Day 3 - Panic, Passion and Peace

I had a moment of terror last night.

I was hit like a truck by fear. I couldn't understand why the fuck I had decided to give up everything I know in the city, a job I have been with for 6 years (today is my six year anniversary), a decent income and the comfort and independence of my own little basement suite.

I asked Straggling, "WHAT THE HELL AM I THINKING? This is possibly the most fucked up idea I have ever had to date!"
I asked Jordenne, "Please tell me this is a good idea? Remind me WHY this is a good idea?!"

Jordenne's reply "This isn't a good idea. THIS IS A GREAT IDEA!"

Straggling - "The question is.... is this your dream?"

The answer is, Yes this is my dream.

But girl don't let your dreams be dreams 

You know this livings not so hard as it seems

Don't let your dreams dreams

And so I have moments of panic, and then I fight those moments of panic with my passion for a what I really want to do with my life.

Do I really want to spend the rest of my life getting fatter and more unhealthy sitting at a desk in an air conditioned office? 

No

Do I really want to fight traffic daily just to get my kids off to day care on time so that I can get to the office on time so that I can make money? 

No 

Do I really want to shop at the big box grocery stores and have no means to take care of my family if those big box grocery stores run out of food?  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUbKin-zrj4) 

No

Do I want to be reliant on a system that I can not control, can not predict and can not in good conscious rely on? 

No

I legitimately fear that the peek oil crisis is going to have an insane impact on the world wide food industry.

I realize that everything you purchase from the SUPER stores is DRIPPING in oil. I realize that with an oil shortage, the cost of food production will sky rocket and so too will the cost of food on the shelves. 

I don't want to meander through life blindly. I don't want to be scrambling for food when the supermarkets aren't getting the stock they need because of an oil crisis.

Everything we eat that is bought in the stores is oil... Oil for production, oil for pesticides and herbicides, oil for transport, oil for petroleum based packaging, oil for feed and for slaughter. Oil.  

How much oil is used to make one bottle of water? 

How much oil is used to make a pre-packaged ham sandwich? 

How much oil is in your kraft dinner?  

- Wheat - farmed with tractors run on oil, seeded with oil, threshed with machines run on oil

- Pesticides made with oil, shipped with oil, sprayed on with tractors run on oil

- Fertilizers - Made with oil, shipped with oil, sprayed on with tractors run on oil

- Wheat - shipped to a factory in trucks run on oil

- Factory - run on oil 

- Cheese - made with oil and chemicals

- Milk and butter - made from cows - shipped and processed in trucks and factories all run on oil

- Cows - fed on grains farmed with oil

- Wheat processed into noodles with machines run on oil 

- Boxes manufactured by machines run on oil 

- Ink to paint their pretty boxes made with oil, printed with machines run on oil

- Shipping from factory to Superstore in trucks run on oil

oil... might as well just drink the shit. 

And how oblivious we are at how much oil it really takes to get one simple meal to your plate.

I haven't been obsessive about what I buy, where I buy it and why I am truly buying the things I buy.

I have just bought the things I thought I needed, as I needed them. 

Only now am I waking up and seeing the bigger picture in all of this. 

And I just can't continue to be a part of this system.

I feel like I'm dripping in black tar... I want to shake off the black.

I want to be green. 

I want to sacrifice that which is killing me and my health and the health of this planet.

I want to get off this toxic fossil fuel addiction and start from scratch.

Go back to how things should be.

I don't want fucking creature comforts like flimsy little cheeseburgers and designer aesthetic garbage, like handbags and shoes, Coach and Luis Vitton, things that merely stroke the ego. "Run ragged by attachment, you find no comfort." - Dalai lama 

I want to let go of the ego and live green.

Black is such an awful colour on me anyway.  

So in all the panic, I look to my passion to remind me why I have made this choice...

And that is where I find peace.

I have found a beautiful peace, a sense of euphoria and bliss, in finally just giving up all that I have known so that I may learn a better way. 

I have no expectations.

I KNOW it will be hard, and cold, and miserable, and tiring, and frustrating, and I wont get enough sleep.. I dont get enough sleep now. 

But when I do go to sleep, I can lay my head down and be proud of my accomplishments and sacrifices. 

I may not make a big enough impact to change the world, or reverse the damage that has been done, but I can encourage others.

Some days I KNOW what I am doing will be revolutionary. 

Other days I still think I've lost my mind. 

I'd rather be a revolutionary who is insane.. than a hypocrite complaining about the system, doing nothing to change. 

Man sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. Then he is so anxious about the future that he doesn't enjoy the present: the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.

Don't let your dreams be dreams

Ssejors