J'espère que vous avez passez une bonne Journée sans achats... et que vous avez pris le temps de profiter de votre temps libre et de votre liberté :) et pourquoi pas un mois sans achat? je sais que Melissa Corkhill s'y est collée ce mois-ci, avec toute sa famille (deux enfants). Ils ont vécus tout le mois de novembre avec juste leurs livraisons hebdomadaires de fruits et légumes bios. Pour le reste, genre épicerie, elle achète tout en gros, a une coopérative bio. Nous avons fais la même chose cette semaine, nous avons passé notre première commande chez Infinity Foods qui devrait nous être livrée lundi et devrait nous durer deux mois. Donc ça et les livraisons hebdos de fruits et légumes bios... et nous voila libres comme l'air, plus la peine de se coltiner la corvée de devoir "aller faire les courses" a l'horrible supermarché, ou au soi-disant magasin bio, qui est loin et hors de prix, pour les deux prochains mois. Commandez en gros reviens beaucoup moins cher, et la livraison est gratuite, héhé.
J'espère vraiment que cela permettra a Thom de ne pas avoir a mettre les pieds dans un supermarché. Toutes les sucreries qui attendent les enfants aux caisses, et tous les pièges installés un peu partout afin de manipuler le cerveaux des enfants pour qu'ils harcèlent leurs parents et deviennent complètement hypnotisés, voir obsédés, par des bidules en tous genres... vraiment je veux lui épargner ça.
Quand j'ai soulevé ce genre de débat avec des parents dans le passé, la réponse que je recevais systématiquement était "ah tu verras quand tu auras des enfants, tu n'y échapperas pas". Bon je sais, Thom a presque sept mois, donc pour l'instant ce n'est pas dur d'éviter tout cela, MAIS je pense vraiment qu'il y a moyen de faire autrement, en tout cas de faire tout ce qui est en notre pouvoir pour protéger nos enfants du lavage de cerveau collectif qui les guettes, partout ou il y a une télévision ou un grand magasin.
Nous comptons faire de notre mieux pour que Thom soit élevé de façon éthique et apprenne très tôt qu'il n'y a pas qu'une seule façon de vivre. Que bien vivre en étant un bon humain, c'est plus important qu'une console Nintendo, qui rend hagard et agressif.
Ne pas avoir de télé, ne pas aller faire ses courses dans les grands magasins, mais plutôt privilégier les vrais moments ou l'on fait des choses ensemble, soi même... et savoir reconnaitre ce qui est vraiment important dans la vie de ce qui ne l'est pas:)
Après il faut rester flexible et prendre les choses comme elles viennent, disons que nous voulons faire de notre mieux. C'est un superbe challenge, mais je pense sincèrement, du fond de mon cœur, qu'un autre monde est possible et que cela ne tient qu'a nous. Nous sommes a un moment critique ou il ne faut plus juste dire que l'on veut ou que l'on va changer le monde, maintenant il faut vraiment s'y mettre et le changer, car il n'y a plus le temps.
Ce qui m'amène a un autre sujet, sur le documentaire The 11th Hour, qu'il faut vraiment regarder, car c'est un film magnifique. Produit et narré par Leonardo Dicaprio, c'est un documentaire excellemment bien fait, avec des intervenants haut de gamme. J'adore la façon dont le film se termine, sur une note très positive. Une ode a la frugalité et au fait qu'il faut que nous apprenions a vivre autrement, en cultivant et/ ou achetant des produits locaux et bios, en prenant plus le temps de vivre, travailler moins, savoir apprécier le lieu ou nous vivons pour avoir envie de mieux le protéger... mais je n'en dis pas davantage...
Paul avait écrit un texte pour présenter ce film sur ce blog, il devait être publié en début de semaine et cela n'a pas été fait. Je vais remédier a cela immédiatement, et le publier illico, suivi par le dit film :)

The 11th hour
by Paul:
Well, I'll have to admit that on discovering this film, my first impression before actually watching it was - "This film is probably uninformative and made as palatable to the mainstream public as possible, just because it's narrated and produced by Leonardo Dicaprio!" As someone who participates as little as possible in popular culture, I find that this kind of premature judgement occurs with regularity. This time however, I was very wrong indeed.
Despite my preconceptions about this film, I decided to buy a copy on Amazon as I was just a little intrigued, and proceeds of the money when to environmental causes, as well as having recycled packaging. Most of all, I wanted to see what the mainstream angle was on global warming and climate change, and whether people were still being encouraged to do little more than recycle and change their lightbulbs.
