waiting for the storm

Waiting for Tropical Storm Fay to blow through any time now reminds me of the last hurricane I went through in 2004, during which I had to re-read Things Fall Apart by candlelight - No circumstance excuses English majors from completing their reading assignments.

I hated the book the first time I read it in the summer before ninth grade. At that point, I didn't realize that the protagonist in every story doesn't have to be one that I fell in love with. Before that, my books of choice had included Jack London novels, Greek myths like the Odyssey with the classical hero, and various other adolescent girl novels. Okonkwo did not fit into my mold of a hero. He was a misogynistic wife-beater who killed his adopted son, and I imposed every Western moral I had on him just like the Christians in the novel.
Re-reading it made me realize that morality is a construct - an illusion. It allows us to live together relatively peacefully until our morality clashes with another, like walking in on someone else's dream. This is the point of the novel - that human society is fragile and the barbarian waits beneath the surface to shatter our illusion of a world in anything other than chaos.

The Crisis of the American Dream

Watching a news feature about people who lost their homes in the mortgage crisis really got me thinking about American ideals, which still correspond to none other than the good old American Dream. People think a big, new house with a white picket fence is the key to their happiness and this is what we are force-fed on a daily basis by media and advertising. Yet, it is widely accepted that most Americans are not happy.
This particular story was about a single older woman who lost her excessively large house when her interest rate jumped up and doubled her monthly mortgage. It was a sad story, but why did she need that huge house? There are so many empty houses, but people keep expanding, building new neighborhoods. I see this especially in Gainesville. Areas that were green space get developed while old house and business sites are left empty.
Americans need to revamp their way of thinking. Unfortunately, this is impossible to do while maintaining our current system of capitalist expansionism. An economy that is based on expansion discourages any sort of sustainable lifestyle. Where do we go from here?
There is a really great essay on this topic by E.F. Schumacher entitled "Buddhist Economics." Schumacher analyzes the differences in the world-view of Western societies as opposed to the Buddhist world-view, and proposes a change in Western ideals in order to live more sustainable lifestyles.

My really simple freedom of speech website

Europe Slideshow

Here is link to my better Europe slide show made with Soundslides: