Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Artificial Living

A cross post from bonovox.squarespace.com

It seems to me that I have bought into a life that is contrary to nature and reality:


  • Instead of working at home in the proximity of, and with my family...........I "commute" to a remote location to work with strangers


  • Instead of eating healthy whole foods, grown myself our by a neighbor.......I eat "fast food." Even when I am home, I eat from a box.....ala "stouffers" and "TV dinners."


  • Instead of talking to the person next to me............................I talk to someone else, 1 mile or 100 or more miles away


  • Instead of raising my children.........................I give them to someone else to do it for me.


  • Instead of visiting family on vacation or discovering Europe with our kids...............we go to Disney World and pretend we are in France at Epcot Center.


  • Instead of working by the sweat of my brow (in raising my food)...........I pay to go sweat in a gym.


  • Instead of worshipping in unison with the natural cycles God has placed in the world and within myself............I worship according to whatever suits me at the moment.


  • Instead of the "way of the cross"......................I seek the way of the "Easy Chair."


  • Instead of feeling the wind in my face, and hearing the crunch of leaves under my feet.......I watch television.


  • Instead of trusting the wisdom of my family going back to Adam..........I really feel myself superior to them, and feel I can do a better job making it up as I go along.


  • Instead of living in community.......................I live in isolation


  • Instead of being helped by community, in return for my willingness also to help when I am able......I pay a stranger to help me.


  • Instead of trusting God.........I trust technology.


  • Instead of governing myself........I allow myself to be governed by the powerful.


  • Instead of living "holistically"............I live fragmented. (work, family, religion, sex, play....)


  • Instead of being thankful for, I have nothing that was not given to me..........I am a deluded proud "self made man."


  • Instead of caring for my children and their children, by caring for the world I will hand down to them......I care only for the benefit that this world can give me.


  • Instead of caring for my soul.............I care for my comfort and pleasure


I am sure there are more ways that I live "artificially."