PowerSwitch

Time to beat myself up. Please contribute regarding the way you crap on the planet.

07:30 - boil kettle, have coffee imported from Columbia
08:00 - get into car and drive 12 miles to work
09:00 - make coffee, imported from Kenya, add sugar imported from?
09:10 - tidy office and throw out a metric shitload of paper
09:15 - open office window for fresh air despite air conditioning being on in thew building
09:30 - boot computer to check emails, despite still tidying office after being re-carpeted (excellent opportunity to throw junk out).
10:30 - eat egg butty and banana - imported from?
11:50 - go and have a cigarette - imported from?
12:30 - have a tuna salad... made with sweetcorn and red pepper, olives. Orange for afters with can of drink.
13:00 - browse the web
14:00 - dispose of 'unwanted' office furniture, plastic boxes, biro pens, dried up felt-tips, out of date service manuals, electrical appliances (broken) etc etc.
16:00 - get in car drive 12 miles home
16:05 - stop at shop. Buy gin, tonic (plastic bottle) and lemon and lime. Buy ready meal (healthy option) and a chocolate mouse in plastic tub. Place all in carrier bag.
16:40 - arrive home, switch on both computers (one for business and one for social) return on TV for some noise. I know, I know... but I live alone... put tonic in fridge.
17:50 - make drink with lemon and tonic
18:00 - run online shop selling imported items from the far east.
19:00 - package in bubble wrap, cello tape and envelopes etc
20:00 - Eat ready meal
21:00 - watch TV and simultaneously surf the web/email
22:00 - have a gin
22:30 - remember the chocolate mouse. eat.
22:35 - Fill sink with hot water and washing up liquid, do the dishes.
22:45 - write this post whilst watching TV

Needless to say, toilet breaks not mentioned....

Jeezus.... rinse and repeat tomorrow(ish) No wonder.... Anyone ever actually done a list like this and realised just what is going on?

I don't beat myself up M. No point. There are bigger fish to fry than you or me. We are just puppets on strings dancing to tunes composed for us on a stage not of our making. You should direct your anger away from yourself and at the bastards who have made it this way.

M, I suggest you set a trap for the chocolate mouse.

Seriously though, stop beating yourself up. Life's just a game.

Thanks Steve.

I was imagining someone saying something like:

06:00 - wake drink cold spring water from the well
06:15 - eat homemade organic bread (from homegrown wheat that I ground myself), cooked in a dung fired oven
06:30 - cycle the 2 miles to work
07:00 - construct useful objects from recycled shoes
12:00 - eat lunch that I made the day before using home made goats cheese and mung beans grown on my window sill
16:00 cycle home stopping at the local farmers market to get some broccoli
16:15 drink spring water and elderflower tea
17:00 play my penny whistle that I made from an old piece of scrap pipe.
18:00 prepare and eat salad grown on my humanure fed plot
19:00 time for bed, another lovely day awaits.

maudibe wrote:Thanks Steve.

I was imagining someone saying something like:

06:00 - wake drink cold spring water from the well
06:15 - eat homemade organic bread (from homegrown wheat that I ground myself), cooked in a dung fired oven
06:30 - cycle the 2 miles to work
07:00 - construct useful objects from recycled shoes
12:00 - eat lunch that I made the day before using home made goats cheese and mung beans grown on my window sill
16:00 cycle home stopping at the local farmers market to get some broccoli
16:15 drink spring water and elderflower tea
17:00 play my penny whistle that I made from an old piece of scrap pipe.
18:00 prepare and eat salad grown on my humanure fed plot
19:00 time for bed, another lovely day awaits.

I do rather embarrassingly plead guilty to penny whistles and also flutes made from scrap piping. I can't really play them very well. I just make them for the craic and tend to give them away to friends and relatives.

maudibe wrote:Thanks Steve.

I was imagining someone saying something like:

06:00 - wake drink cold spring water from the well
06:15 - eat homemade organic bread (from homegrown wheat that I ground myself), cooked in a dung fired oven
06:30 - cycle the 2 miles to work
07:00 - construct useful objects from recycled shoes
12:00 - eat lunch that I made the day before using home made goats cheese and mung beans grown on my window sill
16:00 cycle home stopping at the local farmers market to get some broccoli
16:15 drink spring water and elderflower tea
17:00 play my penny whistle that I made from an old piece of scrap pipe.
18:00 prepare and eat salad grown on my humanure fed plot
19:00 time for bed, another lovely day awaits.

