I was riding my bicycle, yesterday. Spring always arrives in its own due time and , likewise, I must eventually get around to pulling the bike out, ridding it of cobwebs, washing it down, oiling the sprocket and chain, and pumping air back into the tires. Soon after, my bike and I are gliding down a nice paved road, free as the wind. I always forget how much I love to ride a bicycle. It takes me back to a simpler time when my worries were indeed as simple.
The smell of the flowers in bloom, the grass ... especially just after it's been mowed. So many smells. And the people you pass by, irresistible to give them a wave or a friendly "hey".The feel of the breeze in your face, through your hair. The balance and easy response of the bike as you lean it one way, then the other. The sounds, too. Everything is so alive. And all of the things you somehow must have missed before, even though you've been down this road a hundred times, albeit planted firmly in the seat of a car.
And I guess that's it. Suddenly you just feel so connected to the world around you. Sure, you may get somewhere a lot quicker in a car. And you may feel more protected, if that's one of your concerns. But you're absolutely and completely insulated from the world that blurs on past your side windows. No friendly hellos. No sounds of cheerful birds or children or lawnmowers or someone raking the yard. So many joyous smells, so many little discoveries ... all missed. Riding in the comfort of a car, but essentially isolated from the world around you. You might just as well be inside a bubble. You are inside a bubble.
We can become insulated, as well, in our everyday lives, behind the wheels of the vehicles which are our jobs, our livelihoods, our careers. We become slaves to time and the need to rush, or to the comforts of our life-vehicles. Yet, there is so much we miss along the way. If we are fortunate and reach our destination quickly, it merely allows us to rush somewhere else, and then somewhere else. Going more places, but seldom being anywhere.
As we get older we have a tendency to look back through nostalgic eyes, amidst murmurings of simpler times. Still, I do recall a time when things were, if not simpler, far less complicated and consuming. It was a time when a single wage-earner could support a family for most Americans. They could pay for a home, a new car every five or six years, and even a yearly vacation. The other spouse was free to manage the home and raise the kids, or go to work to bring in a little extra for a new dishwasher (or because they were just bored). It was an option, a choice.
Of course, life was never easy. But it was far from the demeaning struggle to survive that it is now. There were, naturally, some who were better off than others and who were afforded more educational opportunities. But even for the many uneducated or unskilled workers there remained opportunities for a decent and comfortable living. If you didn't become a tradesman or open up a little store, you could still make a good living as a laborer. Those days have vanished along with our savings. And as manufacturing disappeared, along with it went the dignities and opportunities for decent lives for millions of Americans. The jobs that remain for the laborer largely pay a pitiful wage, requiring two such wage-earners in order to simply keep their noses above the waterline.
Even a college degree now guarantees you very little. Many of the educated now graduate from school shouldering a mountain of oppressive debt and finding themselves in the same "two-wage-earner" struggle to survive. And what of the "mom-and-pop" stores which used to line both sides of Main Street? They now face the daunting obstacles of big-box corporate chains and government regulations put in place more as an effort to assure monopoly for big business than to insure protections for the tax-paying consumer.
We speak often now of "the little guy" and those who are disenfranchised or who have limited opportunities. "Those people are having such a hard time right now." Yet, we are also beginning to realize that those people are rapidly becoming we the people. It is no longer them, it is us. And unless you are among the percentile who has lived a gilded existence (or are insulated by your income from the majority of Americans), then you are likely feeling that something's not right. In much of the world, but especially in America, people retain a sense of what is fair, and what is simply unjust. We are now beginning to sober and to proclaim, "This is not working for me". THIS IS NOT WORKING FOR ME.
So, what to do? I began this piece essentially pitching the joys and fulfillment of simpler living. I still think it's the way to go, for all of us. I think we will find that when we want less ... we need less. And when we need less ... we can work less (freeing up that most precious of all commodities ------ time.) It can serve us in good times and in bad, because it gives us independence. Freedom.
Admittedly, most of us are already starting to live simpler lives, out of sheer necessity for survival. And maybe that's a good thing. But the fact remains that living simply has become more of a symptom of our diminishing livelihoods than any lifestyle choice. And soon even living a simpler life (economically) will not be enough.
