Buy Cheap/Buy Twice: False Economy

Sometimes ignorance can be bliss.

In the last 12 months (as I get older), I'm looking to reset, and reboot areas of my life, and the life of my family. Stagnant, thoughtless, purposeless repetition....avoid, avoid, avoid!

Education has been at the centre of this process. And the internet has been a boon.

Between thestoryofstuff and Food inc. and many other books and documentaries,  I'm severely challenged by the knowledge of what the global consumer economy is doing to humanity and the planet.  Driven by price, and price alone......the land of $20 DVD players, $1000 cars, cheap sushi, Big Macs etc......

So let's consume.....differently.

The old adage of "buy cheap, buy twice" has never been truer. Not only has this definition of false economy endured, its essence is now amplified.  If you buy cheap, not only will you buy twice, three times etc., but ultimately you will pay in other ways...pollution, illness. These back-end costs are infinitely worse and are past your own lifespan, but onto the lives of your children and grandchildren, their health, well-being......

Buy BETTER, Buy LESS
Better quality the first time......less trips to the returns department, less testing of the warranty policy, less time wasted, better quality consumer goods....less line-up time, car time, internet price checking time, emotional expenditure.....

Buy ORGANIC, Buy LESS
Have you looked at how much organic chicken/beef is? It's more per lb/kg.  So simply.....EAT LESS! COOK SLOWER....

I have bought Wagyu beef a couple of times. Crazy stuff.....so expensive, and so rich, that you can't eat a lot of it.....so you buy cheaper cuts, cook it slowly (you can't barbecue it anyway, it will all melt away), and eat less of it.....

Now, less meat? Hmmmm. It's happening naturally, but I'm not going to be vegetarian...unless it's medically prescribed....call it weakness or short sightedness...but I like red meat.

Having said that a few trips to Real Food Daily in Santa Monica, opened my mind and palate up to the reality of really tasty and filling vegetarian meals......so tofu steaks....sure! Now if I can only figure how to use less salt when I eat vegetarian....

And true to form.....each of us, everyday, doing something a little bit different, will lead to....incremental exponentialism of course!

Let the snowballing begin.

Science of the Mind vs. Art of the Heart

Tangible logic is overrated.....obsessing about the detail of observable reality.

So here I am, re-processing something I've heard that resonated with me: Art of the Heart. So Chris Wiersma, apologies as I continue to hijack the words of others.

We are humans......and not information processors.....we are not machines....but we spend a great deal of time, money and resources to investigate how machine-like we are, not how human we are.

In the Matrix, when Neo meets the Architect, the Architect, a construct of digital code, views with disdain the organic, illogical, contradictory and ultimately strangeness of humanity.

Art of the Heart.....do we really have to make that much sense?

Should we not invest more time into our own humanity?

INVICTUS

Though it will be highly unlikely that I am going to face circumstances as severe and important as Nelson Mandela, I was profoundly affected by the film Invictus, and in particular the scene, where Francois Peinaar, the Springboks captain visits Mandela's cell, and imagines Mandela in prison; breaking up rocks, sleeping on a blanket; powerful stuff.

Here is William Ernest Henley's short poem published in 1888, 102 years before Mandela's release in 1990.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.