Money grows from trees

This morning, I found about one-fourth of a dollar bill by the doggy door, out on the deck. I know how much Nanalu likes to chew up paper, so there's no question who left it there. I was just glad it wasn't a 20.

It made me think, though. It's just a scrap of paper, like every other scrap of paper she leaves lying around. She had no idea what she was eating. And really, what was it? I put it in my pocket, even though it's not spendable. I'll throw it away later. And it feels like no great loss --- what can you buy for a buck?

But that's it? What CAN you buy --- and really, why can you buy anything? It's nothing but a social agreement. It holds no inherent worth. If I have a dollar bill and I want to use it to buy something from you, we have to agree about the value of the item in question. Since it is formalized at a store, there's rarely a dispute. But if you are a person who patronizes  the underground marketplace known as yard sales (garage sales, tag sales, jumble sales --- call it what you will) you know that the agreement part is always in question.

"Five bucks for that set of dishes? There aren't even any bowls. I'll give you $2.50"
"How 'bout if I throw in the glasses and that frying pan?"
"Sold!"

I'm out writing on the back deck this morning. Looking around, I notice the solar garden/patio lights we have illuminating the corners of the deck. They cost a buck apiece. How was that arrived at? It looks to me like there are more materials than that, let alone manufacturing and transportation. One dollar? I'd love to have a solar-powered house, but the cost is prohibitive. Why is that?

I guess I'm considering money and value in a different light these days. I can sit out on my deck and enjoy everything that nature has to offer --- birds, breeze, sunshine, greenery, dogs chasing mice,the scent of flowers ---- no charge. There aren't a lot of things I get more value from than this. What about paying the power bill ---- how do I calculate the value of air conditioning and heating, lights, refrigeration, stove, appliances, computer, and hot water? Considering how much value I get for all of that, the cost in money is miniscule. Yesterday we spent $300 in cash at 2 doctor offices, for check-backs. Worth it? How do you set a monetary value on monitoring health conditions?

Last night we made the decision to cancel our television service that provided a ridiculous number of channels, out of which we only watched 4. Good decision? Depends on how you value the entertainment of those four channels against the other things we will do instead. We both decided we valued our time writing, making art, and talking, much more than the dubious pleasures provided by TV. And anyway, you can always find stuff on the internet.

I don't know if it's old age, or wisdom creeping up on me, or simply the way life in the 21st century is unfolding, but I don't take things for granted as much anymore, not even pieces of paper that I can trade for more "stuff" I think I need. Those pieces of paper, or the worth they represent, are much more scarce now that I'm retired. That makes each one more worthy of consideration before I trade it for goods or services, or let it fall out of my freshly washed shorts onto the ground when hanging out the laundry, only to wind up being eaten by a dog.

It doesn't feel like deprivation. It feels like presence.

Where does my moral compass point?

People who know me would never describe me as being interested in style or fashion --- not in clothes or anything else. I don't know why that is. Once upon a time I cared a little bit, but I never quite caught on to how you do it, so I gave up. (See post entitled "The Old Lady with Purple Socks")

This morning I was mopping the kitchen floor and the thought popped into my head that we need to replace this floor. That was followed immediately by "This is looking out of style" and "It's a perfectly usable floor". And there you have it. That's how conversation goes inside my head these days.

Style? In kitchen floor tiles? That is so off the wall I laughed at myself. I'm the gal who would just as soon live in a 150 year old house. Our house was built in 2002 and we're the only people who have ever lived here. So where in the world did that idea come from? I couldn't tell you what anybody else's kitchen floor looks like, so why would I think we need to "update" ours? Consumerism, pure and simple.

That's where the interrupting, reproving voice of Aunty Ann comes in. "What? That's a perfectly good floor and it's only ten years old. It's got a few nicks, but that's nothing. Get down there and scrub it properly and it will be good as new."

I read an article in the paper today about the Tesla electric luxury car. What an amazing vehicle it sounds like. But who pays 100 grand for a car? Is there ever any reason to do something like that? Couldn't you spend $6,000 on a used car and get around just as well? Sure there are a couple of nicks in it, but that's nothing. And just think what good that other $94,000 could do for people who are hungry or hurting.

