Tag: Christmas tree

Convenience and conservation

Plastic or paper?

Here or to-go?

Before we know it, billions of mindless decisions are made everyday. Taylorism (efficiency down to the smallest detail) has found its way into fast cars and fast food.

Even into our every-day use of language: just a sec, ASAP, bs.

There is no excuse for snappiness. We have stood by helplessly as McDonalization and Walmartization take over our planet.

A signage up, a tree down.

I am glad to hear that people here in Vietnam send back their equivalence of Christmas trees (Mai) back to nursery farms, where they will be replanted until next year.

In the States, only old folks get sent to hospice never to return home.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Every morning, outside my door, a man took a fast walk with his old dad.

I enjoyed watching them.

With reasonable guess, we can deduce that that man’s son will someday go with him on the same walk.

There is something in life that we cannot rush e.g. losing weight, growing deeper in a relationship, acquiring a new skill set (10,000 hours).

In college, I produced a TV spot on energy conservation.

People thought it was just a trend (back then, gasoline was still cheap, and Three Mile Island had not yet happened until I stumbled upon that scoop during my TV internship).

With tsunami and Fukushima behind us, we seem to take the so-called “tree huggers” a bit more serious.

It’s down to our every day’s choices: re-use a plastic bag, place the cigarette butts in proper places (especially in Singapore), and water the plants.

Some scientists are urging to reclassify sugar as toxic.

It seems as if we are all beginners at comprehending our planet.

The 80’s saw peak use of hair-dryers (and shoulder pads).

The 90’s water bottles and SUV‘s.

Just lately that hybrid cars started to gain some traction.

Just in time for Iran‘s rumble (hence, Venezuela‘s oil supplies as well).

Trees will still be here after we are long gone.

So those trees (cay Mai) will be back next year, delivered by the nursery just in time to bloom again for the year of the Snake.

Meanwhile our daily choices boil down to “paper or plastic”, “here or to-go”.

Sit there and eat. Save a bag, and save yourself some stress (of eating on the run). Don’t fall victim to the economy of scale (default choice is plastic and to-go). Defense!

I am growing liberal by the minute as the planet gets hotter by one degree at a time. Let me know when you found a tree-hugger. I will embrace him/her as well. Conservation takes work and thoughtfulness. Convenience just happens by default. I stand at the fork in the road, I take the road less traveled, says Frost.

The road most traveled

Fireplace (fake or real), Christmas tree (fake or real) and toy boxes (stuffed or life-sized), all

put together to create a Hollywood home version of  White Christmas, the illusion that we are OK and what-and-how-much we charged at the registers won’t haunt us in late January.

In America, the road most traveled has been to the retail outlets. I live near a Costco.

And by sheer size of traffic leading to the store, I can read the health of the economy. When it comes to the economy, I am a bush man, unable to verify “supply side” from “trickle-down” economy.

There is a PBS documentary showing Americans in Paris during the 20’s.

Some say they came because of the Prohibition at home. Others say it was because the War exposed these young men to a wider (and wilder) world.

Whatever the case may be, more Americans have stayed home to watch others arriving at their shores  since WW II. Then, the latest census shows a decline in new arrivals.

Gas price increases not because of increased consumption in the US, but because of BRIC‘s nations.

For the first time, Americans feel the pinch not caused by domestic factors. Yes, we have been blamed for over consumption that brought up the level of carbon emission. But, lately, carbon emission have caused by high rises in Dubai and Eastern China.

Cars have been downsized in the US (Fiesta, forever), and refrigerators for dorm room from China are selling like hot cakes. I keep seeing people buying bikes at Wal-Mart.

Baby-boomer’s life-style trend. But the solution is still the same: shopping for items, large or small.

When we prepare for emergencies like Y2K, we went shopping. When we are celebrating Christmas, we go shopping.

When the economy is down, or right after 9/11, the President called on all Americans to go shopping. Robert Frost wouldn’t comment on the current state of affairs, since he must be the only one who took the road less traveled.

His other most quoted line “fence makes good neighbors”. Solitude and austerity don’t cut it . It’s a nation favors the road most traveled. When the road took an unfavorable turn, the youth went somewhere else. Twice in recent memories, they either went to Paris (Prohibition period) or Canada (during the Vietnam era) in protest.

Can you imagine everywhere you go, you run into the same people (let’s say, seeing all your friends in Ha Long Bay over Tet).  Or worst, at Costco while waiting in line paying for fake trees, fake boxes and fake firewood.

“Two roads diverged in a wood…I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” The other, most traveled, has a huge billboard which urges you to “shop for things you don’t need, with the money you don’t have, to impress people you don’t like”.