human conditioning

I've recently been on an observation trip. Not to any faraway places, but just around the place in which I live.

We are all suffering.

The Dalai Lama, and all of the previous Lamas, suggest that Life is Difficult. And the only way to cope with said difficulties is to have compassion. And I'm not strictly Buddhist, I'm not strictly anything, but I have attempted this compassion and in some ways, unless I'm doing it wrong, it seems to make the suffering more pronounced. More obvious.

And the way other people I have observed seem to deal with life's difficulties is not at all the way I see as logical. As I've hinted before, maybe my son's Asperger's is an insight into my own brain. But this is not about me.

Others tend to buy stuff, get into debt, get new cars, re-model their houses, throw perfectly good items out into hard rubbish because they are no longer trendy or the right colour or complimentary to their newly re-modelled houses. And I don't really understand. Because they only re-modelled two years ago.

I understand up-keep. I understand maintenance. I understand replacing items that don't work properly anymore, but throwing things out that do work properly is not just illogical, it's shameful.

Some people have nothing, and things that are working could be given to them.

Not put into landfill.

I saw a segment from 'Hungry Beast' www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUt5JP5mwJo a couple of months ago, about the way in which Australians eat and the statistics about the food that we throw away.

Around 25% of all food we buy is thrown into the rubbish. We make too much, we put leftovers in the fridge, we don't eat it in the right amount of time then we throw it away.

Australians are 'squeamy' with the meat that we eat and up to a third of the edible meat on every animal carcass is sent for pet food because Australians won't eat/buy it. Supermarkets only stock 'pretty' fruit and vegetables because blemishes on food mean that people won't buy it. No one wants a tomato with character.

We have a worm farm and our food scraps go into it. The worm juice that comes out of the bottom is fertilizing the tomato, eggplant and capsicum plants that I'm attempting to grow in our back yard.

But now I try not to throw food out. Our worm farm gets the skins of the food that we peel. The ends of our spring onions. The pips from the avocado.

And it's not just the three cups of rice that we didn't eat that is thrown out and wasted. It is the time that it took to grow that rice. The water. The fertilizer. The packaging. The human hours. The money.

But the money is all that most people consider.

In the short time since seeing that segment I have made some major changes to the way that I consume and the lessons I'm attempting to teach my son. And it's like that thing, when you buy a new car, you see that type of car everywhere. Now that I've had my eyes opened, I can see how much waste there is in the world around me.

In the past few weeks, my rubbish bin has been put up on the curb with about two grocery bags full of rubbish. For a week. For two people. Our waste has been significantly reduced. I throw away plastic and because I know plastic never ever goes away, I'm attempting to buy less of it. I don't need to put my vegetables in a plastic bag at the fruit market, I certainly don't need them in an individual plastic bag of their own. Fruit markets have loads of recyclable cardboard boxes that can easily be carried to the car.

I buy milk in cartons.

I put leftovers and cheeses and half eaten avocados in containers in the fridge.

Tight lunch boxes keep sandwiches just fine.

We don't use cling wrap.

I've started to see take-away food as disposable food.

I don't want everything to be a waste.

We stopped wasting water when we had water restrictions. But they were externally imposed. When petrol prices go up we restrict how much we drive because it's just too expensive. When bananas were affected by floods people joked about having to be a millionaire to afford to eat them.

The money is all that matters.

But people will find money for their new four wheel drive. They will find money for the new outdoor setting that they have to buy to go on their newly re-modelled back decking. They will find money for fake nails and chemical hair dye. For daily plastic bottles of water that cost $3.50 when it's about 1c to fill it at home from the tap. They will buy their coffee take away. They will throw out half their lunch.

They may even throw it up.

I don't want my son to believe that throwing away is ok. Just because we can't see it. Doesn't mean it's not there. Some of it's always there, forever.

I have no compassion for that.

(c) Samantha Florence, 2011.