What Have We Allowed Our Society to Become?
This is a translation of a short sample from a comedy show filmed in January 2011 in Munich. The language is unfortunately inaccessible for most readers (more so as this is in a regional dialect, Bavarian), but what this woman, Monika Gruber, has to say in this four-minute piece, matters a lot. Even those to whom the language is inaccessible may benefit from watching the (quite emotional) video. The translated text is given below the video.
Ah, how often people tell me “I’ll do that later”. I’m always totally amazed, thinking: incredible — how much faith in God they must have. How can they be so sure that there is a “later”?
I would like to tell you a small story about this. Some time ago, we were shooting a comedy sketch, in an old people’s home here in Munich. Actually, in a windowless room in the basement. A huge room, stuffed with pieces of furniture that did not match in any way. Wing chairs, new bedside lockers, Biedermeier cabinets, and in between there was an incredible number of blue bin bags.
As I had some time — and as I am nosy as ever — I took a closer look at these bags. On each of them, there was a tag, ripped out of a checker-lined A5 size writing pad, and on each of these tags, there was a name and a date. The date of death.
I still see the first sticker in front of me as if it had been today. On it was written: “Maria Schreiner, deceased May 18th 2009”. And below, “to be dumped May 2010”. So, in these bags were the last possessions or clothes of deceased inhabitants of the old people’s home that were waiting to be dumped — because the relatives had not called, because there were no relatives, or because the relatives did not give a damn that this person had died.
That sight I will not forget for the rest of my life. The quintessence of an entire long life summed up within a blue bin bag. And on some of these bags, there was lying… a cuddly toy, very worn out and tousled; on others, there was unfinished knitting — and on yet others, there was a picture painted by a child, probably one of the grandchildren.
I was incredibly sad. I went home and that day did not know what to do; walked up and down in my flat, eventually called my friend Mary in her workshop — she is a jewelry designer — and said to her: “Mary, today I am sad. I do not want to live alone. I do not want to die alone. I do not want that all that will be left of me is going to be a blue bin bag, in a windowless room in the basement of an old people’s home. And she said: “you know what: I promise you that, should you die before me, I will adorn your bin bag with lots of Svarovski Crystals.”
I was not that sad anymore after that. But that day, I made the decision that I definitely won’t postpone everything until later in my life. Countries I want to visit — people I would like to phone after a long time, just saying “hey, haven’t seen you in a while, how are you? I would like to meet with you again.” My neighbour — I was over to her place every day when I was a girl; my mother kept on reminding me for some time that I should pay her a visit someday, she’s in her eighties now. And I’ve kept on telling her: “no time, so much to do, later — and later, and later”. Back then, I’ve been over at her place every day. Our mother put a fence round our farmhouse, because I kept on stealing myself away because she made such fabulous cherry cake. And today, I claim not to have the time to visit her….
I won’t postpone so many important things anymore “to be done later”. Maybe, there is no “later”. And I do not want to end up the way it’s described by a sentence I once found in a book: “At the graves of most people, one finds in mourning, deeply veiled, their unlived life.”
I do not want to experience that fate. And I sincerely wish that you may not experience it either. Thank you.
This made me think about something I read at The Village Forum:
“Ed Rice opened the front door of his empty ranch house. Suitcases and a few cardboard boxes stood in the hallway. Along with some portable memories of a lifetime, the bags held the all possessions he would need for the rest of his life. He was sad to have sold his library, but he would not be working anymore and books are awfully bulky for his future home, a single room in a retirement village. Parked in the driveway, he saw a large metallic-gold sedan with a dent in the rear door. The word pseudo-luxury popped into Ed’s head. A young man in a limo driver’s dark blue polyester suit greeted him. “Mr. Rice? I’m Michael; here to drive you to Heathcliff Manor. Are these all your bags?”
Ed locked the door, put the keys in an envelope and left them in the mailbox for the buyers. No one came out from neighboring houses to say goodbye. At 10 a.m. during the work week nearly all the other houses were empty; almost everyone else was gone. Ed just shrugged; it was a solitary ending to the prime years of his life.”
See: https://www.villageforum.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=98&Itemid=120
See also: https://www.permaculturenews.org/2011/01/21/village-towns/
I am just home from my Quaker meeting where I was surrounded by love and affection – our credo, we are against violence and wish it to be replaced by love. My advice here is Live in the moment, treasure what you have, the beauty of the world, family, friendships, nature, so much to love. “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift and that’s why it is called THE PRESENT!” (Eleanor Roosevelt)
It’s my 34th birthday for another half hour, and after reading this, I had the thought, “What if I died this year?”
The immediate answer to said thought was, “Then I do.”
