I feel a rant coming on...

If you love your house and your routine you should be thankful for it and go about your day.  There are many ways of living and I am not the judge of what is right or wrong for your family.  In fact, I believe that there can be many truths that vary from person to person.  My truth may not be yours, it is a result of my life, my experience, my education, my observations - I have given you, dear reader, some insight into where my views originate, but ultimately it doesn't matter, they are mine and I record them because it helps me focus and I like writing.  My point is, this post may not be for everyone....but if you have an itch you can't scratch, a malaise or hazy tint over your life that just won't go away no matter how much self pampering and shopping you do - well maybe you will enjoy this post... or maybe you won't, whatever.

What is going on in this country?!?  Seriously, things are effed up.  I saw a four lanes of traffic on the I60 slow to a crawl because a dog was running down the side of the freeway.  Some of you are thinking, "oh good, hope someone helped the doggy."  Seriously you should not read this, go about your day and enjoy your life.  Save a dog.  

Every day I see homeless people all over this city and the vast majority of people don't give a shit, or worse, blame the victims.  What are they victims of?  There is only one answer and you are not going to like it - capitalism.  A system which is set up to benefit the owners at the expense of the wage slaves.  Profit is the gold standard by which we measure success.  

Q: Is the water clean?  

A: Who give a flying f, was money was made?  

Q: Are the people healthy?  

A: If they are not is there a way to make money off of them being sick?  

Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is about profit.  It is a sickness, it's called greed, gluttony, hoarding.  The rich are so much more astronomically rich than the rest of us.  They hoard so much wealth that we have to fight over the crumbs falling from their ever-rising tables.  We imitate our masters and covet everything we don't have.  We take even more from the poor to make us feel better.  We take their dignity, their homes, their health, their kids, their freedom.  We make people sleep in cardboard boxes.  In AMERICA!  I saw a homeless mother with a child the same age as Sister on the train yesterday.  My heart broke.  What are we doing?  No one, including me, said or did a damn thing yet four lanes of traffic stopped for a lost dog.  But I don't really blame people, at least in the case of the dog we can do something - pick it up, make it safe.  What could I do for the mother and that baby when I am on my way to work to make sure my babies are taken care of?  Tragic. Fighting over crumbs.

I can't bear it.  Yet we are such a small group, the four of us in the Hideout, what can we do?  Actually I have some ideas - you probably won't like them.  Stop buying stuff.  Give it away, stop hoarding.  Live with less, embrace the idea of having less.  Stop buying makeup & hair color. Stop hiding who you are.  Stop trying to fit into a mold that some advertising executive created.  Stop wasting what you have.  Don't spoil your kids.  Spend time talking about real things that matter instead of rich celebrities.  Go to a park or a library.  Find something funded by your tax dollars, and consider that the things we pay for to enhance the social good are socially good.  Schools, roads, police, fire - these are government services because we don't think anyone should have a profit motive when making decisions that affect us all.  If the local police only responded on a fee-for-service basis only the rich would have police.....think about it.  Public services are vital.  It's an abomination that prisons and jails are privatized - profiting from human misery!  The owners of those corporations are going to hell if such a place exists.  Health care - same thing.  Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security - ask your grandparents if they would rather buy their insurance from a private company?  Stop eating crap (sugar and hormone/antibiotic/meat). Try some food that was grown.  Go for a walk, ride a bike, "get out into nature and make your own discoveries" (huh? parents? ...Dr. Scott The Paleontologist - wink). 

We went to a Mesa library and park today ($0 spent) and it was amazing (Friday 3/2/18).  These are just a few pictures of this beautiful park in - stunning.  So much for the kids to do.  A non-commercial space for families to play.  Wonderful, no pressure to buy things.  There was a sweet splash pad we could have actually used today as it was in the 80s, but we weren't prepared for.  So many climbing things...and we were able to go during the week on a school day when only preschool kids and mommies were around.  

Earlier in the day we went to the library and I stayed with Sister while Brother schooled with Husband.  We went to a free pre-school fun day that had a bunch of stations and activities.  Prior to that Sister was drawing on a huge touchscreen TV hung at 3-year old height on the wall of a kids' section of the library.  It was so cool.  I took my computer and checked my emails and did a bit of work while she played.  I'm not sure what you were doing today but I had a good day.  When Brother and Husband were done we went to the Hideout and made veggie Bagels sandwiches while we talked about the value of failure and strategies on how to do mental math.  Brother and Husband did an experiment about friction.  We had a really intense conversation as a family about how people learn, Husband's experiences, my experiences, and Brother's experiences were compared and contrasted.  We were happy and learned something together about ourselves as a family.  Pretty much every day is like this.  We have leisure time because we opt out of as much consumerism as possible.

  

Humans need to experience nature - we need to get out of concrete jungles and commercial spaces.  We need to stop thinking things and stuff will solve our problems.  Consumerism is the symptom, capitalism is the disease.  Until we can prioritize quality of life over profit we will see no end to the misery, division, and inequality.  

Having a rich life does not mean you need to be rich.  Our family of four lives on approx $2600/month which is less than the median household income in the US.  The median income is the point where half of households make more and half make less.  Half of households in the US make around $57,000/year or less.  Exploring and growing together does not take money, it takes time.  We limit our expenses so we have time.  We save.  We have savings - most Americans have less than $1000 saved and would struggle to pay for an unexpected $500 expense. Table scraps. 

Kids are getting killed in schools, families chose between health care and food, chronic disease, environmental destruction, privatizing National Parks, endless global war, over 900 military bases, robot drone assassinations, the increased prevalence of mental health problems, cycles of violence leading to more kids getting killed in schools...again, again....It's normal, right?  WTF? Clearly this is not a safe or healthy environment and we are unwilling or unable to fix the problem because gun makers need to make money, war profiteers need to make money, pharmaceutical companies need to make money...

When you really think about it, the whole house of cards is based upon a very simple premise - that the workers will accept this arrangement.  That they will agree to receiving a fraction of the value of their labor so that the wealthy can profit, the will take their earnings and buy the very stuff they produced at a mark-up so that other wealthy people can profit, they will ignore the environmental harms the companies are ravaging and pay for bottled water and nature experiences, that they will send their kids to the military for patriotic (and financial) reasons, that when the worker does not make enough money to buy the things they are told they need they will borrow money at interest so other wealthy people can make a profit and so on................The only rebellion is an economic one - reduce your spending, be very selective about spending your money (i.e. buy veggies not meat), save, eliminate debt, minimize, downsize, conserve, and create more leisure time for yourself and your family that does not center on commerce or commercial spaces.  Best wishes in taking charge of your life, your mind, your finances, and your sanity.