feminist movement there seems to be a shortsighted fixation on workplace equality. I feel this is the anti-thesis of what I think feminism and liberation should be. That possibly the fight for control in the realms of gender equality are blind aspirations for masculine mimicry to fit into the society rigidly designed to function as a machine. That in accomplishing gender equality in this society as it stands would not be a forward step for feminism, but a concession for true liberation that would require us to work outside of the system at hand.

Popular environmentalism I feel has been reduced its focus to sustaining modern human culture rather than nature itself. Not to say we are separate from nature, but we certainly have separated ourselves. Sure we can reduce carbon output by mono-cropping windmills in Iowa or our great lakes. But where are THESE resources coming from to build these? Shouldn't environmentalism and holistic sustainability go hand and hand? New 'solutions' are being sold to us every day. All the while 200 species a day are dying and we are running around in PETA underwear, further encouraging and reinforcing idea of living things as commodities. Being an activist has become a joke these days. Under the capitalist agenda everything is a commodity, including nature. It is unsympathetic to nature, to sensitivity, to beauty. The only parts that we save are all partitioned off and designated for specific use. Everything seems to be of a service to man, even the 'uncivilized man,' who seems to lack the qualification of being a person at all to us. We abuse and exploit them just as we do to nature.

An assistant to the governor of Michigan responded to a letter I wrote regarding modern fracking techniques. He wanted me to know that:

Firstly... " The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality is committed toenvironmental stewardship that protects Michigan residents and enhances the quality of life... (also)...

The Governor shares your commitment to Michigan’s environment, and he is working hard to ensure a sustainable future for everyone." I think this is only true to the extent that it fits into his corrupt agenda.

I really do feel that to be a feminist or to be an environmentalist at the true heart of what they are supposed to be and what I think they need to be are interchangeable terms. Being feminine is to have those unexplainable outpourings of feelings to be connected with the emotions of the world. The environment connects us to this as we walk through the woods and something is truly, purely, and simply beautiful. I think this is what we are made for; To see beauty as it is in nature. Not that which has been commercialized and sold to us, but beauty as created by nature. You cannot buy or barter for this. This is us and the trees. We need more empathy and understanding. I think this means to be nurturing, to be loving, to be caring, to express your emotions, to be conscious of your surroundings. This is the true meaning of feminism and to be an environmentalist.

outside the sphere

I had a short lived obsession in highschool of looking at the emaciated bodies of holocaust victims, of starving 3rd world people. I had very little and limited understanding of history or the way the world worked. But still there was something within me that demanded to see these images, I would look at them in secrecy with fascination. Reality echoed through an image on my computer. History didn't matter, but it stood as proof to my inherent feeling of responsibility. A by-product of imperialism; of our disconnection;of the siphoning, for us to live the lifestyle we do. We are all guilty.
I sit right now in a coffee shop, my paper cup was made by Solocup in Chicago, Il probably from some boreal forest, from god knows where and what kind and what age the tree was. The coffee imported from some poor farmer in South America, where he/she likely has never even tasted his or her own roasted coffee. Whom would probably much rather be independent and have a garden to feed the family. And these books, and this computer. The electricity. The cheap oil at the expense at others well being. This is what I think about sometimes, this is what I have a hard time wrapping my head around, that I have a hard time escaping. It's impossible to break down all the things I use on a daily basis that rely on the suffrage of other people, the desiccating our 'natural resources'. It's inescapable.

Derrick Jensen says that "anytime some community sits on a resource needed by those in power, and chooses not to sell this resource (at a price convenient for the powerful), the people are killed, the community destroyed, the resource stolen"

Wendell Berry refers to Industrial Technology as being analogous to war.
He also says that "people who are willing to follow technology wherever it leads are necessarily willing to fallow it away from home, off the Earth, and outside the sphere of human definition, meaning, and responsibility."
Spaceship Earth?
'Away' where is this? my teacher asked with out an answer.

The law of conservation says that matter cannot be created nor destroyed only changed.
We were not made out of the air, we must take to create (MORE PEOPLE!).
Daniel Quinn says that "we are literally turning 150 (now 200) species a day into human flesh"
200 species a day are going extinct, this is far more rapid than any of the mass extinctions according to one statistic. Yet the human race continues to go.
And it literally seems to be a race to the end of something.
For the beginning of something.

I crumple the cup in my hand and toss it in the trash.
so it can be taken AWAY and forgotten about like
the thousands of people we displaced for military bases
hidden behind the veil of "National Security"

Bill McKibben says we need more community, conversation and connection.

What do I say? I just keep nodding my head. mmhmm mmhmmm mmhmmm