Modern Lifestyles

A typical modern lifestyle is one of excess.  We have big cars, big houses, and big expenses for an endless variety of modern amenities and entertainment. Most of these amenities and sources of entertainment produce or become waste products in a relatively short amount of time.

This lifestyle of excess itself brings about personal problems.  Many of us disappear into our huge houses, or expensive vacation hotels. We tend to interact infrequently with our neighbors, if at all, and when we do it is often not a very deep exchange. The endless attempt to satisfy desires based on multiple varieties of sensory engagement ultimately causes dissatisfaction - because it simply breeds many more desires. Many of our most materially successful people succumb to alcohol or drugs as a result of this downward spiral.

Americans work more hours than residents of most other developed countries.  We take far more medications than others for our multitude of problems related to sleeping, digesting, sexual performance, stress, heart problems, obesity, and so forth. And despite all the money we make, we also have huge amounts of debt. We are constantly bombarded with advertising to buy products we don’t really need. We waste our natural resources and create huge landfills. We’re rapidly destroying the environment and ourselves in the process.

We are victimized by big business, the media, and the political system.  Need anything further be said on this?

The information age has connected us to various peoples of the planet.  Rather than try to learn about other cultures we attempt to assimilate them into ours. Rather than understand the facts about them, we examine the things we think are bad about them and then throw money around as if that will solve everything. As a “developed” nation we think that those less “developed” should become like us without considering that we are often much more environmentally destructive than they are. We frequently understand far less than we think we do. Many of the solutions proposed by modern governments and scientists often cause more problems than they solve.

In fact, there have been many instances where research has been falsified or skewed in order to ultimately make money.  Our modern culture has been at war with nature, trying to control, change and dominate, and this war cannot be won. Nature always wins in the end.

Oil will become a serious problem - which alone would bring much of the entire global economy to a standstill.  We are at or near peak oil production right now. The unsustainable structure of modern society may very well break down in the near future. Rather than look at the real issues, government and business are simply looking for patches to the present system, so as to retain their positions of power. The problem is caused by bringing the majority of the population into artificial vertically-built structures packed as tightly together as possible, while all the food and natural resources are elsewhere. This modern practice is exactly what gives big business and government so much power - so naturally they promote it.

The environment is continuing to be destroyed at an increasing rate.  Coral reefs are dying every day and entire fish populations are being destroyed - an estimated 80 percent of the main fish resources are already gone. There are several humongous beds of floating plastic trash in the Pacific ocean.

The meat industry is destroying our topsoil, uses over 50% of all crop production, and heavily pollutes the environment. Most of us could not even imagine visiting a slaughterhouse or factory farming facility - they would spend the rest of their life agonizing over what is going on behind closed doors. The rainforest is being destroyed for the beef industry and similar industries. Why are we allowing millions of acres of rainforest to be needlessly destroyed?

Even if the United States were to decrease the rate of this pollution and destruction the impact of modernization in China and India is many times whatever we could offset. But America is still a world leader, and we can still have an impact. We need to lead in the right direction.

Many of us already know about all these problems, so perhaps we volunteer some time for Sierra Club or PETA or other great organizations - while continuing to live the same basic lifestyle tied to modern society. Perhaps some of us become vegetarian, which is a tremendous step in itself. Many of us do little because we feel powerless to change, what to speak of having any impact.

Alternatives

Even when we turn to alternatives we find that much of the information about sustainable living and green solutions is lip service only.  We had a conversation with someone recently who has multiple degrees, a compelling web site, is a great speaker and travels all across the country giving lectures on these subjects, and yet has the exact same lifestyle as every other American - living in the suburbs, driving a gas-guzzling car, and completely dependent upon the modern economic machine to get some paper dollar bills. There was no rural community, no self-sufficient agrarian society, no simple living. There was absolutely nothing of real substance - it was just another way to make money in today’s society.

The corporate world is turning to “green” - but it is mostly about making money or being politically correct in order to continue making money.  Some companies’ websites that offer services and expertise in these fields are filled with enough verbiage and grand terminology to create a new dictionary. They have unique phrases coined using hot terms like “sustainable.” They have multiple fancy methods for various concepts to measure sustainability - and of course their services are very expensive. But there is no personal change.

There ARE excellent websites with great information, and a lot of sincere people doing many good things.  All those little steps are surely helping - but practically nobody in America actually lives by these principles.

You can find web sites with grand schemes of new cities and technologies, and so much talk about sustainability and completely new ideas. They have well-funded educational think tanks that come up with the same thing modern society has already produced - completely unsustainable results disguised as something new, with no real substance at all. They are not looking at the whole picture. We challenge any one of the people behind such corporate web sites to explain how there is any true sustainability in their ideas and designs. 

Alternative Communities

If you research so many great alternative communities formed or being formed you’ll see that few of them are involved in agriculture for their own sustenance.  Most of them are primarily working in the city and living in the country, or are retirement communities for those who are wealthy. Whatever they can do is an improvement and a step in the right direction, but we still need real solutions that can be taken up by anyone who is willing.

If there is a real disaster in this country, everyone in those types of communities is impacted nearly as much as everyone in the cities.  They have a small cushion of time on their side before the city turmoil reaches them, but if they are not producing food for  themselves they are in the same boat as the rest of society. Many such economies are still based upon the fuel-guzzling transportation system to get people to their jobs, to their shopping, to their recreation, and to bring in all their food and other consumables.

The only real solution is a return to the timeless principles of natural lifestyles and true sustainable communities. Sustainability must be implemented at the individual, home, neighborhood, and community level.  We are trying to offer various resources to facilitate the creation of individual self-governing communities by intelligent and pioneering people, based on sustainable principles, and that can continue to progress over time.

Most of us are trapped in the modern economy controlled by big business and government and we cannot conceive of starting a new way of life.  But someone has to show the way, and it has to be done in small groups, as team efforts. If you are ready to be a part of the solution, let us work together. 

Next - (Background) Self Sufficiency