Finding some joy

I've been told by a certain person that I need to discover the joy in my life and put it on the outside.  I've thought a lot about that over the last few weeks.  There are the obvious things in my life that give me joy, my boys, my new fiance - the normal stuff that give a lot of people joy.

Then the question was asked what would you do if you never had to worry about money?  That's a lot tougher question.  The same things come up, but if I didn't have a "job" what would I do with all of my time.  At first I think - maybe I would just read - but that would get boring.  I could volunteer and help people with different things - organizations, etc.  But what is it that I could do that would make me the happiest.

Plants, outdoors, sun - these things all come to mind.  But how to put it all together.  But in MN I can't really do that for about 1/2 of the year without a green house.  OK - well then a greenhouse, but that's an expensive thing to keep going when it gets down to -20 degrees.

Well finally I figured it all out.  In an age where materialism is dying - just look at the world financial markets and it doesn't take a genius to see that we are going to be living through a depression for a while.  What is it that most people need - food and shelter right?  Well if I could be the one to start a movement of growing things - in backyards, houses, decks any space - maybe you would be lucky like me and have your own green house.  The bottom line is - I could wrap a bunch of things that give me joy into one.  My love of plants, my love of teaching people, my love of helping people, my love of healthy plants and the good nutrition they provide, of good stewardship for the world, organic farming (or minimizing use of chemicals for farming), and of expanding their minds.  100 years ago there were more people that lived on farms or in rural communities than today.  Today less than 3% of the USA has any involvement with agriculture/food production.  A good chunk of these people are immigrants or illegal aliens.  That leaves 97% of this population that is or is getting farther away from their food.  There are a lot of people who don't know that milk comes from a cow or even what a cow looks like.  If they did know where it comes from they probably wouldn't drink it because they are afraid of GERMS or something else stupid.  

My guess is that people as we go into this depression are going to need some help learning all these things again.  Also with the way things are right now - they will need a lot of help.  How am I going to get to these people yet - I'm not sure, but it's sort of the if you build it they will come.  If there is no Idea - nothing will happen.

There may or may not be animals involved.   Bees are going to be important to all of this, maybe chickens too, dairy cows are too smelly for me - but pigs eat everything so I could see pigs being involved.  Anyway this is more of a side joy thing - plants are where it's at.

So here it is the plan - what is Dan going to be doing at some point in his life.   It sure as hell isn't going to be answering the phones or counting by five.  Those things may be needed for a while, but it is not something that will work forever.

I am just peaceful and happy after finally making this - things could change a little as I get going, but this is where I see it going now.  I just need to get it all down so I remember.  I have a nasty habit of forgetting if I don't write things down.  I may make some changes, but this week has just been an exciting, confusing, overwhelming, and joyful week for me.  Life is a lot of fun when I don't take it so seriously, when I can step back and say now what is really important.  So here is my idea and it makes me pretty darn happy and joyful.  Now how am I going to do it?

Pumpkin Economics

Yesterday I drove home and was listening to the radio - there wasn't any good music on, I'm sort of tired of all the CDs I have in my car and I didn't want to listen to the account of a car race on the radio. So I tuned into a guy from the Twin Cities and listened to him talk about the economy. He was a liberal or democrat person and he posed the question - If the republicans have an answer to our economic crisis, why aren't they talking about it and what would it be. I was amused for a while, people called in and argued with him, told him tax cuts would work, something about how the bailout plans passed already would fail, blah, blah, blah. The people who called in didn't really answer his question. Most of the callers just wanted to argue and this radio host was up for it.

The point of all this was I don't think there really is an answer to the situation - no matter what either side does the only answer for this country and the world is pain. It's our most effective teacher, it's so simple. The problem is that if you polled every single politician in this country they would all have some idea or hate someone elses' idea to fix all the problems.

The problem in this country is much deeper than money will ever go - it's the lack of consequences that we are willing to bear. Bailing out companies, giving money to every man, woman and child may help to stop this pain from happening, BUT it's our children who are going to have to deal with it. A politician only cares about getting re-elected - what happens next year or the one after. Not about 30 years from now. That's the nature of things and the way they have always been.

Here's where the pumpkin comes into the picture - pumpkins have a about a 3.5 month growing time - they put out vines, they flower, the fruit grows larger, it ripens. Then something curious happens - the plant dies or is killed by the frost. The pumpkin is still good though. Maybe it will even last another 3.5 months if it is stored. Then it starts to rot (or gets eaten or thrown off a parking ramp) - somehow the pumpkin comes to an end. This is all sad and pointless to an observer just watching it. But there are seeds in the pumpkin which formed all along and soon enough they are planted and the whole cycle starts over.

You may be able to draw your own conclusions about where we are in the above process. But this is the process of life and the economy is not immune to growth and death. History is full of inventions that surfaced and weren't useful at the time, but keep coming back in different places and suddenly are the core of a new industry. I'm not going to give examples, but if you can follow this logic a few things come to mind.

So the pumpkin does serve the purpose here - out of the death of a pumpkin comes new life. A car company failing and causing massive unemployment will allow a lot of very smart people who have some very good ideas to be able to take the risk of starting their own company which could be the next GM. The seeds or people that were contained in their comfy shell of a company didn't have to do anything until the old rotted away.

This is true of everything, but our lack of tolerance of short term pain is holding this back. Every time we try to fix or interfere with this we delay the inevitable. Things are going to fail, new things will arise out of that and life will get better and improve.

I feel better getting all this off my chest - I sat and thought about all this while driving and wanted to call the show and felt myself getting more and more angry. The radio host would have likely argued with me too. Since I don't consider myself to be a republican or democrat, he probably wouldn't have had too much to say to me. I'm just amazed that all the people in office now are supposed to be the best and brightest, if they are the best this country can do - we are in for a long decade or more of depression.

Smiley moon

I've been watching over the last few nights the big smiley moon in the western sky - right next to venus each night. I imagine there is some significance attached to that, but I am unaware of what that may be. It's probably interesting and has a long explanation. For some reason the Christian church doesn't teach anyone a whole lot about the stars, moon and sun. Yet they take up half of the world we live in. If you look down you see the ground or whatever is growing out of the ground and if you look up when you are outside you see the sky - seems to me that even though it seems so far away it is very important.

Simple - that's my new plan in life, enjoy the simple pleasures of life. I smile at the moon while it smiles back. Pretty simple, makes me feel good.