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

A New Generation

This makes me want to scream!

I stopped in to read Adrienne's Blog, Our Unexpected Journey. Adrienne is a strong, beautiful lady who is expecting Bennett in roughly 93 days (Roughly! Lol). He has DS and she was pre-natally diagnosed. (Obviously, if she hasn't delivered him yet it's certainly not POST natal) Anyway, she linked to an article that she found on another blog and I'm gonna rant for a minute.
Adrienne is a far stronger and wiser woman that I am. She doesn't judge people for the choices that they make in life. I frankly think that anyone who decides to terminate a pregnancy because of a prenatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome is a coward, a fool, and has their heads up their asses. Now, I'm sorry if that offends you, but honestly! Are you choosing to terminate that baby because it's not perfect!? Because he or she might not finish High school? Because your perfect baby that you have been dreaming of might not ever get married, or be able to have babies? Maybe you are embarrassed of how your child might look or you don't know if you can handle all the physical health issues that are associated with Down syndrome.

I shake my head in disgust.

I never graduated high school. My marriage failed! I was a typical baby.
Any child you have can be born with health issues, a cleft pallet, diabetes, heart disease, infertility, or copious other health concerns. Maybe there is nothing wrong with your perfect little child until he turns 3 and you realise he has autism. Or Your son becomes a drug addict, a child molester, a rapist, a wife beater or a million other awful things. AHHHHHHhhh There is no way to predict what your child will be like. There would be no one having children if we only gave birth to the "perfect" babies. EUGENICS! HOLOCAUST! To terminate based on a prenatal diagnoses of DS is the stupidest thing I can think of. In fact, you have a better idea of what your child's future WILL hold, knowing that he/she has DS. Some of you may think I'm bitter so I'm ranting. On the contrary. I couldn't be happier. I love my son. Every single PERFECT little inch of him. What makes me angry is that there are people who don't want to give these children a chance. To think if I had decided to get the Amnio and terminate. What a shame! That beautiful, sweet, amazing, innocent, brilliant child would never have had the opportunity to see this world. To see the sun! To smile or laugh with his Daddy! Ugh! I'm bawling again. Such a shame that there are people who see children with disabilities as burdens on our society, on our healthcare system. I'm ashamed. The best part of having a child with DS is how that child changes you. I have seen so many families online who had a biological child with DS and have decided to adopt another child with DS. That just shows you how wonderful these children are. They change people lives!

I love you Hunter James Ross! I wouldn't change you for the world! You are Perfect!

Little Truck of Horrors

Little truck of horrors

Dare I even write this post?

I take the bus to work. I walk 1 block from the bus to my building. Today, in that time, I was assaulted with an 8 foot x 10 foot billboard on the side of a truck. The image on the billboard was that of an aborted foetus in a pool of blood lying next to a nickel. The foetus was no bigger than the nickel. It took my mind roughly 1 minute to process and clearly distinguish the image. I saw the nickel right away but could not place what all the red and fleshy images were. When I finally realised WHAT I was looking at I stopped in my tracks almost slamming into the person behind me. I’m sure that my mouth was hanging open. My eyes followed the truck as it turned the corner, mouth agape, staring in shock. I looked around at the other people on the side walk. No one else was looking. No one else appeared to have even noticed. I just kept staring at this truck as it drove off and I lost it to the throng of traffic.

I have since looked into this vehicle and found the article linked above that was published in the FFWD (read Fast Forward) weekly August 9th, 2007. Apparently this lovely truck is a product of The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR).

Now, I understand completely the gravity of the pro-life/pro-choice debate. I just don’t think that the unsuspecting public, meandering off to their daily grind, should be assaulted and bludgeoned with such imagery.

In the FFWD weekly, the writer of the article, Jennifer Wiley, notes that Executive Director of the CCBR, Stephanie Gray says the trucks are meant to target an “older audience wherever possible, but in this case, parents will have to use discretion and possibly use a truck sighting as an opportunity to teach their children about what abortion is.” Now, I’m sorry, but picture THIS!

You are walking down town with your 11 year old son, who is slowly starting to become an adult. He asks adult questions, he says he wants to start shaving (even though he doesn't have to), he wants to watch all the old movies that scared him as a kid so that he can “face his fears”, but mostly he is starting to see things differently. He is asking ADULT questions.

“Hey Ssej?”
(Pronounced Sedge. That’s what he calls me, Jess backwards, I’m his Quasi mom)

“What’s on the side of that truck?” or “Why is there a dead thing on the side of that truck?”

You know, I don’t know exactly WHAT he would ask me but I would not have a clue as to what to tell him. A bad picture? An advertisement? I don’t know? Regardless of our exact word for word conversation, I would NOT use the image on that truck as an opportunity to talk to my son about ABORTION!

Stephanie Gray - “Until women are more horrified with abortion than they are currently terrified of a crisis pregnancy situation, they are going to go to the abortion clinic every time. I think people will be really surprised by the trucks, because it is something they haven’t seen before. But if there is nothing wrong with abortion, the images shouldn't bother them.”

I am honestly PISSED at this!

I am pro-choice. I think there are far too many children being mistreated by mothers, fathers, parents who never wanted them, can’t afford to take care of them or shouldn't even be allowed to have children. I think there are far too many situations in which women become pregnant, not by choice, and are then in no position to raise a child alone. I realllllllly don’t want this post to turn into an abortion debate but the comment that “if there is nothing wrong with abortion, the images shouldn't bother them.” seems completely asinine. There is nothing wrong with people dying of natural causes either but I don’t go around showing giant billboard photos of the elderly after they have died from a stroke or a heart attack or simply passed away of old age. I personally don’t like the Catholic Church and the pedophilia that seems to run rampant within the church but I don’t post giant billboards of young boys being molested to bring the issue to the attention of the masses.

To Stephanie Gray – There are some things that I, as Jane Q Public, should not be FORCED to see. I understand that you want the issue to be addressed, but frankly, fuck you. I don’t need a dead foetus to set me off and ruin my day! This kind of imagery is something that can be used in anti – abortion presentations where in the audience is consenting.

On the CCBR web site there is a list of Frequently Asked Questions about Abortion Imagery in CCBR Presentations. I really did not want to link to this site but I see the hypocrisy already.

Question #2

2. Will the audience be warned about the imagery?

Yes. CCBR speakers inform the audience, within the presentation, prior to showing the graphic abortion imagery. Individuals are told how they can avoid looking at the images (by closing one’s eyes or looking down) if they choose not to watch. Furthermore, where the facility layout permits, lights are turned down so others in the audience are not aware if an individual avoids watching. Finally, there is no sound besides instrumental music, so the audience also will not even hear any sounds related to the abortion procedure.



How come I was not warned?



I think I’m done ranting about this issue. I don’t see how bombarding the unsuspecting public with graphic imagery is the way to convert people to your cause. I’ll play the devil’s advocate. Why not consider the children walking down the street who will have the image of a foetus burned into their memories, confused about the whole issue.

!