Reading harold_maude's journal

As it gets closer to Christmas the more depressed I feel. I find the rush to buy things depressing.
Even watching people do it is depressing. I would love to get a different view of how people behave when something this big is approaching.

But year after year, it's the same. And when it's over, as fast as you can blink, all the decorations are pulled down and the next big what ever is underway.

It's rush to this, rush to that, and if anyone gets in the way, scream at them and then if they don't move fast enough, shove them out of the way.

Driving is like that right now too. We were on our way back here the other day and some girl in a car smaller than ours almost took the part of the truck off. She missed it by about 3 inches and never bothered to slow down.
Kevin was crossing the street and almost got hit by a van who's driver was in way too much of a rush.

It was maddening to say the least.

In the Grocery stores and other places I've been since Thanksgiving came and went, the air of impatients has been building. I don't like how people behave durring this time of year. It would seem that scrooge is alive and well.

At the store where I work, people who come in seem like crazed wild animals. They are impatient and rude and just plain ugly.
If we have every register in the place going, and there are lines that go around the corner on every single one, they get pissed off because they have to wait.

Yet those same people go into walmart, which in this town is a super store, only a fraction of the regesters are going, they have to wait longer and they never get bent out of shape over it.
On the rare occasion I go to walmart, I've seen it go on.
I don't like walmart for several reasons, the least of them being they are way too big and very easy to loose your way in.

The ugly level of impatients is evident everywhere, in the parking lots, in the stores, and even just out on the street.
For once I would love to be around some people in a place of business where the meaning of the season would be far more important than how much money is made. And how much stuff gets sold that will in a short time be thrown into the trash, at least part of it anyway, adding to the over flowing landfills.

What a wonderful thought. Lets buy more stuff we don't need so that we can dump it on the land and in the water supply and then bitch and moan about the problem we've created.

For once I would love to see something different. I would love to see people care more about each other, durring this time, then making scheduals so they can tear through paper to get to stuff that other people have gone into debt for that they will spend the rest of the year trying to pay off.

The last 10 years or so, the Christmases I have experienced have been low key. I've purposely kept decorations up long into March simply because their pretty.
I've made the halloween decorations part of the normal decor in this house by the way. I like the funny faces of the pumpkins and kitties that remind me of the art of Frank L. Balum.
I will add to the decor with Christmas stuff and leave it up all year.

It's my way of protesting the attitude of the world. Of the market, of the rush of the american life style.

In my perfect world, everything would slow down. Money would be of little value in the big scheme of things, and bartering would be the norm.
People would be gentle with each other, and children would experience childhood without all the latest fads that make their rooms look like a store room for the leftovers from a stampeed at k-mart after some holiday sale.

Children would be allowed to have a childhood. Long into their teens, and parents would spend time getting to know these people from the time they arrive on the scene instead of having to worry about who the babysitter is going to be, because they have to work so many hours to pay the bills.

T.V.'s would be more of a foriegn word than a part of everyday life, and games that fuel the immagination would be normal.
There wouldn't be so much underlaying anger mixed with emense bordom that gives birth to intense impatients.

The children wouldn't have to deal with adult emotions, and the results of ignorance that ends up producing unwanted children would be rare.

There wouldn't be a need for hospitals to have adopted the policy of if you don't want your baby, you can leave it here, no questions asked.
And the ever growing incidents of finding new borns in trash cans would never exist.

Hospitals that double charges for thoes who can't afford care would be forced to do community service, and doctors who's fees are astronmical so they can live in huge houses and drive cars that are rediculous would be fined, heavily.

There would be a cap on lawyer's fees as well. And any public office, including that of the president would have a cap on their salary as well, Oh say 30 thousand dollars a year, instead of what they are.

And after a person left the office there would be no perks that the american people continue to pay for until the person dies.

Corporations would be required to do community service, escpecially if they were CEO's of a company.
If they failed to do that, they would be fired from their possition.
Some of that community service would be working in nursing homes and half way houses, and serving food to the indgent.
They would also be required to spend time homeless, so that they could have a better understanding of what that's like.
Especially if they were in a goverment job.

In my perfect world the things that didn't sell off store shelves that weren't parishable, would become availble to the poor and people living in towns out in the middle of no where.
The product wouldn't be distroyed and end up in the over flowing landfills.
Old coats would be recycled in a unique way. Thoes that weren't given to thoes that don't have coats would be taken apart and turned into useful items, like tent floor coverings and bed rolls, instead of sending them to places where there is no need of coats because the weather doesn't require them to have coats.

The energy put tord fighting wars over power and oil and other stupid things would be put into more useful things. Like making houses and buisnesses solar and wind powered. There wouldn't be the need for so much oil if the only things that required it were the modes of transportation.
And thoes too would under go huge changes as well. The freeway and streets would be changed into monorail systems. The tracks would be magnetic. Just like other countries who use thoes systems they would be brought here.
The millitary would be employed to build the systems, and that would keep them busy.

The chemicals used in farming would become obsolete as all farms would be required to become organic. And the clear cutting of old growth forests would be come illegal.
Responsible forest management, the thinning of trees would become the normal way of doing things.
Strip mining that scars the land would stop. And hemp would be legal.
It has been proven that the hemp plant puts nutrients back into the soil, and the uses for the plant are numerous. The products we import into this country alone generate 300 million dollars a year. Nothing to sneeze at.
Hemp is mold resistant, and so building materials made of hemp stand up longer to the test of time.
Paper made of hemp last longer than that made of cotton.

The plant it self is one of the most perfect plants that exist on the planet. It's nutrional value is amazing, and things that are made of non renewable recources can be made from hemp.
These things are documented.

But my perfect world doesn't exist. I know it will never exist.
As long as greed and coruption exists things will only get worse, and more people, our children and their children will pay a higher and higher price for the money mongers that are in control.
I greive for them and us. I see no bright future, only one of further destruction.
I can see how it's very possible that we will mirror the movie "Soylant Green" in a very few short years.
Where people will be bred to feed the masses of people.
There won't be anything left.
We will become canibles and never know that we are. Only those in power will know it.

...deep sigh....

It only looks that way because your standing on your head.