The familiarity slump

Between loads of washing, doing the dishes, tidying up around the house and twice daily trips to the Hospital to drop off and pick up Heather from work, I've been doing little else but read and go to the gym. Someone once said that dull women have immaculate homes. The house isn't quite immaculate, but almost, so I'm either a women or dull or both.

It might sound quite luxurious to many - pottering about on hot summer days with no immediate pressure to do anything. But in reality my mind doesn't work like that. How I wish I could put cruise control on and let the RPM's of my brain ease along at around 2,000 as I navigate my way down this flat straight stretch of life I find myself on.

Alas, no.

I have been going to the gym but the body still isn't ready for proper lifting sessions that leave the mind shattered and the muscles clinging to the bones by a thread. And without a job or any other diverting project my mind and body is left under stimulated. The foot as always is flat to the floor, the RPM's are at 6,000 but I'm going nowhere fast and am analysing the life out every minute detail of the world around me. Trying to ignore the fact that I wish I was surrounded by people who don't speak English in a country with customs that would make Marco Polo run for cover.

Life is just too easy, the only challenge is being motivated to tackle the daily administrative tasks of life to the best of ones ability. Indeed I believe I have found myself in that most treacherous and soul spoiling of places - The Comfort Zone. "God, Allah, Vishnu and pals get me out of here", I plead as I 'tsk' at the price of red capsicums in Woolies, then drive home and watch TV until bed time.

The answers to this problem are always easy. But in a way the answers are really just another nail in a coffin that tessellates with everyone else's coffins of normal society. Get a job, join a club, blah blah blah - ie. do what everyone else is doing to forget that they are living the same lives as each other - just ensure there is a veneer of difference to perpetuate our individualistic society.

I just got offered a customer service job for Medicare - I'll have to take it, but the conflict with my Uni course which starts in a few weeks will probably result in my resignation after a month. I've also started planning more travel for 18-24 months in the future - to anywhere that takes my fancy as I stare at Google wondering what to look up.

In other news, we have just got a car for Heather - a little Ford Festiva with air-con and power steering (the only features that differentiate it from the greatest car in the world - '81 Honda Civic) and it is red. Heather must have been looking a little tired when we paid for it because the dealer got her confused with Methuselah and put her age as 925 years old, which required correction for the contract to be valid. Of course.

The road will get windy and tricky again, with potholes to zip around - but in the meantime I'll try not to fall asleep at the wheel or drive too dangerously during this stretch of the road.

The Consumption

OECD Consumption vs Millenium development goals.

Planet earth: dying of consumption

• Food transportation across the globe is making a significant contribution to climate change.
  Food in the UK travels 65% further than it did two decades ago.
• Heinz ketchup eaten in California is made with California-grown tomatoes shipped to Canada for processing and returned in bottles.
• In one year, the port of New York City exported $431,000 of California almonds to Italy, and imported $397,000 of Italian almonds to the US.
• In 2004, the UK imported 17,200 tonnes of chocolate-covered wafers and exported 17,600; imported 43,993 tonnes of potatoes whilst exporting 85,652; and imported 25,720 tonnes of milk and cream, only to export 27,125 at the same time.

The Shopocalypse

A short sermon from Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping .....

As the Devil’s logos force us up on to the Interstates, we’ll be damned if we can tell – hey, am I just driving home from work again or is this the FINAL MOMENT OF HUMAN HISTORY? It’s so hard to know, because the Shopocalypse is coming through the dash in the form of a sexual whisper, and it says: ‘This is Convenience’.

We believe this – as the ocean rises and shoots through our windows. And we keep believing it, as our families are clicked-and-dragged across miles of pavement into Free Speechless big boxes. Do I have a witness? As the Smart Monks from here at the 'Slow Down Your Consumption' School of Divinity have said: ‘Stop! Stop shopping!’

Now, children, we are all Shopping Sinners. Each of us is walking around in a swirl of gas and oil, plastics and foil. We should all hit our knees and weep and confess together. We are not evil people, but somehow we allowed the Lords of Consumption to organize us into these mobs that buy and dispose, cry and reload. Yes the Rapture of the Final Consumption, the Shopture, is under way.

The fundamentalist consumers are lifted way up into the air, into the Supermall of Eternal Convenience, where there are thousands of chain stores above the clouds, and where even breathing is on credit. Stadium-sized crowds of the Saved, entire qualifying hordes, are ‘shoptured up’ into a staggering array of discount opportunities. Those of us down here below have been left to die because we have an uneasy feeling from all the Chosen People talk coming out of Davos and Bentonville. Yes, we walked away from the BLOW-OUT CLEARANCE SALE.

As we witness more hapless consumers vortexing straight up into the Supermall of Eternal Convenience, we must grab their ankles and pull them down, screaming, from their advertopia. They will think we’re Devils, of course. They may slap at us as we cling to their shoes and as the sales pass through to the sky. But be gracious. Simply say, ‘Hello, we are from the Church of Disturb the Customers. Your shopping is ending the world.’

Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping are based in New York. The Rev, accompanied by the Stop Shopping Choir, undertakes ‘retail interventions’ (also known as transgressing in chain stores), lectures, and revival services in a bid to stop the Shopocalypse, and bring ‘changeluyah’ to the lost souls who shop at Wal-Mart, Starbucks and Disney. Join the congregation at http://www.revbilly.com

Dehydration and soft drinks

For any one at all interested in their health and quality of life I have been noticing an interesting phenomena.

I'm not a soft drink drinker - juice, cordial, coke, pepsi, solo, sprite - whatever, I generally don't drink it (unless mixed with something else on the odd occasion).

However....over the past few weeks I have been drinking far less water than I usually do (I normally drink about three litres of water a day). While I'm not finding myself dehydrated or 'thirsty', I have been getting urges, yearnings, cravings, desires, or whatever you might feel, for a sweet and/or fizzy drink.

My conclusion from this inadvertent experiment is that when we are dehydrated (note: you don't know if you are dehydrated - if you feel thirsty then you are well beyond the early stages of dehydration) your body tells you it needs water + electrolytes (sugar and salt) - hence the craving for a sweet bubbly drink.

The obesity pandemic driven largely by our addiction to sugary drinks (especially 'healthy' fruit juice - bah!) could be slowed by a greater effort on drinking more water. More water, less soft drink, less diabetes, less drain on society - and people think Centrelink gives away too much money. I say we tighten the criteria for helping people with late onset diabetes and other lifestyle related illnesses - if you can't bothered to keep yourself healthy (at no expense to yourself - in fact saving you money on alcohol, cigarettes, soft drink, junk food, expensive leisure activities, big TV's etc) then don't come crawling to the government asking for subsidised insulin shots or any other support.

Hmm, and I want to be a public health policy maker?

It can't hurt to drink more water, and ignore the naysayers who claim drinking too much strips vitamins and minerals from your body - rubbish. Eat a healthy diet full of vegetables, legumes and lean protein and you'll have all the vitamins and minerals you need.

The more I think about it, the more I would like to be able to create a 'Human Scorecard'. A little template that takes into account your lifestyle, income, education, career, etc etc and tell you exactly what your impact on the world is - economically (including environmentally). My guess is that most people would have a negative impact on the world - especially those of us in OECD countries (the new word I will use for 'the West').