Do you remember a time in your history when so many people were being laid off? It's like being on the side of a steep hill and you just can't get your footing and you keep sliding downward. I don't know any adults that lived through the depression and are still living although I know a fair number of their children. (I am not saying I think this is a depression although it is the most serious and frightening financial time I have yet lived through). The way it seemed to affect people most commonly was that folks who survived the depression saved everything: twist ties, foil, plastic bags, all kinds of containers and leftovers. What I wonder is how our age of barrenness will scar us? What behavior will identify us as those affected by the financial upheaval at the beginning of the 21st century? It won't hurt me to be a lot more frugal and less cavalier with our resources. I guess if when it is all said and done, my generation gets labeled frugal and sensible it won't be a bad thing.Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The Age of Barrenness
Do you remember a time in your history when so many people were being laid off? It's like being on the side of a steep hill and you just can't get your footing and you keep sliding downward. I don't know any adults that lived through the depression and are still living although I know a fair number of their children. (I am not saying I think this is a depression although it is the most serious and frightening financial time I have yet lived through). The way it seemed to affect people most commonly was that folks who survived the depression saved everything: twist ties, foil, plastic bags, all kinds of containers and leftovers. What I wonder is how our age of barrenness will scar us? What behavior will identify us as those affected by the financial upheaval at the beginning of the 21st century? It won't hurt me to be a lot more frugal and less cavalier with our resources. I guess if when it is all said and done, my generation gets labeled frugal and sensible it won't be a bad thing.
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When i was a kid and my depression-era raised grandmother would wash and reuse aluminum foil, bread bags, etc. I thought she was nuts. Long before this "economic downturn" I came to respect her distate for waste. My environmentalism comes from multiple sources but I always think back on the thriftiness and ingenuity of someone who knew want -- something I have never REALLY known. There have been lean times in my life but never have I not felt like I had a place to turn if the need arose. It's possible that soon MANY people will have no place to turn and who knows if it will spark a new creativity that many had to rely on 80 years ago.
Thanks Grandma -- lesson learned.
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