I’ve spent probably an average of 14 hours a day in my bedroom on the Internet, for the last 17 years now. I’m unemployed, have a 10th grade education, and have been outside the state of Victoria probably four times in my life.
In the opinion of virtually everyone who knows me, or would know of me, I have an utterly worthless existence. My greatest accomplishment in life has probably been leading a 120 man levelling guild for six weeks in World of Warcraft; as well as doing amateur counselling for maybe half a dozen American women on IRC during the 90s.
I’ve had dreams. I’ve had ideas. I’ve had every single one of them derided as impractical, and me derided as impractical, contemptible, or worse, for coming up with them. The most meaningful thing I’m doing at the moment is some Linux scripting, and even when I work on that, I keep it held very tightly to my chest, at this point. I imagine putting it in a box somewhere and having it found after my death, perhaps; but I don’t want it found while I am alive. I am tired of abuse and negative judgement.
My point is that nothing I do means virtually anything to anybody else whatsoever. Occasionally someone will say thanks for some help I’ve given them online perhaps; but that’s it. Everything I do in life is for me alone; nobody else cares.
I don’t know what the fundamental difference is between myself and PRI. Maybe it’s motivation; maybe it’s the comparitive lack of self-pity, which I’m sure some people agreeing with. I will probably get some testosterone poisoned type A individual in the comments after this one, telling me that I’m simply pathetic. If it makes you feel better, go ahead.
All I know is that I’m glad that the people at PRI are doing what they’re doing; and I’m glad that in their case, someone else cares…because every time I’ve ever tried to do anything, it’s either been blocked by someone else, or I’ve sabotaged it somehow…so I can honestly say that at this point, I’ve very largely given up.
@Petrus
I am familiar with reaching 30’s, spending most time with computer, playing games, perceived worthless and not happy about world situation. In my case it was since 6 years old and not 17. In a few times I committed acts of random amateur counseling but not that much. And I didn’t learn any coding or more complex software. And I didn’t get a “higher education” yet. But in my case I cared and studied about health from books and internet and disregarded my university and from there everything is related and had a direct observable influence on me.
I want to relate to you my observations since you might find them relevant to your situation. Giving up to me is just retracting my attention and memory from a certain direction while nothing has changed in the situation. I am still living unsustainbly and within the conditions that I am used to. And so is most people so their situation is not better than mine. They might have more money and more stress but their direction is still futile or counter productive in the big picture. They just repeat the “spending of youth to gain money then spending money to regain youth” short-sighted lifestyle.
Sometimes the way to learn something to experience two different situations one good and one bad and then reflect on the difference between them in feelings and sensations and choosing the better ones and the lifestyle that leads to them.
I spent about a year or more reading about permaculture before realizing that I wasn’t doing much so I decided to experience it. Because reading and watching something is different from experiencing it. Because if you don’t experience it the way it should be then you won’t have a frame of reference to compare it with other lifestyles. If you haven’t experienced it yet then that might be the difference between you and PRI and if you did then I would recommend more experience, you could search for wwoofing in your area or look at https://permacultureactivist.net/pcresources/AustraliaNewZealand/Australia.htm for plaecs to visit. Geoff, Craig and Bill have been experiencing what they are talking about for a long time.
I found that there is a huge difference between sitting in front of computer most of the time watching a flickering screen, receiving radiation and physically engaging my self in sport, talking with family, or getting out. The best things I did were to travel and experience a different lifestyle without much computer for periods of weeks to months. Studies have showed that people who stay in front of the computer a long time will get detox symptoms once they leave it for a certain time.
I rationalized that if my stay in front of the computer isn’t helping me or anyone else like Craig is doing for this site then I am wasting my time and health on a distraction. In addition to that, I think life wasn’t meant to be this way in comparison to earlier history without computers. So permaculture made a lot of sense to me. And whatever situation I am currently in no matter how bad it is I can still work my self out and the least I could do was volunteer and learn some practical skills without “higher education”.
Craig has said it over and over again that the system and design that we live in deeply influences our way of life despite our best intentions. Like a dug out irrigation channel directs the flow of watter. If we want to change we have to expend some energy to change that channel then switch back to lower energy when we’re happy with the direction. So giving up is only a perception of our current situation and lack of energy to fix it. If some people’s lives seem similar that is because the design around them is similar and therefore if that design is changed then lives will be changed.
Bill Mollison lived in a Tasmanian village where everyone had a function to the community and they didn’t need city life. Permaculture redefines wealth as needing less and having abundance everywhere, having more sufficiency and community on a community scale. Permaculture encourages solution based thinking to do the best we can with what we have. I am happy just sharing this kind of information with others but I know I could do more so there is no reason to give up. And feelings about giving up just indicate that I am getting physically tired.