Getting ready for a trip of nearly two months takes a lot of careful planning. Even down to such small details as what am I going to do with the leftover eggs in the fridge, since they will likely not be safe to eat by the time I am back, but already I am thinking of a couple of escape hatches. By the way, being vegetarian, but not vegan, I eat eggs every day, and since I don't eat meat, I can get away with it, more or less. But I especially eat eggs for the protein and the B 12, since it is otherwise hard to find in other non meat sources, and the supplements tend to give me a rash.
This just in, Gentle Reader: eggs can be frozen for up to a year. Thanks Uncle Google!
I hate wasting food. And I try not to, and very little gets thrown away in my household. I shop carefully because I plan carefully and I try to buy only what I am going to eat, which also means no impulse shopping. I have to be strict, being on a low income, and wanting to be sure there is a steady reserve of emergency savings in the bank, as well as enough money to go on these trips every year.
I just heard on the radio this morning that online grocery shopping is starting to catch on more in my city. This is disturbing news, as I think that people for the most part have become far too used to depending on technology to do everything for them. Trust me when I say this, but if they ever develop an app that will wipe our ass for us, people will click it. We are that pathetic.
So, how does this make us look or function as a community when eventually we never leave our homes because electronic Big Brother is doing everything for us? Quite simply we will shrink almost to nothing as human beings. We will become more intolerant of people that are different from us, because we no longer have to interact in public, we will become more xenophobic and racist and there will simply be no remaining social infrastructure left. This is part of the nightmarish outcome of high tech capitalism. Those who are too poor to pay for the technology get nothing, and will eventually just die from hunger or hypothermia on the streets and sidewalks. And no one else is going to even know or care they exist, because the single remaining ethic is going to be the Ethos of Me. Natural Selection at your service.
I am not against high tech. Otherwise I would not be writing this blog, writing emails or watching cool stuff on Youtube. Nor would I be practicing Spanish with two friends I have made in Colombia. We see each other on skype, a couple of times a week. I spend more time with my Colombians than I do with my friends here in my own city. They have become, by default, better friends than my friends here in Vancouver. Because everyone else is too busy. And they don't have to be too busy, but slavery to technology really seems to rob people of their independence and also their social connection, and we end up living as strangers surrounded by strangers. This is why I like public transit. It forces us to coexist and cooperate. Which is also why I like shopping in grocery stores. And this is also why I don't believe that we will ever sink to that nadir of the promised dystopian future. Somehow, I believe that a lot of us do know better. I also believe that our natural need to communicate and connect meaningfully with people around us is going to surface again and in ways that will hopefully help us move forward again as communities within a larger community.
I wish.
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