I joined several hundred other people in front of our state government building two nights ago, to participate in a Moral Monday protest. I think of myself as a kind of lackadasical activist. I have the will. I write to my state and federal reps, publish letters to the editor, pass along informative articles on social media, talk to friends. And several times a year I go to the streets for collective action. Whether or not it does any measurable good, it is good for me to use my voice in person rather than behind the cover of a computer.

When I was a student in the late 60s-early 70s, I was in the streets against the war and speaking out for abortion and women's rights. When I was at the protest on Monday, I looked around and it seemed like the same people, only 40 years later. There were young people there, thank goodness, but a huge number of the placard carrying, slogan chanting, gospel singing protesters were elders. And many of the people who chose civil disobedience and arrest are older, as well.

I don't know if this is because it's in our social DNA --- we just can't help ourselves. I think there are many of us, people born in the 40s and 50s, who remember a time when "liberty and justice for all" meant only if you were white, middle or upper class, and male. We remember when Jim Crow was not just the law, but seemed the natural order of things to many people. We remember when male privilege meant virtually all positions of power were in the hands of white men, when many occupations were closed to women and people of color, when the land of opportunity did not offer opportunity for millions of marginalized folks.

Those are the overtones, and in some cases the outright aims, of legislation being enacted here in North Carolina and all over this country. That is the reason that people who have tried contacting their legislators, writing opinion pieces, and talking to friends are now taking to the streets and risking arrest to be heard.

If you doubt that it could happen here, pay attention. Check out the PBS American Experience show called "Freedom Riders". Educate yourself about the recent history of civil and political rights. It not only can happen, it's already in motion.

We've been lulled by affluence, cheap credit and trinkets. When you're feeling blue, there's a ready cure --- go buy something. Wants become needs. Other people become invisible. What's mine is mine because I earned it and I deserve it, up to and including $100,000 automobiles. And where, in all that acquisitiveness, is community? Who are our brothers and sisters, our elders, our children? What is our responsibility to the bountiful world we inhabit?

Moral Mondays are well named. And my moral compass points to Jones Street in Raleigh, these days. I hope some of you will join me there.

An Altered State of Mind

                                                                             

When the shrink says you don't have to come back for half a year, that means you're getting better. That's what happened today. I made an appointment for November, which is an unthinkably long time from now.

She's right. I am better. I have to look back over my shoulder to see how far I've come since the dark days of winter when every time my phone rang, if it wasn't Jill, I didn't answer. Back to when I would sleep eleven hours and then take a nap in the afternoon. Back when anything and everything could make me cry. Even I can see I'm better than that!

I listened to part of a program today about the medicalization of everyday life. I was driving at the time, and listening intently, which can sometimes lead to speeding on the beltline. (abberrant behavior!) No blue lights, and I did remember to get off at my exit. That's improvement, too.

Is that what we're doing, as one doctor posited, turning any deviation from some mythical norm into pathology? Or are we simply more discerning, more open and less stigmatizing of mental, emotional and physical differences? Much of the discussion centered on children, which is important, since the way they are treated while young will define their own worldview. And someday they'll be making the decisions.

It all makes me think about Dennis the Menace. (If you are under a certain age, you might have to google.) Where would he be today? For that matter, would anybody even think his adventures and hijinks are funny these days? I used to wrestle with this when I was a classroom teacher for 6-8 year olds. When is the behavior just children being children and when is it abnormal? 

So much "acting out" that is intolerable in the classroom is perfectly normal for the child involved. Who said that all 7 year olds have to be able to perform at the same level academically and behaviorally? Isn't that completely unreasonable given the enormous differences between individual humans of all ages?

Dennis the Menace was a pain in the ass in school, but was he disordered? Diseased? In need of drugs? How much of our current "crisis in education" is driven by the desire to have children stop being children and become utterly controlled and controllable little robots? Do we have room in our schools and in our society for people who see the world differently, for imaginative expression, for non-conformity?

I am grateful for the relief that anti-depressant medication has afforded me. At the same time, I have diligently pursued talk therapy as well. Better living through chemistry has its limits. 

I visited my mother in her Alzheimer's Unit today. (That can be pretty depressing.) She's had a medication change to try to diminish the extreme agitation that accompanies every bit of personal care for her. She needs help with everything from bathing to toileting, but hollers bloody murder the whole time. Drugs can help, but finding the right level is hard and nobody wants her to turn into a zombie. I want to see the little sparks of life and recognition that are still there.

