hmm...?

#drawfool doodle for March 20, 2018.

I try not to get mired in pessimism, but sometimes I fail, for a week or more I mechanically 'copy & pasted' from my list while mentally looking for the light to give me a hint about how to escape back to the surface from the pit of sad grumpy blues.

While down, instead of daydreaming about 'how-we-could-save-the-world' or why each idea would make a difference and how all things and actions great and small are connected, I slog through the mire of reality and often complain angrily "why the *beep* are you so sad!"  This doesn't help much, so I start to scribble out my life history.

Me: Is it this? Or is this it?

Grumpy me: No. And hell no!

Me: Is it brain chemicals? 

This goes on for a while, like I said, often over a week or more. Believe in the chemicals of the mind ruling over the body, or not, the human will eventually finds that faint glimmer of hope or logic in the distance and starts digging her way towards it.

Who am I? Singular and unanswerable as it seems... the old tunnels, dug years ago are still there, just cluttered and piled with debris from the entropy of neglect. When I was a teenager, of course, I was asking myself then, 'Who am I?' before we are responsible for anyone else or ourselves. That is the time to ask the question. Or it's variant 'why am I?'

When I was this daydreaming kid, my plans were empires. My novels would be movies, a series of them, and the sets, props and story would solve all the worlds problems. But, reality. Over the years movies and TV shows continued to save the world without me. My fall-back job is and always has been artist. Therefore (perhaps as unlogically as it seems to "most-people") setting up my first very own art studio, depressed the hell out of me. When I finished the first draft of my first novel-length book in 1999 and my beta readers were perplexed,(yes, it was/is that bad). I went back to college to finish my degree. Five or so years later when I got rejection slips from the TV show series I drafted up and submitted, I returned to the clay studio. When I got rejections from a couple publishers for my speculative fiction novel in 2012, I returned again to "what I am good at" ceramic art. I am not naturally good at writing. Just look at the grammatical errors in this blog. The novel, I drafted up in 2011, has now been storyboarded and outlined into four novels. But, so far progress to revise and edit has been made only through 3/4 of book 1. After being cut-off from the clay studio, while living in the transition-back-to-home-apartment I nicknamed "the shoe-box with a view" I picked up another TV series I had started in 2008. In 2015 I transformed this story into a three-act play for the stage. It bounced back from New York... anyways, I am going somewhere. Here actually. I am going to this list of 50 daydreams. The list is research for finishing that TV series. It's my last attempt at my teenage dream. In that dream, it's sort of like how Star Trek "invented" the flip phone, decades before cell phones. 

Science fiction, is science fictionalized, but instead of inventing a teleporter or a food replicator, my science fiction had a self-sustaining garbage free culture and society. The world's problems solved the conflicts in the stories were then free to be human focused and spiritual. The set and props were prototypes for tube-train shuttle systems. There was no garbage, everything plastic was meticulously upcycled. Everything paper was processed into compost of fuel pellets. All gas emissions collected. All waste processed (pets and livestock too). Everything metal or glass was reused or recycled etc... Green, plant-filled science fiction "garden of Eden" utopia. 

I know. Reality. Can't get your hopes up. Just keep working on what you can get done. Adjusting reality to all our hopes and dreams is the way it always goes.

Note added March 21. : I am very much looking forward to making art again. Simultaneous contrary? Yes, I am writing out this list to quiet my mind and the work of art making makes me happy and quiets the words. I know I should do one or the other, write/make art, but I can't. I can't change who I am or why I am, I have tried to be practical and find a career direction that is not art. Is 'what do you do?' equal to your identity? I don't know yet. I only know - keep trying.

March 19, 2018.

36/50. Solar plus light sensor, outdoor lighting.

Upgrade all street lamps and outdoor lighting with newer energy efficient solar lamps, with light sensors and solar panels integrated into the design like the lights that have been built on buoys or boat docks for years already.

#drawfool doodle for March 21, 2018.

37/50. Copycat crime and blood guilt of the news media industry.

Should have listed this one under 29. Truth in journalism -- sources are cited always.

Back in the 90s, after Collenbine, I did some research for assignments for a college newspaper. There wasn’t any fiction writing classes available, so I found myself in a journalism focused writing class.