Spring water comes from a spring not a well. I have my spring piped into the house so yes I start the day with spring water. Also shower in it and flush it.
But there it breaks down pretty close to yours.
5:00 get up feed cat canned cat food.
5:30 brew pot of coffee imported from somewhere a lot warmer then Vt
6:00 take shower in propane heated spring water.
6:10 turn on TV check out Fox news and Aljam
7:00 eat breakfast of steak and eggs cooked on propane (in summer)
8:00 drive six miles to office
14:00 leave office ,pick up 12 pack of beer
14:30 drive 7 miles to buddies man shack, play darts and drink beer.
17:00 arrive home turn on one of two computers ,pick fight with someone on here.
18:30 cook supper if it's my turn
19:45 play some online games
20:30 read in bed for ten minutes before falling asleep.

maudibe wrote:.... cooked in a dung fired oven
......

That's a big wasteful no-no! Dung should be composted and returned to the earth to grow something, even if it is the tree that you cut down for wood to cook your bread.

Some would say (Em, where are you?) that the dung should be composted and used to grow vegetables which are eaten raw, after washing well in spring water of course.

kenneal - lagger wrote:
Some would say (Em, where are you?) that the dung should be composted and used to grow vegetables which are eaten raw, after washing well in spring water of course.

Don't forget to collect plenty of fresh dung around Jan/Feb time to get your hot compost bed up and running

kenneal - lagger wrote:Some would say (Em, where are you?) that the dung should be composted and used to grow vegetables which are eaten raw, after washing well in spring water of course.

We've no dung; at least not from other species. We're what's been called 'veganic'.

But I have to comment of course...I would just leave dung where the animal left it. Seems to make sense to me.

8:30 Get up, put on dirty clothes
9:00 Boil kettle. Eat egg from UK, banana (godnose where but at least it's fairtrade), drink about 3 pints of tea
10:00 cycle to Plot and water it (mains water only since the shed got burned down )
11:00 wash hair in unfeasibly long shower (this isn't typical)
11:30 put on clean clothes, do washing (none of it mine, as usual), surf net
13:30 Lunch: bits of roast chicken left over from yesterday, spud salad (plot spuds! but with sweetcorn and mayo from somewhere)
1:00 write up Orchard Committee minutes, rescue collapsed email system, read emails about Energy and surf net. Use Facebook like a Salon ("Anybody seen this article? Whaddya think?")
5:30 mow lawn with push-mower wot I repaired myself
6:00 realise people are probably hungry. Boil black-eyed beans and make Salsa. Supper interrupted by 20-minute search for Marvellous Other 1/2's keys (He's training to be an absent-minded Professor)
Supper washed down with home-made Elderflower fizz
(and I suppose I shall...)
7:00 more internet (PS and Resillience plus other stuff)
8:00 more tea
9:00 water Plot again
10:00 more PS. Roof has given us about 7 kWh today!
1:00 a.m. bed

But then again, I'm not doing anything for money. It seems to me that it's the stuff we do for money that does most of the damage. It is absolutely pointless beating yourself up for work-related damage: after all, it's not as if there's a Citizen's Income yet!

Okay, I'll play:

5:20 Wake up, shower (gas heated)
5:40 Breakfast, muesli (from 15 kg sack from food coop) + milk (glass bottle, delivered)
5:50 Make lunch (home made bread + cheese/tomato from supermarket sandwiches)
6:10 Leave house (Bristol)
6:30 Catch train to Exeter (listening to audio book; Canticle for Leibowitz)
7:30 Catch bus across Exeter
8:00 Spend an hour talking to IT people about broken computer
9:00 Computer/programming/data analysis work
10:00 Project meeting
11:00 Climate modelling seminar (with coffee)
12:30 Lunch (including purchased cake)
13:30 Computer/programming/data analysis work
16:30 Catch bus across exeter
17:00 Get drenched in thunderstorm
17:30 Catch train to Bristol (audiobook)
18:30 Home
18:40 Check on bees in the garden
19:00 Skype chat with friends
19:54 Finally agree to wife's request to change out of smelly/damp clothes
20:30 Dinner (home grown potatoes, beans, courgette, blackberry pudding)
21:00 Watched documentary (John Sargent on Lancaster bomber)
10:00 Internet including posting this
10:30 Bed

