I went to the county dump today.
We haven't had garbage "service" for several years — by choice — because we decided we didn't want to pay the outlandish fees for having regular pickup, including recycling pickup.
I suppose you can argue that "it's capitalism" that you are required to have weekly pickup, and it costs almost $90 a month to have the required bins we never fill... because people are willing to PAY that.
I suppose you can also argue that "it's capitalism" that we simply rejected that, and instead take our own garbage to the dump every 6-8 weeks and pay about $15-18 for a single dump of the amount of trash we generate.
What was interesting about taking the trash in today was the fact that there were long lines on the entrance road to the landfill, and even traffic cones and signage reading "Extremely Heavy Traffic, Expect Delays!"
I guess we are not the only ones rejecting the cost of having official service, although I expect a lot of people there are simply dumping stuff because they have been forced to stay home for a few months, and have been cleaning out their clutter... because they have nothing else to do.
There's part of me that feels like we are watching the world wind down, slowly... not entirely sure what it is winding down to, but that same part of me feels a glimmer of hope that it's actually winding down to something better.
What IS it, I am really hoping for?
Maybe it's the same thing I felt when I was a kid and my dad would bring me along to the factory where he was the CEO and I got a sense of how the most money seemed to be made by the people who did the least work.
Ever since then, I have held the belief that we must strive for a world where those who add the most value to any given system might also be those who are compensated the most for the value they are adding.
Instead... we have these layers and layers and layers of little more than "empty space" that somehow take my $15 garbage haul and charges me $175 for it. Or takes a pile of sticks, wire, brick and pipes and LABOR that costs $100,000 and somehow persuades people that the resulting house is "worth" $600,000... $500,000 of which is simply air.
Economists talk about how awful it is for the economy to shrink, but I think we'd be better off if all the "air" was bled out of the pipes so we can get back towards a system where what we pay for things is actually a closer reflection of what they cost.
Does that make me a "communist" or a "socialist" or some other bad word?
Maybe it does... I really don't know.
Economic Stimulus...
Meanwhile, we have taken the $1,200 "economic stimulus payment" we got from the government and used a lot of it to stimulate our back yard into more of a food growing operation... I guess you can almost call us urban homesteaders now.
We purchased eight cubic yards of really good topsoil — because we live in a part of the county with pretty poor soil — and we purchased some wood to build raised beds that can easily be covered/enclosed and kept as mini-greenhouses, if need be.
In other words, we used the "handout" to make ourselves less dependent on "the system." Not entirely sure if that's what "they" had in mind... but that was what we chose to do.
Now, I am seriously considering adding a separate "Alt" blog here, just for the garden... not to "make money," but to keep a pictorial record we can easily refer back to. Still thinking about that... I have three "account creation tokens" that are just sitting there.
It would also be a nice way to show our kids and let them keep up with "what the old folks are doing."
Winding Down...
I continued into town, today... needed to pick up a couple of things from the supermarket.
Things have changed. Although I am loath to overuse that term "New Normal," there is a certain subdued energy in the world, now.
There's actually no shortage of either toilet paper or hand sanitizer at the local Safeway, but there are more and more gaps on the shelves, particularly in the meat area and on many of the shelves where they keep the "staples," like potatoes, rice, dried beans, flour, sugar and such.
I sense a movement towards a sense of "making do with what is available," rather than expecting you can just get what you WANT whenever you want.
Our 24-hour grocery store is no longer 24-hour... it's now 6:00am to 11:00pm. Not that anyone really needs to go grocery shopping in the middle of the night.
If nothing else, people are learning to plan better when they go shopping... go out once a week, and plan your meals... rather than running to the store twice a day, every time you feel you are "missing" something.
As a side effect, we're all using less gas in our cars... and that's a positive, too. "CONSUMING" is not — and never was — the be-all, end-all path to a happy life.
Feels like the world is winding down, on some level. And I'm really OK, with that.
EVERYTHING we do has a cost, and a benefit.
I'll close by inviting you to watch this video... it's 2 minutes of your life you CAN afford to give up. Then ask yourself just how much hardship you're suffering by having a little "less?"
Thanks for reading, and stay healthy!
What do YOU think? How is YOUR life different? Are you OK with that? If not, what do you want to be different? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
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Created at 20200609 20:23 PDT
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