Interesting fact, there are long established news media rules to protect juveniles under 18 who are most susceptible to copycat crime/imitative behavior. More recent than child labor laws, psychologists have proven that those kids are after our attention/fame, their name to be remembered. In the case of mass murder events the adults too. These shooters/bombers want the media attention. Why did I mention child labor laws? It relates, think about it, the anti copycat crime media rules are old, almost 'Billy the Kid' old-laws, protecting details of crimes from media coverage. For a scary and related example, the formative age around Jr. High school is part of the reason why youths are not allowed to work in meat butchering until 18 while teenagers 16-17 are permitted to work other jobs like babysitting, retail or food service busing/dishwashing etc...

Humans are scary animals, we need to respect each other, be mindful of consequences and reactions to our actions and protect our youths. Especially those who are victims as relates to the many school shootings that were copycat crimes committed for attention. The news media oscillates with the social media now, it is going to take focused widespread action via gun regulation to stop it now. The news coverage, especially for the increase in shootings, is statistically parallel. Do the math yourself. The first school shooting was in the 70s. I never heard about school shootings at all when I was in school in the 80s. What's black and white and red all over? Ignored TV news media guidelines.

#drawfool doodle for March 22, 2018.

Daydream 38/50. Clean-up how we clean ourselves, our homes and our workplaces.

This is an oversimplification of all cleaning products, but, natural oils and scents are plenty tough chemically. Crude oil should not be made into soap. A good example, unrelated to crude oil is talc is not safe to breathe or put on our skin because it turns grey without asbestos. Another example is chlorine bleach. Personally why bother with bright whites at all, natural hues of canvas or linen are beautiful as is in my opinion. And if you just must have bleached white, there are safer bleach alternatives then chlorine.

Water is the world's best solvent - we do not need harsh cleaning products in our homes at all. We need to simplify and go back to basics; water, baking soda, vinegar and natural plant oils, for cleaning, our homes, our clothes and our bodies.

I've heard it said that Americans traveling in the EU can be spotted because they look like they just stepped out of a cellophane wrapper.  Meaning we use too much product, “over-wash” everything - ourselves and our clothing.  Please don't misunderstand, I'm not advocating not bathing after exercise or neglecting to wash our underwear and socks. But for most, cool weather clothing not worn outside working on a farm or in a factory, spot cleaning and hanging up of outerwear, jeans, sweaters, and unsoiled garments, in combination with using less hair treatments, simpler more environmentally sane makeup, less ironing & bleaching could greatly decrease the USA's embarrassing per capita waste.

Even Levi's brand had a campaign to promote their denim lasting longer and wearing better by not washing jeans unless they are really dirty. Besides washing only when needed can save time as well as money.

#drawfool doodle for March 23, 2018.

39/50. An answer for the middle class....(about global economic leveling :)

I skimmed an article a couple weeks ago about how the rise in alt-right/Nazi/racism/anti-immigrant/ us-versus-them mentality historically results from the middle class losing their survival. Livelihoods, jobs, homes and therefore needing someone to blame. Not the poor who have "nothing" to lose (a lie by the way)... I can't seem to find this article in search now. Google, I don't know if the algorithm is confused by the range of stuff I search for, but I swear it's getting tougher for me to find what I'm looking for lately. Anyways. Blerg. Then, I skimmed this article and didn't bookmark it.

Today, listening to someone who is in pain, going on and on about a war halfway around the globe that, as far as I know, has nothing at all to do with them. It occurred to me, that maybe that article was on to something. My talking friend concluded by saying, the people on both sides of this military conflict, if you talked to them, they were just people who loved their families trying to get by day to day the best they could.

Hmm...? Not to be a narcissist, butt. I started thinking about how this list of 50 ways to change the world, was my scapegoat. I choose to lay the blame for my personal unhappiness on all the garbage choking the life out of the world. I direct my rage at pollution. I dwell on the suffering and death caused by climate change. I choose the wide range of topics covered in the blanket of environmentalism as the direction for my anger.

It's important to my sanity and my soul that I do not specifically blame people. Even the people who invented the first pesticides and chemical fertilizers that would cause the farming cancer cluster that resulted in the early deaths and suffering to my family, and neighbors.

I choose to forgive them, and am able to do so because I know, after the dust-bowl and the great depression, they were trying to prevent famine.

