2011 - Some resolutions.

I'm not going to beat myself up about it, or savage anyone else, but I'm part of the problem, and maybe part of the solution.
This thing they have started to tell us about how many Planet Earths we need to keep going as we are, even if the developing nations don't join in the race to own, possess, consume, this 'how many Planet Earths' thing has me rattled.

Yet we continue to expand, both numerically and materially, while shrinking in so many ways spiritually and intellectually.
We all want more, but do we need more; is more better for us? I took stock of the footwear situation this morning as I performed the daily contortion into the shoe cupboard. Imelda Marcos would be proud of such a kindred spirit! Do I really need so many shoes? (and most of those shoes were mine, not Lynne's or Lisa's) Do I really need FIVE pairs of running shoes? (oddly I now only have one pair of cycling shoes - how things can change!)

Shoes are just the tip of the iceberg. Clothing generally I have in 'an adequate sufficiency' and I could (and will!) go on. Why have I got two guitars? I can't play two guitars at once. In fact my detractors (Yes; I have detractors.) would say that I can't even play ONE guitar at once...

In short our cupboards, shelves, the garage, the shed, the loft, the boot of the car (Yes; we have two cars, plus Henry Honda) are all groaning with stuff we don't really need. I have books I could have borrowed from the library, records I've only listened to once (records I've not listened to all the way through even) tools and bike bits that were Dad's and I can't bear to throw away, enough bikes to hold a major stage race, maybe not the TdF but Ras De Cymru at least, gardening stuff too plentiful to shoe-horn into the garden shed, we have guinea pigs, a cat and fleas consuming for all they're worth too. The garden itself was once productive farmland, an orchard in fact. Now it produces little that is edible, consumes peat, fuel, resources and time. It is our buffer to keep the human race at arm's length. I expect that the human race out there feels just the same about me.

I'm not going to beat myself up about it but I resolve to try in my own small way to consume less of this world and leave a bit for the others, those alive now and those to follow. I plan to use up what I have before buying more, I plan to give away or sell (Selling is good, ; it release funds for... er... more buying!) that which I know I have no further use for; I plan to buy in the future only that which is really the best for the purpose and not clutter my life with pointless ownership, a vexation on the spirit. Most of all I plan to never again treat shopping as a form of entertainment - Get a life, Ian!