RenewableCandy wrote:But then again, I'm not doing anything for money. It seems to me that it's the stuff we do for money that does most of the damage. It is absolutely pointless beating yourself up for work-related damage: after all, it's not as if there's a Citizen's Income yet!

That's what I was thinking after reading Maudibe's post. The throwing away of things and buying convenience foods is just a consequence of the time robbed from us because of the imperative to earn money to take part in society. If we had a citizen's income, those of us with good intentions would have the time to be good whilst those who are determined to earn additional money could do so and pay tax to fund our citizen's income.

oobers wrote:

RenewableCandy wrote:But then again, I'm not doing anything for money. It seems to me that it's the stuff we do for money that does most of the damage. It is absolutely pointless beating yourself up for work-related damage: after all, it's not as if there's a Citizen's Income yet!

That's what I was thinking after reading Maudibe's post. The throwing away of things and buying convenience foods is just a consequence of the time robbed from us because of the imperative to earn money to take part in society. If we had a citizen's income, those of us with good intentions would have the time to be good whilst those who are determined to earn additional money could do so and pay tax to fund our citizen's income.

I agree with this in principle. However, I fear, in practice, it may not work because most people, I think, would be quite happy being fairly poor as long as they knew their poverty had a lower limit and was a stable kind of poverty. That is to say, as long as they knew it would put a roof over their head and fill their bellies. I can certainly say this would be true of me. Thus, if people knew they could achieve those basic necessities of life simply by passively receiving a citizen's income, many of them would chose that over a life where they might get more stuff, but would have to give up 40 or more hours per week working in some soulless job (which is what most people do) for the privilege. In other words, if you want to incentivise people to work for 40 hour a week, they have to be scared of the alternative. A citizen's income would mean they wouldn't be. Which, in itself, is morally untroubling to me. However, in practical terms under such a scenario, if the majority of people were to choose not work, there would be insufficient people generating the wealth necessary to fund all of their citizen's incomes.

On the other had, it seems to me eminently just that anyone who possesses/controls the primary means of production such as land or minerals, for example, should be compelled to pay a significant levy to the common pot for the privilege of denying access to those commons by everyone else. However, you;d be hard pushed to persuade the mass of people who do not posses those primary resources, but instead have to earn a basic month to month salary, to fund the deliberately chosen idleness of others. Please note here, I am not making comment on "benefit scroungers" or other related right wing bullshit. If someone can't find work they should be entitled to unemployment benefits far in excess of the pittance currently on offer. I'm simply saying that under the current system, the majority of the proletariat who are working are not going to ever be persuaded to fund the existence of those who would choose not to work.

You're right Steve, to a great extent.

However, much of the money generated (not forgetting the income and profit that the the rich are not taxed on) by 'work' is spent on nuclear, on armaments and the attack forces, subsidies to the rich, ill-health, polluting activities, unnecessary travel, wasted food, excess cash profits for no good reason or is simply off-shored.

That waste of money and resources wouldn't go away in a better-organised world but taking steps to reduce it must be some kind of Good Thing.

RenewableCandy wrote:But then again, I'm not doing anything for money. It seems to me that it's the stuff we do for money that does most of the damage. It is absolutely pointless beating yourself up for work-related damage: after all, it's not as if there's a Citizen's Income yet!

Good point RC.

I didn't see maudibe's list as an invite to compile my own. I'd get too smug. No I wouldn't really, I have a long way to go yet - what I was thinking is this: by actually being aware of all the shite that forms part of one's everyday existence, you can actually do something. This puts maudibe out in front of millions who couldn't care less about food miles or being a robot.

"The unexamined life is not worth living". I've borne this in mind for years. It should be applied whether you're picking your nose in the office or crossing the Antarctic alone.