It is not without a little trepidation that I say hello. I wasn't sure about my motives for starting to write this blog until New Year when I had a very interesting if drunken conversation with a lady that I was ranting at. To cut a 3 hour conversation short, I came recognise the value in taking this incredibly personal thing and using it for it's own end.
Share, possibly educate and demonstrate by example how normal, fulfilling and possibly fun life can be without buying anything new. Steering away from the materialistic society that we are in, but being perceived as normal, not an organic carrot wielding hairy hippy. Helping others that venture down the same path, no matter how little or far.
A million tiny steps brought me to this point: Working in the environmental field I do, I see what damage an over-consumptive world has, the impacts, the incredibly smelly and truly horrible places that landfills are. There is also my boss, who so delighted in free windsurf boards, and the mad lady that ran the waste recycling place. oh yes, the fact that I lived as 'green' as I could and yet still managed to pump out planets worth of carbon every year. The thousand million times of biting my tongue (and sometimes failing to) in the face of some ridiculous example of tragic waste and ignorance. Most recently, and the final shove - the carnage that is Christmas.
One key event crystallised something inside me. Finding out about the 'Buy Nothing Day' was a tiny bit of a revelation. I already thought that I was pretty 'green living' This concept was (well, in my eyes) cool. Reading about this, lead me to 'The Compact', a staggeringly brave and original group that seemingly began this lifestyle of 'buy nothing'. Read about them, they are awesome.
This isn't a green movement per se, it's a social one. It's striking against the materialism that it is forced onto us from so young it becomes second nature, to want to buy to make us feel good and 'fit in'. We are tricked into spending our dosh on meaningless and essentially valueless items, pouring wealth into the waiting pockets of multinational organizations that in turn whisper into the ears of and tweak the strings of our government. we are thus influenced further <begin cycle again>. Have you ever stopped to think that there may be another way to live?
How hard can it be for one individual to turn their backs on this, to draw a line beneath it and STOP!!! I'm not imagining that this will be easy, but in a strange way I am incredibly excited. Taking life back to it's essentials opens the door for me connecting to people as I beg borrow and steal my way into getting things done. It forces my hand on getting those skills I have been relying on mass markets to ignore.
Oh yes gosh, I realise I've had a bit of a rant. I apologise. Most people would have shoved a bread roll/organic carrot/beer in my mouth already, but I have finally stopped just talking about it, and, well only bleeding gone and started it. Gosh.