There is no denying that corporate responsibilty and government policy never exceed these limited recommendations, but to my surprise, The 11th Hour far surpassed these outdated constraints. First of all, this film highlights something that I consider to be the most important viewpoint of our modern, industrial and consumer society, and a viewpoint that tragically escapes global perception. What I'm referring to is the reality of 'interconnectedness'. That all beings, all life, all existence is in fact seamless, and inter-dependent. Humanity is no more separate from nature than a tree is from its roots. As a global community, we tend to view ourselves as separate from animals and from the environment that we live in. This is how we conduct our lives, as if we were somehow superior and 'above' nature, as if animals and the natural world were just infinite resources to be used to expand the economy. But as we can see, when the wellbeing of animals, the environment, and indeed other, less affluent human beings is ignored and exploited, we all suffer the consequences eventually.
The current, capitalist global economy is designed to expand no matter what, and it has assumed that the rest of the world is a free resource to profit from. The problem here is that when an economy is reliant on fossil fuels and non-renewable resources, and it swallows nature in order to expand, it begins to consume nature because nature doesn't expand. This planet stays just the same size, all the time. Planet Earth has become Planet Economy, and if we are not steadfast in diverting our current course, we are aimed directly for catastrophic collision.
We exploit the earth, the air and the ocean as though they were not a part of us, as though they were separate entities. We believe that no matter how much damage we inflict on these environments, it won't effect us as we are not connected. The same goes for animals. We farm them by the billions in industrialised factories, we remove them from their native habitat and force endangered species to become extinct. The simple fact that they are not human seems to be enough for us to not worry about it. The fact is, when we deny the rights of other species and of the natural environment, there are devastating consequences which directly effect us and in fact threaten our own species. The burning of fossil fuels has driven us faster and faster towards a world where we have lost control of the climate. Global warming is happening at an intensively unnatural rate, and it is all thanks to the shortsighted pursuits of a global economy. The exploitation of animals in factory farms tells the same story. The farming methods used today burn huge amounts of carbon, not to mention the horrendous amounts of methane and other toxic waste produced by such unsustainable farming methods. We take the untreatable waste from industrial society and bury it where no-one can see it - in the ocean. This makes the sea creatures we eat completely contaminated with toxic chemicals that give us all manner of diseases, as well as destroy innumerable living ecosystems, turning increasing areas of the ocean into 'dead zones'. We rely on plankton in the ocean for 70% of the global amount of oxygen, so destroying the ocean and its' inhabitants is somewhat suicidal. We even exploit large numbers of our own species to boost the economy. There are currently around 820 million starving people on the planet, and they are all in countries that have an abundance of food. The problem here is that the food is fed to livestock in wealthier countries so that rich people can eat meat. The irony in this situation is that while poor people are dying from poverty and starvation, their country's are exporting goods that are killing the rich, through diseases such as cancer, heart disease and so on, which are all too often related to consuming animal products.
This world is in serious decline, and it can all be traced back to one single misconception - that we are disconnected from the rest of the world. Interconnectedness lies at the root of reality. There is no ignoring it. Every investigation carried out to prove humanity's individual and unique experience of life is completely disproved time and again.
I wish that more people could understand the simple yet profound truth that we are all interconnected, and choose to live their lives more conscientously and ethically as a direct result. What a more positive world this would be if we all cultivated virtues such as generosity, compassion, patience and understanding, rather than greed, egoistic superiority and aggression.
Such is the resulting message of The 11th Hour. After an hour and a half of investigating the causes and conditions of our current global situation, the final consensus is one of unanimous agreement - that love and kindness can liberate us from our coma of self centred consumption and in turn, liberate the rest of earthly creation from the suffering that we have inflicted upon it.
This film is perfect viewing for everyone, as it isn't aimed at a pretentious elite of intellectuals, nor is it at all simplified or diluted, and one of the great things about it is that Leonardo Dicaprio has made sincere use of his fame and utilised it to raise awareness about some of the most important issues facing humanity today. This film has a message that can touch even the most doubtful and ignorant of us. As the film suggests - "people are doing the best they can with their level of awareness. The task is to raise the level of collective awareness, and we can all educate ourselves further, no matter who we are". The 11th Hour does just that, and is highly recommended viewing for everyone.
But don't take my word for it. See for yourself.
Paul.