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Sunday, September 28, 2014

The Important but Not Urgent



I did it again. I forgot what is really important. Doing and pursuing things that are urgent but not important has led me down paths that, when I look back, I think "why did I do that?" Or worse, "what a waste of time" or "I didn't even enjoy it." I've done this over and over. And every time I think I've learned my lesson, at some future point I find that the learning didn't stick. It's happened again.

Last fall I was so "busy" I forgot to plant my fall crop of garlic. And this year my gardening took a back seat to other things. I'm not sure exactly what took its place, but something did. No doubt something that screamed "urgent!" And so when I got my last tomato CSA yesterday, it struck me that another summer (of which there are only a limited number left) was gone and I'd not enjoyed my garden as I had in past years. I didn't give much to it and it didn't give much to me. Fair and tremendously unsatisfying.

Then I looked at some tomatoes, a few peppers, a bit of fruit and flowers sitting on my counter and was content again. The garden's bounty may not have cheered me during the growing season, but all that beauty sitting on my counter reminded me of that planting and tending my food is one of the most important things in my life. It's nothing to be missed.Actually, nothing that satisfying could be more urgent.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

So it has come to this

Source: A great webcomic site xkcd.com


I'm often at a loss for words. Not so much because of what is said to me (although that happens often enough), but because of what rattles through my brain. Such as:
  • Do people understand the many variables that go into food cost?  
  • What group benefits most from food companies' work - consumers, stockholders or employees? 
  • Are the discoveries and learning that led to the ability to manipulate genes automatically bad?
  • What would happen if food companies were required to follow the first principle of bioethics?"
  • Why do people who profess to support Slow Food principles become agitated when, dining in the Midwest, for example, their favorite French wine isn't on the menu? 
This is just an example of my tangled net of thoughts. Answers to questions like these seem to involve all kinds of qualifications and there are all those interconnections - consumers may be stockholders; stopping the import of French wine could impact jobs here and in France; manipulating genes is used in healthcare as well as food production; population is growing and there are threats to water, food and air as a result.

So, stumbling on a brief phrase like "So it has come to this" seems to accurately capture what is all too often my internal sigh, shoulder slump and head shake at the situation. Then its back to work.