Even the people who now continue to package food in plastics years after it has become common knowledge that PBA and other toxins leach into food. Grocery stores have a very thin margin to work with. Farmers are still often subsidized to keep operating. Many have gone organic when they can, and work very hard to keep their food prices as low as they can.

In college when I studied the economics of TV and moviemaking, I studied the grocery industry as a comparison. I still want an environmental change for the better and I know the transition will not be cheap. But, you can ride your damn profit margins all the way to hell. Money is the problem I am angry at, not people.

What is my answer for the middle class? It's past time for a paradigm shift and there is plenty of work to be done, even with armies of robots. Don't blame others, most people are just like you and me, we love our friends and family and are just trying our best day to day. Let's focus our anger together against all that is wrong in the world. Turn our weapons into plows and other tools, our hatred for oil age pollution, garbage and suffering caused by climate change into the renewable energy of the human will for a better future for all living things on this tiny shared planet.

#drawfool doodle for March 24th, 2018.

March for our lives is today. 

Enough is enough, able to vote, -- vote them out.

#drawfool doodle for March 25, 2018.

I'm on the last 10 out of 50 ways-to-save-the-world and I will admit to being somewhat tired of my own list. Not all of the daydreams, but some of the ones I added because it just didn't feel complete focussed on plastic garbage, passive energy building design, a paradigm shift for money and the digital divide. The next three are all things some people do when they can and many of us feel guilty when it just doesn't work out.

#drawfool doodle for March 26, 2018.

40. Ridding America of unnecessary paper trash, eliminate paper napkins/paper towels, etc... 

This one relates to the tons of junk-mail in daydream number 4. But, isn't quite it. Except for the unnecessary part. Examples: Phone-books that many cities or counties are still required to print because of some out-dated law, sitting in piles at post offices. Why do they still print catalogs when you can see what is in-stock and on-sale at the same stores online? On and on for tons of paper pulp that should be used in food packaging that is compostable, i.e. not plastic. Those two-ton paper pulp gorillas are part of idea 4. Daydream 40 is about the kind of paper products that don't have print on them.

I grew up in a house that used cloth napkins. My folks also had a box with rags in it for cleaning. Because they don't buy paper towels. Kitchen dish-rags and wash-cloths are made to be soaked and then washed and used over and over until they wear out. Other rags like the cut up old t-shirts or "ratty" old towels were for cleaning up stuff that resulted in the rags getting thrown out. The garbage of the garment industry another topic. Cloth/fabric used to be plant fibers (cotton, linen, wool, burlap, etc...)  and as more materials are made out of plastic, and go to landfills to never degrade. Well, blerg. Then the paper trash doesn't look like such a bad idea.

I still use cloth napkins and dishtowels, the new bamboo towels they make are very nice. I think toilet paper could be mostly replaced by a little wash hose, and toilet paper made for fiber from a quicker growing plant than trees. Toilet paper made from bamboo is much nicer than scratchy toilet paper made from recycled paper. I am not sure about the environmental benefit of bamboo toilet paper compared to recycled paper toilet paper, only because I don't know how to compare the carbon footprint of the original paper product, plus hauling the paper to the recycler and then bleaching it of ink, and then shipping it to market a second time. Both the bamboo and the so-called "green" eco-toilet paper is sold in a plastic package. Again, the plastic garbage is as far as I understand more of a long-term problem for the world than the paper.

I saw a meme lately joking about cloth toilet paper. While I think the meme might have actually been a photo of cloth feminine products, rolled into the shape of a roll of toilet paper (pads for menstrual blood). Designed to be washed an reused. I don't think cloth toilet paper is a good idea at all. By mass, poop is over 60% bacteria/40% undigested food fiber.

Paper bags, versus bringing your own shopping bags is another paper product that still is very handy especially if it's greasy to go food, like a burger and fries or fish & chips. Daydream 5. plastic shopping bags. .... As I said, I'm a bit tired of my own list. I do love cartoonists. One of my teenage years' favorites was 'Bloom County' by Berke Breathed. He had this joke about milkshake hold the cup. I think we could get rid of a lot of paper trash, the key here is an emphasis on unnecessary paper trash. Here's one of the cartoons. The link above is to see more cartoons Berke Breathed posted to instagram as a charity to support the RedCross. No unnecessary paper required.