Category Archives: Society

Nov 05 2008
Personal, Politics, Society

Election 2008

Yesterday I walked into my old elementary school and cast my vote for John McCain. As I walked out I knew he wouldn’t win. I wasn’t depressed about it, I just knew it. Bush lost this election for any Republican the moment he decided to invade Iraq. The post-9/11 political capital was spent with reckless disregard and seen as a blank check. That check was cashed yesterday with the election of Barack Obama.

Unlike some of my conservative friends, I’m not really that depressed this morning. I have the hope that Obama will live up to his post-partisan rhetoric and govern from the center, now that he has reached his goal of the presidency. There are couple of lines in John Steinbeck’s, The Winter of Our Discontent that gives me some hope for this.

In business and in politics a man must carve and maul his way through men to get to be King of the Mountain. Once there, he can be great and kind—but he must get there first.

This is my hope for the Obama administration. It’s the hope that he has acted as a left-wing shill because he had to in order to rise through the ranks of the Democratic party. Now that he has made it, he can let his actions meet his words.

This morning I actually had the occasion to smile upon this historic election and see it from a different vantage point. After dropping Andy off at his classroom I was on the way back to the car when I overheard the last bit of a quick conversation between the old African American school janitor and one of the African American moms. She was laughing as she said, “I didn’t get any sleep last night. I went to bed crying. I couldn’t sleep because I was crying.” He replied in his old southern drawl, “I never thought I’d see the day… never did.”

At this moment I knew what this election meant to some. It was a real stake in the American dream after feeling on the outside for so long. Many whites will dismiss racism today as a relic of the past, but it was only as recently as the 1970’s that schools in Texas were still racially segregated. That is not that long ago, and those wounds aren’t ancient history yet. This election meant something great for a great many people who have never felt like first-class citizens. This made me smile as I walked back to my car.

Now let’s hope that the next four years provide a reason to believe in the “change” that Obama has promised.

Jun 16 2008
Home-Based Business, Personal, Society

The Stuff Of Earth

Last Friday I ended the day smelling like sun block, sweat and dirt… with just a hint of chlorine. It was the perfect end to a busy day. It was a day spent working and playing in the sun, and it was the way things should be all the time. Modernity has forced many people, including myself, to spend most days confined to air-conditioned boxes with artificial lighting provided to dull our senses. This is not the way to be, and I have determined to reclaim the stuff of earth back into my daily life.

I know that I harp on my days and SFR a lot, but those days were pivotal in forming me as an individual. In the summer of 1992, I can remember walking up a gravel road each morning to meet the staff for prayer. The heat of the day was still a couple of hours away, and the air was always moist and cool. The sounds were soft that early in the morning… just the stillness of the air and the gravel under my feet. Over the summer I memorized the road. I could walk it in pitch black. Each tiny dip, rise and curve settled into my mind. This connection to the land is something that I miss.

This last week I had a list of things to be done before my vacation week ended. The wind had finally finished off the teetering fence on the east side of the house, and I had to get a new one built. I started by clearing the old fence away and began digging new post holes. Under most circumstances post hole digging is a unique kind of torture akin to busting rocks and digging ditches. It’s not on anyone’s list of recreational activities, but that morning I reveled in it. It is sweaty, hard work and my muscles have longed for the challenge.

After digging four post holes, and setting up two of the main posts for the fence, my wife asked me to take a break to go swimming with she and the kids at a neighbor’s house. The temperature outside was holding at around 95 degrees, so the water in the pool was perfectly cool and the smell of the chlorine reminded me of being a kid. We all played in the pool for about an hour, and then I went back to the fence to get a little more done before dark. I stopped working just before dusk. My muscles were spent, and I was hungry for dinner.

It’s a day that will stand out in my memory because it reminded me of the way that I prefer to live. I enjoy the smell and feeling of the outdoors, and I enjoy working with a saw, hammer and nails. These are the times that I feel the most freedom, and the most like myself.

Sarah and I had a vision this last week of the way that we want to live. We want to live simply. We want to have a connection to the land. Somehow over the years we have worked our way to the opposite of this vision, and we are now beginning to work our way back. If our plan ever sees the light of day, we will be living on about five or six acres somewhere northwest of Ft. Worth. We want to work and live on the land. We want our kids to experience life connected to nature. We aren’t quite sure of how the mechanics of this will work out, but that’s the vision. Simplify. That’s the direction.

Apr 21 2008
Home-Based Business, Personal, Politics, Raves, Religion, Society

Off The Grid

I’ve never really considered myself to be a counter-culturalist. In my mind that label is reserved for old hippies and people with extensive body piercings. Held in comparison with the general population I imagine that I come across as the picture of conformity. There’s nothing overt about my appearance or behavior that speaks to anything other than maintaining the suburban status quo. However, I cannot escape the idea that I do not belong. This idea really isn’t anything new to me. I’ve felt this way for most of my life. The difference now is my perspective. I’ve been trying to “fit in” for all these years with varying degrees of success, and I’ve recently had a revelation: I don’t want to fit in.

The term “off-the-grid” is generally used to describe people who have chosen to unplug from the electrical grid that supplies most American homes with electricity. I’m using the term in a social sense. Just as there is a network that has been built to make it easy to get electricity into your home, there is a social system that has been established to make living ‘the American Dream” simple and standard. The problem for me is that the outcome is templated and boring. I no longer want to conform to the set standards in order to achieve a standard life.

The two main ingredients for living off-the-grid for me will be self-employment and home-schooling. Two topics that elicit simultaneous pity and revulsion from typical suburbanites.

More to come on this subject.

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