A Brief Flare of Anger

I got outside to do some land clearing today even though it was quite cold and windy.

Cold, you can dress for but wind is quite unhealthy to be exposed to.  I didn’t stay outside for long.  Just long enough to fill one wheel barrow full of unwanted grass and weed clippings for the compost pile.

But that is not primarily what I want to talk about today.

Back inside, over a welcome cup of tea, I got to thinking about my deceased son Steven. Personally, I think it quite unhealthy to dwell too much in the past, although occasional reminiscing about good times and personal qualities can be quite helpful.  I think on this occasion my thoughts were triggered by a welcomed comment yesterday about my son’s passing.

So, wandering through my thoughts about this part of my life, I remembered reading something about the trend which has been for each succeeding generation, at least among western cultures, to gradually live longer than the previous ones.  The expectation then, is for children to outlive their parents. This is something that when one reaches my sort of age is very welcoming news, realising that not too many generations back, life expectancy was dramatically shorter than it is today and finding as I do that there is so much more that I want to do in life, the longer one can actively live, the better.

My mother of course is an exception to the succeeding generation longevity rule.  She has outlived all of her many brothers and sisters and now aged at 98 is still going strong and, though lately beginning to fade, has outlived many of my generation as well.

This increasing longevity trend is however in danger of reversal.  You won’t find this in any government statistics or other official information which tends to focus only on the effects of obesity in terms of consequent illnesses, the perils of a more sedentary lifestyle and the costs of dealing with such problems.  Governments are already beginning to view longevity as a threat to state financial stability due to the burden of the extra costs associated with the care of an ageing population.  I expect that this is part of the reason that governments, in spite of the many obvious trends to the contrary, continue to press for ongoing economic growth.  That is their only possible hope, tenuous as it is, to be able to retain any form of stability in the management of their national affairs.  Without growth the whole shaky edifice of modern society will crumble and fall.  Perhaps this is also why they are championing the introduction of GM foods into the diets of ordinary people.  There is enough information out there for anyone to know that such practices are detrimental to life and health.  Are they trying to kill us off quicker?  Exposure to genetically modified food sources and other noxious chemicals, not to mention the deprivations of poverty, starvation and conflict that are likely to overtake modern civilisation in the near future as a result of decisions taken in the past, and especially not to mention the vagaries of increasingly violent climate events, life expectancy for the most recent and future generations is looking anything but rosy and will most likely begin declining.

Why is that?  What caused it?  Who is to blame?

The consensus thinking and also my personal opinion seems to lay the blame for this outrage fairly and squarely at the feet of twentieth century society.  And who makes up this society?  Well, we do of course.  The older generation now living, or at least that part of it that was born, if I am to hazard a guess, somewhere between the late thirties to the late sixties of the previous century.  Although there was some sort of awakening towards the end of this period to the fact that change was needed, resulting in the sixties revolution of love and peace and a move towards simple living, but it all got too hard and they took to mind altering drugs instead.

What was it about that generation of people, of which I am one?

• The generation that invented the Green Revolution in agriculture that has become the most diabolically harmful practice known to man outside of nuclear physics through the distribution of hybridized seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides to farmers .
• The generation that invented Big Pharmaceuticals and medical practices that are designed to keep the population sick and dependant on their products.
• The generation that invented or perfected the financial manipulations of Stock Exchanges, Central Banks, Derivatives and other twisted methods of taking the money from the 99% of the population (you and me) and giving it to the 1% (elite speculators and criminal Banksters) in an orgy of greed and avarice.
• The generation that allowed business corporations to become legally recognised and have the same rights as ‘persons’.
• The generation that allowed the corruption of governments and the death of democracy by these same business corporation ‘personalities’.
• The generation that has meekly accepted the imperceptibly gradual loss of its freedoms and human rights in the run-up to the imposition of totalitarian regimes ‘in the best interests of the people’.
• The generation responsible for producing the mountains of debt that are continuing to be used as ‘real’ money in a giant Ponzi scheme bubble which will very soon burst, bringing about the collapse of debt based human society, and life-long debt slavery for most people (those that survive that is).
• The generation that continues to believe in the necessity for economic growth in a desperate attempt to cling on to the way of life that they have come to expect.
• The generation that even now continues to rape the Earth of even the hardest to retrieve of its precious mineral and carbon based resources in order to prolong business as usual.

Any person still living who was born earlier than my ‘blame era’ is mostly faultless.  They were the factory fodder and cannon fodder for the powers of their day.  They were the ones who suffered the poverty of the between wars depression era, brought on by the beginnings of the age of financial greed and technological progress.  They knew nothing of, and I expect cannot even now fully comprehend, the sort of affluence that their children have gotten used to expecting as a right of existence.

Any person born after my ‘blame era’ is also mostly faultless for the situation they find themselves in, though complicit in the continuance of the crimes of greed and avarice. They have known no other way from the teachings and actions of their parents for their whole lives so far.  These are the ones who are currently being most affected by the situation that we have collectively conjured.  These are the ones who are now becoming sick and dying early, as a direct result of living in this age, from diseases that have become prevalent only in that time period.  They are also killing themselves in record numbers from unfulfilled expectations of modern living.

And what of the generation that caused all this?  Should they (we) be jailed? Exterminated?  Enslaved?  Nuked?  They (we) have put at peril the whole human species. They (we) have caused ourselves and our children to become sick, die early, gain a world view that sees ‘fun’ as a full time pursuit and a definition of happiness, and to become dependant, to the point of slavery, on technology.

Doesn’t that make you feel bad?  It does me.

Doesn’t that make you feel angry?  It does me.  It would make me feel even angrier were I one of those young people today.

Doesn’t that make you feel that you should be doing something about it?  It does me.

They say ‘Don’t get angry, get even’.  Bullshit!  That will just get you into even deeper shit.

Get angry (about the situation).

Get aware (learn the truth of what is going on).

Get active (in doing something to change the way things are).

Get thinking (about how you might live if the shit hits the fan and your current life supports disappear for ever from tomorrow).

Get moving (towards simplifying your life to be in harmony with the natural world).

Get out (of this sick society and find your own better way).

Get advice (from people who are already doing that, but be judicious in your choice of advisors and always, always, always, listen to your own inner voice about what is good and right).

 

 

 

Well, my anger has flared once more and I seem to be over it, for now.  Actually I managed to maintain the rage for several hours while I put this post together.   I know that it won’t go away for long, and I hope that it never does.  If it does, I will know that it is time for me to go away too.  My wish is that this may ignite some anger, and passion, and hope, and action, in others, before it is too late.

Fortunately there are some of my generation who are part of a new awakening.  They have seen the peril that our folly has led to and are doing the best they can to make others aware, to wake up to reality, to free themselves from the bonds of modern life, to live simply in close harmony with natural systems.  I don’t believe that any of those people think, I certainly don’t, that they can alter the trajectory that we have collectively set in motion for our future.  We can only hope that enough of us survive what is coming, with enough useful knowledge for our species to continue to exist.