Materialism Or Freedom? We Do Have A Choice

At the government office where my brother works a number of 2-year employment-contracts are now ending (so people are getting their walking papers). In regards to my spouse’s career – many automobile dealerships received notice last week that their contracts with the manufacturer are not being renewed. That means many of the dealerships (where my husband’s mechanic-friends work) are now closing down.

Even those technicians who remain employed are earning less and less money per car repair job as dealerships take more of the mechanic's wages to turn a profit. When my spouse complains about getting paid less, I ask him: “Ya wanna just sell everything and hit the road? We could live like gypsies! We don’t HAVE to buy into the bullsh#%&* of working for slave wages. We could live off the interest of our mortgage and just be FREE; live off the land!"

I strongly feel if someone is unhappy at work they can definitely make decisions to live a different sort of lifestyle; like become a beach bum or something. My spouse and I can definitely live out of a Winnebago or something! So that's what I tell my Doug: "You have the option to quit when work feels too burdensome."

Doug says: “YOU would like that, and you might be happy eating weeds, but I wouldn’t.”

In truth. I love my home. I love gardening and raising back yard chickens. At the same time, I would also take it as a welcomed life challenge to pursue a different sort of lifestyle [to make it work].

I’m actually gorging on a book called “Eat the Weeds” right now. (It's a really old copy that I purchased at an estate sale for $1.) It claims that regular lawn provides more vitamins, minerals and other nutrients than three times its weight in vegetables and fruits. The idea is to cut, wash and then dehydrate the blades of grass. Once dry, you grind it into a powder and add it to whatever you’re baking or cooking: muffins, pancakes, hot cereal, soups, etc. According to calculations, doing such regularly would decrease the grocery bill by 25% and dramatically improve on the family’s health.

I think its funny how people I talk to have such an aversion to the idea of eating their lawn; especially since they’re willing to eat corn (a grass) and wheat (a grass) and so many other type of cereals made from grass-species. Not only that: but how many people do you know who SMOKE "grass" and listen to Blue Grass? (Why not eat the lawn???)

Note: eating the lawn would NOT be a good idea if you ever use pesticides or weed killer in your yard. Doing such would simply poison the family; just as all the insects, bats, birds, etc., all get poisoned when pesticides are used.

Remember that tsunami that struck India a couple of years ago? I was so impressed by the water gypsies who took to higher ground just before the devastation hit. Those people were paying attention to Earth's rhythms. They don't own anything besides their boats and cooking tools. When they want breakfast, they collect it from the sea or from land. They don't worry about retirement funds or medical insurance. Doing such is a life choice we Americans tend to make.

There's a certain romance to living life more connected to nature. Maybe it's time: to take control of our own destiny. To realize we enslave ourselves by the choices for materialism we make (and perhaps begin to choose otherwise).