Of a Good Moan
Dear TomHa,
Recently, I had been reading a lot of the papers. Or rather, my life nowadays had been rather routine. Every morning, I wake up at 8, brush my teeth, wash my face, have my tea and breakfast and a good read of the newspapers. And by a good read, I mean that I am actually reading every single article nowadays. A phenomenon unheralded before in those heady days of rushing through the headlines and sports and the comics column only.
and I predict that those days are coming soon Well, knowledge of current affairs is good. I guess I can tell you very accurately the number of deaths in the aftermath of the Indonesian tsunami and where in Lebanon is Israel attacking and that Abdullah had finally broken his silence over the Mahathir saga....
Anyway, in the Review section today, Lucy Kellaway talked about
How to do a good job whining..She suggested 3 steps to a good moan. First of all, quotas must be set, to limit the amount of moaning time per day to about 2 to 5 per cent of the day. Anyone who is regularly over the upper limit should consider cutting back. Afterall, anyone who moans too much is a bore to themselves. Try to make the moan funny. Next is to vary the content of the moan. Moan about a wide variety of things.. Lastly, pick the moanee(the person you moan to) with care. Never moan upwards (dangerous), moaning downwards is even more dangerous as those people are supposedly worse off than you, hence, always moan to people of the same level. Given that a good majority of people started their blogs to moan, me included, I guess these are definitely great fodder for thought.
Planet Earth is in an ever worsening state, and sometimes, you just feel so helpless as what is there that one person can do? Can one person, against a backdrop of many apathetic majority, infect them with a sense of environmentalism given that all along, we, humans have been living in a serious state of denial about the state of the very plant that we call home to? NASA's climatologist James Hansen said that "we can't let it go on another ten years like this.... it will imply changes that will constitue another planet..." Less than ten years to reverse course. Not our children or grandchildren lifetimes. But ours. Yes, everyone who is reading this puny blog.
So, what can we do to delay ( I would not even try to use the word prevent ) this impending armagedon? First, the top imperative is for the leaders to stop denying and get going with projects that help to limit the amount of carbon that we are releasing to the environment. Listen and listen well to the scientists who are proficient in this field and take their advice. Next, the people of the world must realise that they are involved in this long fight to preserve this Earth for as long as we can before it gets too hot for anything to grow. I experienced Agra and Rajasthan. Bad enough. Please, don't let the whole world become like that. Third point, people, yes the people again, evil humans of the world, everyone, including me and you, must realise that many of our wants are simply... wants. Things that are not really necessary.
Standard economic theory has long assured us that we're insatiable bundles of desires. Do we need a car? Do we need to urbanise so much? Do we need to eat durians when it is not in season?
The energy that we consume to create such "anormalies" is surprising huge Do we really need an air-con? And many more...
Recently, I am at a freaking sub zero cold war with my dad as I kept asking him to sell the car and take public transport. He refused and I insisted, hence, we are no longer talking much anymore. Very terrible. He took my views in a monetary sense, that I am refusing to pay for the gasoline and taxes, well, I did thought of that, but my concern was that the car is really not neccessary and is just another carbon producer. I would not say that it is not convenient, but the financial burden, coupled with the fact that with every gallon of gas burnt, you release 5 gallons of carbon into the atmosphere, is something I cannot tolerate. Besides, we don't need it. Hence, I am going to persist in this cold war which as it turned out, does not have Mutually Assured Destruction, but never mind, to help in my cause. A little help goes a long way is my only motivation!
Set up recycle bins at home, my friends!
Most, in fact, almost all ideas taken from the recent issue of National Geographic which I bought just now... Hehe.. I not so insightful one...
