No Pura Vida in the American Dream

I’m always excited when somebody puts in their two-weeks-notice. Especially, when they do not even have a job lined up. It does not matter if they are going to travel, go back to school, change careers, or just take a break…that person has a bright future ahead.

On the contrary, my father worked 80-hour weeks over the course of a twenty-year construction career (to support the family). He was beginning to shop for an RV he could travel with and only had a few years left until retirement; however, he got cancer and died early. I rarely saw the guy for the last ten years of his life because of his work schedule. I would love to have shared what were my teen years with him…but this was the American Dream…you work hard, and…then what?

I understand that “Pura Vida” is situational, generational, cultural and individual. I have a family member that swears, “All I want to do is check in, check out, and not even think about work the rest of the time.“ I am envious, in ways, because I find that it is difficult to simply checkout, especially the older I get. But, for me, there is always so much I want to do, and I could die tomorrow, so everything I do must count.

The new generation will no longer depend on working 25 years within a specialty field, as trades are evolving ever so quickly, and the craftsman is dwindling. The technology era will allow people to work from home, spend time with their families, walk their dogs, and take extended vacations. There is no such thing as a retirement because you love what you do, and you do this until you die.

The problem is that it is often difficult to find something that you love to do while making money doing it. Unappealing jobs are fine in the short term, but the fact that a job that nobody wants exists in the first place, speaks of a larger systemic problem. For example, if handling garbage is a job no one wants, then maybe we should not be creating garbage to begin with. Our society is completely disconnected from that which they buy, use, throw away, and this is connected to where, how and why you work in the first place.

I’ve been in the workforce for twenty years now, changed careers at least three times, and have no regrets, as I would not appreciate that which I do now without having experienced things as I have (a "Candide" mindset). I put a tremendous amount of time into everything I do, but once I hit a certain level of proficiency, I seem to move on to something else. Now at age 38, I have been a musician, a biologist, a chemist, a property manager, a designer and a biomimic. At age 58, I look forward to have been an architect, a city planner, a movie-script writer, director, actor and lastly…a father.

Related Songs:

The Features-The Temporary Blues

http://www.toms.com/our-movement

http://www.newmansown.com/

http://classiclit.about.com/od/candidevoltaire/a/aa_candidequote.htm

Humans, Bears & Coyotes

A typical scavenger diet includes just about anything. Coyotes are scavengers, as are pigeons…so what are humans?

Most mammals exhibit signs of being true omnivores, but they typically prefer one to the other (herbivory vs. carnivory) as they have evolved to depend on certain nutrients. Even within the same family (bears), digestive tracks have evolved to favor one over the other, such as pandas eating eucalyptus (local & readily available material), & polar bears depending on meat (very minimal plant sources available).

Humans are not scavengers, but opportunistic eaters. We have teeth, digestive tracts & salivary glands that can process nutrients from both meat & plant, but we are not dependent upon one or the other. Along with the domestication of both plants and animals, a multitude of dietary options has become available, so why be a vegetarian when our bodies tell us that we are omnivores?

Being a vegetarian is merely a cultural &/or individual choice, and for ecological, ethical &/or health reasons.

Health Reasons:

First of all, I do not equate being a vegetarian to being healthy. It takes a lot of work to make or order vegetarian meals. I have been an on & off again vegetarian for over 25 years, so I have found some quality vegetarian staples in my diet, but I still struggle with the overwhelming meat-eating culture (97% of the US population).

For instance, most meals depend on a meat source as the main course, so the vegetarian option is often the same meal without the meat which leaves a high starch & cheese diet. I spent a week at an organic farm (Serenbe Farms) once that I assumed would understand how to make a balanced meal, but after four days I was just starving and caved into eating chicken because I needed protein (sometimes you have to listen to your body).

Also, sometimes, the vegetarian option is just not healthy. For instance, a grilled chicken option is more healthy than a deep fried veggie patty, so in these cases, choosing to be healthy triumphs over being a strict vegetarian.

Ecological Reasons:

The root of all sustainability issues begins at the dinner plate. If we start and end our day unaware where our meal came from, then our entire day is destined for a human versus nature mindset. The industrial revolution introduced the main spike of unsustainability through mass-production techniques; the dependence on fossil fuels (pesticides, herbicides & travel); and massive infrastructures and genetic engineering techniques that deplete ecosystems. Community gardens are beginning to flourish in most large cities, whereas meat farms will always depend upon a mass-production scale on the outskirts of the city and being unsustainable.

Ethical Reasons:

Supposedly, the US currently has a surplus of food, yet Africa has declared famine for decades, and a lack of quality meals in our own public school systems are, in part, to blame for substandard learning. We’re all looking for reasons “Why?”, but policy is lacking and faces an uphill battle against money-makers and the mindsets of consumers.

Also, I do not understand the whole of society being okay with factory farms (besides the ecological reasons). It borders on sociopathic that it is okay to eat an animal that you are not connected to, that you do not know what it looked like, where it came from, what it ate, how it was treated, etc. Again, what we eat correlates to the bigger picture, that if it is not okay to have slave labor making me the shoes that I wear, I should not either be eating meat that was raised sub-standardly, in regards to health, ecological and ethical reasons.

Ultimately, all signs point to moderation. The meal should not be all about the potato, but it also should not be all about the 16 oz piece of meat either. Our bodies have evolved as omnivores because we are local-vores. If we have either an ecological, ethical or health reason for eating one way or the other, there are options available to be true to our beliefs, although some cities are more conscious of these life-choices than others.

http://www.vrg.org/press/2009poll.htm

http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/omni.htm

http://philosophicaloverview.blogspot.com/2010/09/lierre-keiths-vegetarian-myth-nostalgie.html

http://www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/ppatch/