Simple Acts of Rebellion

Who could have predicted that we would live in a time when simple acts of mundanity could be seen as radical, as rebellious, as belonging to a dangerous counter-culture? Still, it has become now that hanging laundry on a line, turning the pages of a book, baking bread, writing a letter in ink on paper, are outside the norm. Indeed, even composing an email without automated assistance is becoming increasingly rare.

The seeds of this rebellion were sown long ago, when someone (I like to believe someone well-meaning in intent) sought to design some device or other that would save another’s labor, that would allow that worker a few moments of rest and reflection. Perhaps this wonderous machine would give more people the time to make art, to indulge in a well-told story, to share time with loved ones and maybe to connect over great distances, to think deeper thoughts and maybe see solutions to society’s larger problems. The world would become an easier, more creative, more educated… happier place.

As they say, ‘How’s that working out so far?’

Our well-meaning inventor has been replaced by corporate giants that design devices with darker things in mind. That inventor may not even recognize his creations’ children and grandchildren, machines not made with a pride of durability but instead imbued with planned obsolesce. For, what kind of business model and profit generator is based on someone only having to buy one product in their life-time?

We are no longer seen as the laborers to be benefited but as the marks for a larger con. We are cultivated through deceit and manipulation, the global producers manufacturing, not only the machine with which to solve the problem, but the problem itself, an ever-spiraling need which only they can fill.

And, despite the evidence all around us, eons of enculturation have habituated us to allow ourselves to be manipulated, our preferences, our ideas, our sadnesses and delights, sold.

Funny thing is that, in all their refinement and growing sophistication of message delivery, their points of persuasion haven’t changed. We agree to be convinced that this new product will, at last, bring us the ease we’ve been chasing and we will finally be safe. But then they show us the next-gen problem… and their brilliant, cutting edge, slickly sexy solution.

The motivators they utilize are, have always been, exhaustion and fear; FEAR being the largest one. They can make us desperately afraid of things we’ve never considered before, never even knew existed. It’s a constantly growing pantheon of boogie-men who no longer fit under our beds, no longer only plague us in sleepless nights at 3am.

We are now under constant bombardment, waking or sleeping. It is this engineered barrage that is now leading to our collective, existential weariness. The manufactured, yet very real threats appear so big that each of us cannot conceive of a way that our tired little selves can have any effect.

And, upon the global dumpster fires, any small act in itself cannot. Each of us is a single drop, certainly, inconsequential within the space we occupy.

Or are we? We are many. It has been through the manipulation of the collected individual selves, our masses, that the giants have been able to build their empires. Sure, there are many things we cannot have direct effect upon but, we do, every day, have the power of small, radical acts of rebellion.

To be fair, I don’t want to spend a full day each week slaving over a hot cauldron in the yard to do the washing, but how many fewer clothes-dryers would not be sold if people utilized sunshine and fresh air to dry the laundry? How many people would feel immediately better if they, too, were exposed to the sun on their faces, the gentle breezes wafting through while they worked?

It can be a kind of meditation. I’ve had some of my best thoughts, composed some of my best writings (even the beginnings of this article) while shaking out towels and pinching clothespins. How many minds might be changed if a concerted effort was made at HOA meetings to insist on the acceptance of clothes lines in people’s backyards once again?

Our influence cannot be directly imposed upon the larger issues but, also, we do not actually live there. We live in our little spaces, in our every-days, with other tiny beings who need our support and from whom we can glean the support we need. If each of us were to do an accounting of those products and services that drive our days, were to invest the effort of finding out if those goods are produced, those services rendered within our little locality, what war machines and slave camps might we stop funding?

It’s not a new idea and I’m not the first to propose it but, as we see society, humans, nature, burning, I want to add my voice to it. We are coming to a point that we cannot look away. It is at this point that safety is to be found in each other, our immediate communities the only source of security within a world where giants walk.

So, find your local handy man, the guy who drives the rusty van filled with old-school tools, the guy who lives only across town, hire him to install your garage door, to fix your roof. Seek out your local community garden and ask about CSA boxes (Community Supported Agriculture offerings, often regularly delivered to your door… pre-Door Dash) and learn to cook with seasonal vegetables. Buy gas from the station that only has two pumps and a single rack of candy inside. You know, the one that has somebody’s name on the weathered sign and a flapping canvas with the fuel company’s logo on it because they’ve had to change suppliers three times, them being such a small account and all.

And use cash whenever you can. Cash charges no service fees. Cash is not data, collected into electronic brains, used to understand buying habits and create greater marketing models. It’s cash. And it goes directly into the hands of someone feeding his children, someone paying her light bill, someone providing for their kid’s medical expenses. Nothing shaved off for a corporate giant. Cash, that doesn’t care who spent it, or who received it, and that will find its way into another pocket in a minute. Cash, that will stay in your small community, going ‘round and ‘round, supporting everybody in its tiny little way.

So, are you feeling helpless these days? Me too, we all do. Want the world to change? To get better? Safer? Do the small thing, the simple thing. Hang your laundry. Read a book. Buy my bread. Or, better yet, let me teach you how to bake your own. Lick a stamp (although they stick their own selves these days). Write. Your. Own. Damn. Emails. Be a radical in your tiny space.

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