In 2013, for millions of people, psych drugs are as much a part of everyday life as driving to work or eating ice cream. Is that driven by need or availability? I have to admit I'm attracted to conspiracy theories when it comes to BigPharma. They've got more money than God and it just keeps rolling in. But then, maybe that's just my drugs making me paranoid.

This also reminds me of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley's 1931 dystopian novel in which people regulate themselves with a readily available drug called soma. We still have too much Puritan ethic to allow widespread use of our collection of soma-like substances (regulate! tax! restrict! stigmatize!) but when all mood-altering chemistry and activities are considered together, we may be well on the way to a brave new world.

I feel speculative about all of this. If the natural state of life for humans is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" as Thomas Hobbes said, then bring on the drugs --- along with sanitation, government, healthcare and hot water. I think we can do better at everyday life than that.

Uneven Starting Lines

I walked this morning with a friend who is my daughter's age. Her 5 and 3-year-olds were at school, so we only had the baby in a stroller, and our two leashed dogs to accompany us. This section of the greenway was new to me, right along the river, marshes on both sides, every shade of green imaginable, even on an overcast day. While I was blown away by the natural beauty, she was caught up in all the busyness and problems of keeping a young family together and trying to have a career at the same time.

I enjoy my younger friends, the women I went through Montessori training with and taught beside. It does me good to spend time together, and when we do, we talk non-stop. They're still in the thick of it. I wind up feeling grateful that I was able to walk away from my cherished profession at the time I did. It doesn't sound like things are getting any better in the teaching world.

From this end of the continuum, I'm repeatedly surprised by how much my age and life experience color the world. For instance, I was listening to something on NPR. It was an interview about emerging technologies and it sounded like science fiction to me.  I thought about how different the world is now from when I first crawled out of my crib. 

The combination of human and robotic intelligence that was being discussed literally did not make sense to me. I don't live under a rock. I try to stay reasonably well informed. But it reminds me of reading the tech section in a magazine 25 years ago. A telephone in your pocket wherever you go? What about the cord? The level of artificial intelligence that was being discussed on NPR was beyond me. I felt like one of those cartoon characters who runs off the cliff and continues to run in thin air. Nothing to hold me up.

Which fed the realization ---- AHA! ---- that's why the older generations have to die off and make room for the new ones. Yes, we still have a lot to offer. No, we're not entirely used up. But the innovation and progress reside, by and large, in younger minds that are more in sync with the world today. 

That sounds dismissive, I know, but think about it. I had to actually see and use a cell phone before I understood the concept. When I was a kid, we had one phone, connected to the wall, and it was a party line shared by several other households. People born in the last 15 years have never known a world without wireless technology. Our starting points are radically different. That's just a small, discrete example. While technology is visible and obvious, it's not all there is.

When people who are now in their 60s and 70s were born in the US, Jim Crow laws were in full force in the south, and women rarely held any positions of power. Even though we've lived through, and to a large degree powered the changes that have transformed the face of this country, that grounding is still in evidence. It was the starting point. Not only were discriminatory laws on the books, they were accepted as the natural order of things by many people, some of whom are still alive today. 

Folks in their forties now, who still feel like they are twenty-something, are beginning to realize that it's not the same world they were born into, either. It's startling when you first see that about yourself, especially when you say things your parents said, or wonder what in the world 'those kids' are talking about/listening to/wearing. It's a necessary and unavoidable truth that no matter how much you might stay hip, slick, and cool, you're not. At some point you will become that eccentric or sweet or grumpy or curmudgeonly or boring old person that younger folks kiss on the cheek and dismiss. You're out of it. And probably just as glad.

THANK GOODNESS! I wouldn't have had the foresight to arrange the system that way. See, most of the time I want to hang around forever, just to find out what happens next. But if we had our great-great-greats looking over our shoulders all the time, it would be so much harder to bring fresh new ideas into the square and put them to use. 

Bring it on, young'uns! Robotics, artificial intelligence, labor-saving devices ---- give us what you've got or can imagine. We'll whisper in your ears to help you remember what else is important --- fairness and justice, taking care of the babies, keeping nature intact, minding your manners, showing love and kindness. But sail ahead and don't worry about us. We're doing what we're supposed to, as well.