In my next post I'll discuss where we go from here. I'll lay out the purpose of this site and what we can hopefully do together --- what we must do together --- in order to regain the dignity and the decency of the promise that is America. And what it means to be Informed Citizens. Please join me. -JW
The smell of the flowers in bloom, the grass ... especially just after it's been mowed. So many smells. And the people you pass by, irresistible to give them a wave or a friendly "hey".The feel of the breeze in your face, through your hair. The balance and easy response of the bike as you lean it one way, then the other. The sounds, too. Everything is so alive. And all of the things you somehow must have missed before, even though you've been down this road a hundred times, albeit planted firmly in the seat of a car.
And I guess that's it. Suddenly you just feel so connected to the world around you. Sure, you may get somewhere a lot quicker in a car. And you may feel more protected, if that's one of your concerns. But you're absolutely and completely insulated from the world that blurs on past your side windows. No friendly hellos. No sounds of cheerful birds or children or lawnmowers or someone raking the yard. So many joyous smells, so many little discoveries ... all missed. Riding in the comfort of a car, but essentially isolated from the world around you. You might just as well be inside a bubble. You are inside a bubble.
We can become insulated, as well, in our everyday lives, behind the wheels of the vehicles which are our jobs, our livelihoods, our careers. We become slaves to time and the need to rush, or to the comforts of our life-vehicles. Yet, there is so much we miss along the way. If we are fortunate and reach our destination quickly, it merely allows us to rush somewhere else, and then somewhere else. Going more places, but seldom being anywhere.
As we get older we have a tendency to look back through nostalgic eyes, amidst murmurings of simpler times. Still, I do recall a time when things were, if not simpler, far less complicated and consuming. It was a time when a single wage-earner could support a family for most Americans. They could pay for a home, a new car every five or six years, and even a yearly vacation. The other spouse was free to manage the home and raise the kids, or go to work to bring in a little extra for a new dishwasher (or because they were just bored). It was an option, a choice.
Of course, life was never easy. But it was far from the demeaning struggle to survive that it is now. There were, naturally, some who were better off than others and who were afforded more educational opportunities. But even for the many uneducated or unskilled workers there remained opportunities for a decent and comfortable living. If you didn't become a tradesman or open up a little store, you could still make a good living as a laborer. Those days have vanished along with our savings. And as manufacturing disappeared, along with it went the dignities and opportunities for decent lives for millions of Americans. The jobs that remain for the laborer largely pay a pitiful wage, requiring two such wage-earners in order to simply keep their noses above the waterline.
Even a college degree now guarantees you very little. Many of the educated now graduate from school shouldering a mountain of oppressive debt and finding themselves in the same "two-wage-earner" struggle to survive. And what of the "mom-and-pop" stores which used to line both sides of Main Street? They now face the daunting obstacles of big-box corporate chains and government regulations put in place more as an effort to assure monopoly for big business than to insure protections for the tax-paying consumer.
We speak often now of "the little guy" and those who are disenfranchised or who have limited opportunities. "Those people are having such a hard time right now." Yet, we are also beginning to realize that those people are rapidly becoming we the people. It is no longer them, it is us. And unless you are among the percentile who has lived a gilded existence (or are insulated by your income from the majority of Americans), then you are likely feeling that something's not right. In much of the world, but especially in America, people retain a sense of what is fair, and what is simply unjust. We are now beginning to sober and to proclaim, "This is not working for me". THIS IS NOT WORKING FOR ME.
So, what to do? I began this piece essentially pitching the joys and fulfillment of simpler living. I still think it's the way to go, for all of us. I think we will find that when we want less ... we need less. And when we need less ... we can work less (freeing up that most precious of all commodities ------ time.) It can serve us in good times and in bad, because it gives us independence. Freedom.
Admittedly, most of us are already starting to live simpler lives, out of sheer necessity for survival. And maybe that's a good thing. But the fact remains that living simply has become more of a symptom of our diminishing livelihoods than any lifestyle choice. And soon even living a simpler life (economically) will not be enough.
In my next post I'll discuss where we go from here. I'll lay out the purpose of this site and what we can hopefully do together --- what we must do together --- in order to regain the dignity and the decency of the promise that is America. And what it means to be Informed Citizens. Please join me. -JW
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