We are Disconnected....
Mood:  incredulous
I just got done watching an old episode of home improvement. This episode had to do with the children not having very good table manners. Needless to say, Tim was tasked with fixing the issue and failed miserably. And, Like always, he had a chat with Wilson about the situation and wilson's reply was this: The answer is that the kids need to learn to channel their mealtime agressions and of course Tim did not understand this. Wilson elaborated with: Primitive man had an intimate relationship with his food,  he hunted for it, he had to stalk his game for days and days before making the kill, and then, when the kill was made, he thanked the animal for giving its life so that said primitive man, and his family would be able to eat.  This really struck a cord. I mean, I have heard similar things before but this was when it really kinda hit home to me. The problem with society as a whole now days is two fold. One: we have no way to channel our agressions and two: We have very little connection to the things we use and eat everyday.

In the past, young men were trained to fight and were taught about honor and valor on and off the field of battle. They were taught to enforce their honor at the tip of a sword through the strict codes of conduct used in dueling.Historically there are instances where even woman got in on this ! This made for a society that as a whole was much more POLITE than our own. One that was far less violent per capita than we are today.

They were taught that there are times that its OK to fight, OK to kill...now that very statement puts people up in arms. Now days, even the most minor schoolyard brawl results in the police being called.  They want a "non-violent solution" to everything and humans were just not built that way. We are a warrior race that has castrated ourselves mentally. Unfortunately all the social conventions we put up to stop violence CANT WORK because at the end of the day, we are what we are, warriors. The social conventions we put in place serve only to increase the amount of and severity of violence on our streets because the aggressive tendencies of our young people that should be channeled into a code of honor and the skills of a warrior (and the ability and right to execute that honor to the ultimate conclusion if needs be) are instead being smothered. This has the same effect as a fire that runs out of fuel in a tightly closed room. It smolders at an extremely high temperature until it gets oxygen...then it explodes.This explosion comes in the form of events like Columbine, drive by shootings,and people shooting up churches. Its not the weapons or even the peoples fault. Its a society that seeks to remove that which makes us what we are. We are Warriors.

This same society also has managed to strip us of any connection with nature. Aside from those who hunt, fish or own farms, most people make no mental connection between what they are eating and the source of said food. For that matter, they dont make a connection between the materials in the tools they use dayly and the raw material that was used to create it.

As was said above primitive man hunted for his food, had an intimate relationship with his prey and a deep respect for the sacrifice the prey was making for the man and his family.  Now days very few ever gain an understanding of this. They go to a grocery store and they buy meat, fruit, vegitables etc. without ever thinking of how this food came to be.

 The average person takes it for granted that steaks and chicken are just there, cut into nice  easy to manage portions and wrapped in plastic , just waiting at the store. They dont make the connection that SOMETHING DIED to give you what you need to survive. No one respects their food anymore. For instance, I was cleaning out the lower crisper in Lori's refrigerator to fill with garden veggies and found some chicken wings bought weeks ago molding away inside their original packaging.. that chicken died so that we could bring home meat we let go rancid because we just didnt have the respect for, or the connection to, the vibrent, living organism that died to provide us with batter dipped chicken wings.

  The Average American now doesn't even have to cut up a chicken into portions, even that is done for them! Forget about dressing, plucking, and THEN quartering said chicken. You give them a live bird, a decent knife and a cutting board and the average American would have no idea how to go about processing the animal into food, and would more than likely be unable to stomach the task in the first place. This is a disease that is infecting our society. Its called complacency. We as a society have no clue what a tenuous hold we have on our food supply.
 We pump hormones into our meat animals,which makes them overly fat and lazy. The result is a society that consumes more fat in one sitting than the average person fifty years ago ate in three days. Not to mention the hormones affecting our children. with little girls becomming fully developed at the age of nine.
 
 We have over thought our way into a situation where we depend on hybridized vegetables that don't even produce viable seeds. Even if they were viable, all we would get is one or two kinds of seeds. So if a blight hits say our potato crop, (one of the most important vegetables produced today) we are done. I don't believe that the average citizen would actually be able to process the idea that THERE IS NO FOOD should the proverbial feces hit the oscillating air director. Now I can go on and on about heirloom seeds and how we should all grow heirloom vegetables in our gardens and harvest the seeds but that's not the point of this blog. The point is that our society is really in for a big shock. The average Joe/Jane does not have the skills to make it should society decide to go belly up on us. The average Joe/Jane will not be able to cope with the idea that they are on their own. They will panic.

This is a very scary concept for me.  My only answer is to promote hunting, fishing, gardening and preparedness so that more people come around to a point where they have respect for their food and an idea of how to procure it.