Well... It's official. I'm a hippie.
It took an honest concern for recycling efforts, the tireless search for organic clothing and the all day quest for local artisan print shops to make me truly realize it. And yet, I have never been so proud of a title!
I'll be honest. I once sat on the hillside and watched as peaceful soldiers warred against industry and environmental stability. I had zero intent of ever becoming involved. I figured the world was far too large for my hand to have any impact. And maybe in a small north western ontario city it didn't. But being in the heart of industrialism and the desolation of human-nature contact has become an eye opening blessing for me and has forced me to become involved, no matter how small an impact.
All my life I've expressed my want to change the world, and yet, I never targeted the earth itself as something to change. Strange how that is.
I guess, contributing also, is my constant surrounding of creatives and artisans. Who all think, feel, breathe, eat, sleep, and voice the same ideals! Community is uber important! The environment should be fixed and CAN be fixed! Peace and love CAN exist in humanity! AND! we all don't get paid enough... among other things.
In any case, it's a beautiful movement being involved in all this. Whether the change is huge, it's significant enough to change my lifestyle and that's big enough for me right now.
With my mind wandering to new places of opinions and critical thought, I have managed to strike up a peculiar amount of serious conversations about the world these days, with many different people. Where I differ from most traditional hippies, however, seems to lie in my absolute fascination and belief in what technology is doing to change our world.
A fair amount of people claim technology to be the rival. Too many cars, too much internet, too many cell phones, not enough real communication, so on and so forth. And yet I beg to differ.
Whenever someone challenges me with that I ask them why. Why is it so bad that we have internet? Why is it bad to have a fast means of transportation? Why is it bad to have available contact all the time?
The most common example. Cell phones. Or smart phones in particular. A lot of people will argue that they are deteriorating the memory of our generation. No one remembers things any more, they just find it. But why is this a bad thing? Why is it better for me to spend years and years of my life memorizing facts when instead I can have the world knowledge in my hand. I can find any answer, solve any conundrum, build anything, find anything... Live better? I'd sure say so. Instead of going to university for 7 years, teach yourself skills that you adore and put them to use. Spend time talking to people and growing with your community instead of cooped up studying or in structured classes. Start clubs and organizations that encourage creativity and passions. It is a HUGE opportunity that many people look negatively towards because it's been such a fast change. If you ever want me to rant about how exciting something is, ask me about smart phones. I could go on forever.
Because things changed so quickly with technology, people didn't have time to adjust. So we now sit thinking, "only 5 years ago I had to walk to my friends house to talk to them!" and you are threatened by all this new stuff happening so fast. Yet, if we open our minds to how fast it's moving and how much unbelievable potential it has. We may be able to see a lighter side to things.
There are a ton of technologies right now that are soooo advanced in a crazy cataclysmic way! There was a bit of a stumble at the start line with technology. The people with money invested in technology to make more money. So most of what technology became was destructive. But now, with technology being accessible to nearly the entire globe. The earth is catching up in the race! People are developing such life changing ideas that I have given all my faith to a world run by technologies. Man and machine are now shifting to restore the earth back to its stable setting. And the faster we ALL get on board, the faster these things will change, and the faster things like pollution and clear-cutting, and mountain-top mining, and starvation will become eradicated from our world. Sounds pretty good to me. Sounds like something worth investigating.
I'm almost certain I could write a book with how passionate I have become about this stuff! I'd call it, "Man and Machine: An Uneducated, Passionate Rant"
All in all, do me a favour and spend some time checking out these websites. (organizations and ideas provided by the internet. The best thing EVER)
Jason Mraz knows what I be sayin:
http://freshnessfactorfivethousand.blogspot.com/
Hate junk mail? Save some trees!
http://www.41pounds.org/savetreesvideo/default.asp
Trees = You being a alive. Take a friggen second for em! Oh and CHECK out their partnerships!
http://www.treesftf.org/about.htm
What happens when you recycle? FIND OUT YO!
http://www.explorethecycle.com/
If we can do this, we can do ANYTHING!
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/04/towel-folding-robot-could-fix-laundry-woes/
Extremist Group but Pretty interesting Ideas:
http://www.thevenusproject.com/
