(Knee) Jerkin’ Back ’n’ Forth

Way back (well, it feels way back to me) on the “Locallectually” Challenged thread, our foamy thinker Mr. Pint of Stout offered an observation that is well worth exploring. Now that things are starting to settle down in my physical world [I got to enjoy a bath yesterday! O rapture!], I’d like to focus on his comment for a bit.

For ease of reference, here’s the meat of Pint’s comment:

Like so many knee-jerk reactions by various groups advocating one thing or another, I find some value in the overarching concepts espoused but for all the wrong reasons. Trading/purchasing locally is in many cases a good idea, if only to strengthen the relationship with the opposite party, which can strengthen community ties. A strong community yields benefits far beyond just the initial exchange. The bottom line should be awareness, consideration, and intention in transactions rather than blind trust and zombie-like consumption.

Like him, I too find some value in acting locally. The benefits of that choice should be obvious in many cases. Which is better: a tomato grown locally and allowed to naturally ripen before it was picked and offered for sale; or a tomato picked while still hard and gassed to “ripen”, then shipped from California to a supermarket hundreds or thousands of miles away? Would you prefer to see how the cattle, pigs, sheep, or buffalo you’re about to consume were treated; or do you trust factory farms and the USDA to ensure humane, naturalistic care? Extending the idea beyond the food supply, the simple truth is that relationships matter. And even with today’s increasingly wired world, sometimes direct contact for goods or services brings the best results.

It makes little sense to take the valuable seed from that idea and conclude that all exchanges should therefore be local—as was made clear in some comments on the previous thread. To do so would be to eliminate thought and judgment, relying instead on a single attribute of dubious value to form a habit that becomes reflexive.

Therein lies what may be the most difficult balancing act humans have ever attempted. Habits can be wonderfully helpful things: they help keep us and our surroundings clean; they help prevent misplacement of items; they can strengthen desired actions and weaken others; and they can accomplish all that without one needing to fully focus one’s attention on the many choices possible within each act. Habits can also arise not from our own conscious thought to pursue a course, but from following what others are doing—and sometimes we follow without being cognizant of it. How many young American girls automatically start wearing nail polish, makeup, or shaving their legs and underarms without giving any serious thought to those actions? How many people seem to implicitly accept gender or cultural stereotypes, and frown on and/or label as deviant those who step outside them?

I am not suggesting that we try to do away with all habits or patterns, of course; that would be silly. But I think most of us would do well to try to become aware of the patterns we perform in our daily lives; I suspect we’d find that not all of them were consciously adopted.

I remember well the first few months following my separation from my husband; for the first time in my life I was living alone, and was fully free to explore a myriad of possibilities I hadn’t even seen before. And explore them I did. I questioned why I shaved certain body parts and not others; and finding the answers unsatisfactory, I changed my actions. I questioned my musical tastes, television habits, eating habits, sexual orientation, clothing preferences, housekeeping methods ... anything I thought would benefit from at least a few minutes of my full, focused attention got it. The process exhausted me. It also liberated me—and taught me a lot. Last, it established an overarching pattern that continues to serve me well, even if I don’t give it as much deliberation as I did during those weeks. I regularly question my actions and motives, to check whether they arise from consciously-made decisions, or whether I’m drifting into herd–monkey territory.

I suppose that process is really just a variation on introspecting. And I know that it can be hard for some individuals to do, for a variety of reasons. Still, for those of us who want to be master of our lives as much as is possible, such digging can be enormously fruitful. It also seems to be an essential part of the path to peace and contentedness; because if one does not know why one chooses as one does, how can there be any sort of inner peace?

And, as has been implicitly demonstrated in this and the former thread, engaging in this questioning, probing exercise serves as a strong inoculation against the numerous fads that blow in. It helps one separate the wheat from the chaff in them, as well as hardening one against the push of advertising, especially those that prick one’s vanity. (Seriously, when did dazzlingly white teeth become such an obsession?) Or, to paraphrase my all-time favorite band (so far):

Think for yourself
There’s no one else more worth thinking for

Just so.