More of the pieces of the puzzle

Well, it has been 6 weeks since I have posted anything on my blog, so it's time to blog once again.

In my never ending quest to see the whole tapestry of the mindset of modern day Americans and the problems we face, I had a tiny epiphany today. It all started when I was about to eat lunch. I decided that I would like to eat outside because it is so dang nice out today. Then I was thinking that it would be a great day for a walk, because God knows I needs more exercise. I was thinking about the delicate balance of work or exercise (labor/expending of energy) and food consumption. I had a fleeting thought of how much I ate and the quality of food I ate (or lack thereof) when I was a kid and the cell division process of growth that was burning up energy like it was going out of style. I could eat almost anything and everything just to keep my normal processes going. Now that I am older and cell division has slowed to an adult level, I find that I need to make an attempt at finding a new balance of energy I'm putting in vs. energy I'm expending. After that fleeting moment I thought of how much exercise people got "back in the day" (aka. before 1600 - or in this country, before 1900).

Life was pretty much agricultural and men spent most of their day out in the fields working the land (by the way, I LOVE working with the soil - must be a leftover from creation). Men ate a lot of food, plenty of meat, potatoes and vegetables - 3 meals a day (sometimes 4). But because they were expending so much energy, the needed a lot of food. But what about the old Roman senators? Or the ancient Greeks and their philosophers? Or Kings and nobility of the days of old? Thinking doesn't expend nearly as much energy as labor! How did they maintain their energy balance? Well, some of them didn't - and simply became obese. (For a time obesity meant that a person was well to do and thus worth having as a spouse!) But what about the "average weight" people of the thinking occupations of old? Well, walking was a common form of transportation, as was horse riding which expends more energy than driving a car. Many of them had hobbies like hunting or fishing. Many of them played active games and such. I don't claim to know exactly what these people all did, but since they were normal humans, they must have done SOMETHING to keep their energy in balance. So I went for a walk today.

Anyway, that whole thought process took about 45 seconds and led to my new epiphany. Back in the "the day," due to lack of technology, communication was much slower and much less frequent. The average person (land worker class) didn't have access to world news, or often not even regional news, sometimes not even local news. Obviously people talked at community gatherings and in the local markets, so news did have a way of traveling. But what was rumor and what was real? Or did it really even matter to them? I'll bet they often just simply didn't care unless the news directly affected them (like an army is on the move and the are coming through town and will probably take all the local food for free or minimal compensation type news). But overall there was no Internet for breaking news or nightly news programs summing all the local, regional, and world news of interest. They took what they got and went about their lives. In a certain way, I admire their simplicity and ignorance. They didn't bother themselves with things that didn't have to do with them or things that were out of their control. They trusted that the nobility would take care of the big things that needed taking care of. They might not have always liked or agreed with the course of action of the local magistrate, but they focused on the task at hand - plowing the field. Life was simple and allowed for a certain amount of freedom that we no longer enjoy as individuals.

Look at us now. Knowledge is power and Information is Knowledge. Most Americans have access to major media sources (mass amounts of information), and so we think that we should have power. We stay up on current events so that we can... what? We stay tuned to the OJ car chase because... why? We get mad when Russia threatens to aim missiles at Europe because America is trying to help protect them because... why? To what end? Are we trying to gain information to make better and more informed decisions? Decisions about what? Do we really have any power or authority to do anything about these things that we watch so intently? Really? Do we trust the people we elected to make these decisions? Can we do anything about it before this particular event has passed? If we can't really do anything about it, why not just make a mental note (or actual note) about what it is that we really disagree with and move on without letting ourselves get caught up in the fury of the moment?

There is something we can learn from the people of old - don't get caught up in things that don't lead anywhere useful/helpful. Back in the day, people didn't elect their noble person. But they did learn to live without getting angry at every decision that wasn't agreeable. In fact, they didn't see their role as an evaluating and judging role at all. It was their role to live as best they could on what they were given. Something that is much lacking in today's culture. We often put ourselves in judgement of every decision made by our elected officials (or for everything it sometimes seems), and we declare our personal verdict and sentence people to condemnation (socially) and carry out our sentence - judge, jury, and executioner all in one. Who are we in America that gives us the right or authority to live like this? We are like 1 billion individual judges constantly scrutinizing every local, regional, and global decision, as if we know all the facts and are better at judging the whole of the situations? We act like a country of Kings and Queens all competing for control of the throne. Many people are OK with letting someone else sit on the throne (the seat takes all the blame), so long as we get to dictate what is promulgated from the throne. As long as we get our way, everything is OK. We are a country of arrogant people, all the while thinking we are victims of the government and of life around us. (By the way, not everyone is like this, but I exaggerate to make a point...)

This revelation caused me to rethink how I think. I need to evaluate the world around me less and deal with my own problems more. I am going to watch less media and purposely get out of touch with things out of my control. I'm sure I'll hear news the old fashioned way - hanging out with others, hearing a radio or TV as I take a walk, overhearing conversations at the local market, etc. But if I focus on the things I am responsible for, I won't have a lot of time to focus on things that I have elected other people to be responsible for. When elections come around, I'll pay attention and do research on the candidates and see if I agree with their track record. But until then, I'll trust them to do their job and I'll stick to mine, just like the people of old.