A new economy

We do need a 'new economy,' but one that is founded on thrift and care, on saving and conserving, not on excess and waste. An economy based on waste is inherently and hopelessly violent, and war is its inevitable by-product. We need a peaceable economy."

~ Wendell Berry

I do wonder if the people in the Warring State in China were wasteful. I doubt it. Nevertheless it would be good to think that people who are not interested in waste are also not interested in war.

To am proud to say that i did not watch TV today. I came home and dinner was in full swing. Peter was washing the dishes and Ghin was running around without his diapers on. Oisin and Jago were watching Polar Express. Polar Express is Ghin's Nemo. We have watched it every day since the end of Christmas. It feels as if we have seen it about 50 times.

Peter and Oisin went off for a Green Party meeting and Ghin and i stayed to tidy the house. I did the laundry, the dishes and tidied up downstairs. I get the bread machine out and make bread. Ghin and i watch the kneaded work away. He laughs at it, Look! Bread is dancing! How simply but poetically he puts it. Bread is dancing! Ghin dance also.

Then we headed upstairs and after i folded all the clothes i played with Ghin. We then had some cuddle time. I read him three stories and we both fell asleep.

Four hours later, i wake. On coming down, i discover that Peter has turned off the TV at the big switch. I head straight for the kitchen, hang out the laundry. I extricate the bread and then show up here. I have not succumbed to the TV. And i realise that i've done this because i've decided not to. It was an active decision not to watch the TV, which means that watching the TV is an option of least resistance. I had to do something else. Or think about something else. Further proof that TVs are the opium of the people.

And i found something else to do. So it IS possible to get the little routines done, under an hour, if i am paying attention. And i even managed to get the bread machine working. It's really not the best thing, but it IS the second best thing. Although bread from a bread machine does taste different. It also looks kinda weird. The crust is always thinner.

I will keep this up for about a week now and hope that it will be an established rhythm. Tomorrow evening i'll clean the fish tank. Poor sweetheart. Maybe i'll do it tomorrow before i get to work.

I've decided that i'll do Lent this year. But it'll be more of a detox than Lent. I am going to... i bite my lip as i say this. I will give up coffee, alcohol, black tea and refined sugar and flour. I'll also give up red meat. I think it's called going cold turkey. I'll not call it giving up. I'll call it switching over. I'll take green tea instead. And i'll do brown rice and more vegetables. I eat chicken once a week. After a week i will be unable to live with anyone - or rather no one will be able to live with me. But you know what, i always feel so shit when Easter comes round each year. I go, i should have been good. I should have gone on a detox. Why didn't i do it? So i WILL do it this year - in the name of voluntary simplicity. Also in previous years i didn't really have a lifestyle or a framework which would have supported this insane decision. I will try it now.

Having chicken will then be a real treat. I will look forward to it. My food bill will be drastically reduced. Cheese will be like meat.

If i do save, i can use the money for something nice. Beautiful vases for the house. A new painting perhaps. Put it towards the holiday.

I tried signing up for Twitter today. It didn't work. My phone won't Twitter. If anyone can tell me how this works i'd be really grateful. I also attended the media conference today and was struck with the way things had really changed. Everyone looked so tired and worn out. I know media people do this anyway, but the changing landscape has meant that unless we adapt, we will die. I'd be really interested to see how people are communicating now. Social networking sites i think have become really important. People are now becoming their own content providers. The media landscape has become truly democratised - if you have a PC and know how to work it of course.

So democratised for anyone under 35 years old perhaps.

I've just had some of the bread. It's ok.

I've just looked at another painting by Chardin. Because art is so incidental in our lives now, it is like drinking at a stream. A portal into another world which i used to know, when i was younger, when the world was all new and fascinating, the mind plastic, malleable, when i knew everything and didn't know anything at all. The soul yearned for possibility, it was both cynical and innocent. When i look at a piece of art from new, i am placed back again in those museums and art galleries, those decaying European cities i visited in such a brief space of time, i sated on in those short summers. Walls and walls spinning with art - and i just wanted it all. I have not been to a museum in a very very long time. Not on my own. Not in silence.

It will be the next thing that i do.

A major European city. I'll suggest it to Peter. We'll go on a shoestring with the family. To Paris. For a few days.

Or Amsterdam even.

OK. Off to bed now. Day One of the experiment has worked, i'm happy to day.