We are just days away from no tomatoes. Just as I was really getting sick of them.
There’s an attitude to surplus, just as there is to scarcity. Maybe we could even call it opposing frequencies.
I’ve known wealthy folk, in my younger days, who refused to eat leftovers, ever, no matter what it was, even lobster or filet mignon. One could almost be convinced of a certain ‘trickle down’ economic theory when in their presence.
While I was really lucky to be friends with them, because I got a lot of free upscale leftovers, I did find that attitude to be wasteful, and was not shy about expressing it.
It behooved me to see all that good food go into the garbage, not even composted. I couldn’t eat all the leftovers created from a weekend lake house party, and there certainly weren’t any livestock to benefit, not even doggie bags.
I think my 2nd favorite thing about having pigs, after the sausage and bacon and ham, is that I feel zero guilt about throwing away our surplus. It’s not throwing it away at all, I’ve come to realize, it’s really more like pre-seasoning our sausage.
So it was interesting to read an article the other day from an author who presented a graph from the “Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data demonstrating a substantial decrease in household food expenditure as a percentage of income—from 44 percent in 1901 to a mere 9 percent in 2021.”
It was considered a ‘good thing’ according to this graph and this author that food prices had become so negligible in the modern economy.
I’d be willing to bet the farm that the general public agrees with this premise. To have the essentials of life—that is, food and water—as cheap as possible, indeed feels like a good thing. If those are brought to them poisoned is mostly not a thought at all.
Once the essentials are met, as in our modern Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we can move on to entertainment.
Oh, except for that other pesky thing, energy. Because WiFi and game boys and television aside, we do still NEED our fridges and freezers and air conditioners.
And if you think that’s exaggerated, watch the mass exodus from the South to the North if the World Economic Forum has their way and all those civilizing conveniences disappear before too long. All while we are sweltering down here under the umbrella of ionospheric heaters up there.
But, aside. Let’s get back to the basics. Food and water, even before energy. You already know the feast or famine feeling. I know you do.
Do you give a care when you shower that 5 more minutes will break the bank? Have you ever lived in a situation where you carried all the water you needed for the day?
Do you consider when you buy your groceries that 5 more dollars will break the bank? Have you ever lived in a situation where a few dollars meant dinner or no dinner?
Every technology is a Trojan Horse. From shoes, to language, to music, to roads, to windmills, to combines, to bombs, to telephones, to cybernetics. Every one. Man existed before all of them. Somehow. Not even the ionospheric heaters causing us drought and weather chaos will bring about the extinction of man.
Man, in whatever form, of whatever species we care to classify, is a feature, or a bug, of this ‘solar system’.
Or, maybe I’m wrong, and we will perish like the supposed dinosaurs.
But my sense says, its otherwise. It says we survive in surplus, in scarcity, in love and in hate. We remain under masters, in servitude, and occasionally at some magnificent moments, I imagine, its otherwise.
We survive wars and diseases and lies. We survive pop music and step mothers and manufactured weather.
They say we must thrive, to thrive is to succeed. To succeed is to know progress. To progress IS.
To succeed is to feast.
Yet to feast indefinitely, is impossible. It will eventually lead to famine.
Because failure IS the inevitable consequence of success.
