The other day I was out eating fast food and I started to think about the sheer numbers that are involved when we consume. I was thinking about how many potatoes have to be grown so that a place like McDonald's has enough to supply fries at all their locations for just a single day. That's just one food chain. There are hundreds of other companies that use potatoes in the same way. Think of all the chickens that have to be slaughtered so that we have that delicious meat whenever we want it. It's almost hard to imagine just how much we're talking about because we've gotten to a point where if you want something all you have to do is go get it. Food is a phone call away. The thing is though that it's not just food that we devour in large quantities. Try and count the number of trees that must be cut down each day so that we can have buildings and furniture. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we shouldn't use them because let's face it, we're on this planet and have as much right as any other species to make our way through the world. There are over 6.5 billion people on this planet, with over 300 million in the US alone. It's staggering the resources that we have to go through on any given day.
Our nation has been fairly fortunate throughout its history that we don't have a lot of experience with a lack of resources. Sure there were times when people were out of work or food wasn't as plentiful as it was in the past, but our continent has an abundance of natural resources and so far we've been able to recover given enough time. Looking back to the 1930s we could see what things could be like if something broke down. The dust bowl was something that happened over a relatively small period of time in a relatively small area. Sure it was almost a decade and a hundred million acres of land, but considering the size of this nation, it actually was somewhat small in scope. Still that "small" patch of land had a ripple effect on the surrounding areas for decades after the initial problem. Even with that time where many were fighting for their survival, there were many who were more than fine. And the same is true today, sometimes even more so. How can it be that our nation is faced with a rising crisis of obesity and yet there are people who go without? It's strange that we can have people essentially dying from having to much while down the road we have people dying from not having enough.
It's very likely that no matter where you live, there are those that are homeless. Your interaction with them may be limited and in some cases you may not even know they exist. Most of us go along with our own lives and pass right on by them without a second thought. It's almost become expected that somewhere someone is going to be without. I've often wondered what the circumstances were that caused various people to live on the fringes of society. While they may get help from shelters or other organizations, there is the question of if they can ever fully recover and rejoin "civilized" society.
First off, our society is built in a way that's very precarious. It wouldn't take much for things to topple over in a way that could be nearly impossible to recover from. Three missed meals is usually enough to break down any semblance of order pretty quickly. If the lights went out or the food stopped moving it wouldn't take very long for society as we know it to drastically shift its nature. Everything we have can easily be taken away from us. Hopefully though it's not something that we're forced to experience and because we've lived in a relatively good period it's easy to take a lot of things for granted. Sure the economy isn't great, but it's nothing compared to what this country faced in the Great Depression or what other countries experience every day. Now don't get me wrong, some people have had it much worse in recent years and for them the recession we're in may as well be called a depression because as far as they're concerned it is. Still, as a whole, the country is in recovery and there seems to be a faint glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. I think in a lot of cases there are two main schools of thought for situations like this. Either things will get better after time because they always have in the past. The other is that even if things get better in the short term, we're due for a lasting era of depression. It's only a matter of time. I guess I can see both ideas having merit because most things are cyclical given a long enough timeline.
For the individual though it may only take something in the short term to shatter their hold on society. A lost job, an illness, a death, or significant loss of money are all things that can cause people to enter into a downward spiral from which they can't recover. If you're really fortunate you have a network of friends and family that can help support you in the event that something drastic and life-altering comes along. Some people either have no one or choose not to use them and end up in a free fall. For them their resource options are gone and they experience what it is to really have to survive. In a strange way I think that's why post-apocalyptic stories are so popular. It presents us with a time where things aren't certain. Most people are able to know where their next meal is coming from. There are any number of things we take for granted that will be there. Those stories show us a potential future where life returns to how it may have been a long time ago when something as simple as finding a drink of water was something to be concerned with.
There is an assumption that everything will last for as long as we need it. It could be that there will be a time when things simply run out. Will we be prepared for something like that happening? I find myself thinking about how things we believe to be important would become frivolous in that situation. I love movies and video games, but those are products of a wealthy society. Celebrities are showered with attention and money because we choose to pay attention to them. We decide to pay ticket prices for sporting events, driving up the salaries of the athletes. It's a strange world we live in where someone who puts on makeup and plays make-believe or hits a ball with a stick is paid in six figure salaries, while those who are responsible for teaching our children are sometimes forced to take a second job just so they can pay for food in the summer. In a way it's a sign of how well our society is doing. There wouldn't be a lot of need for a movie producer or football player in a society that could barely feed itself.
Although it brings up the question of if our society is doing so well then shouldn't we be on the cusp of something greater? How long can we plod along watching television and spending our money on shiny new toys before we start looking at moving beyond the material world? Now I know these things come in small increments, but it feels like we're due for advances beyond that of how to bring 3D to our living rooms. Everything in this world uses something else for fuel. Basically everything uses something else in order to take that next step forward. It's just how things have to be. What would life be like though if we didn't need to eat? What if there was some way to break out of the old consumption paradigm in such a way that we would be free of it forever? What could we accomplish if we weren't held down by something as simple as what we're going to eat next? Maybe the next step in evolution and technology could answer those questions and the limits that are in front of us would disappear.
