Moment Of Clarity - The Oh Shits.

There are moments of clarity, and then there are Moments Of Clarity. Those life-shakers that change the way we see ourselves, and the way we conduct the course of our life from thereon.
Usually, we realize we'd been on this particular course, unawares, for a long time. Groping toward something we could only roughly grasp with instinct rather than intellect.

And then we grasp it, fully, and the Oh Shit's abound.


I grew up in a culture where it was the norm to be shamed for living a 'traditional' lifestyle - and by that I genuinely mean lifestyle. Farming, raising and butchering animals, was for "hicks, rednecks and cousin-fuckers". Since when? The last 50-100 years are the blink of an eye to human history.  I grew up preferring to work the garden and tend the animals, and was taught to feel shame for that. Later in life I was taught to feel shame for re-learning skills like sewing, knitting, embroidery, and cooking.

Not because of gender boundaries, per se,  but because of class and era boundaries. Poor people make clothing. Poor people farm. Poor people cook. Not -us-, we're better than that, better than them, better than such primitive shit. Why, one day we'll be able to replace those poor people with machines, and forget we ever knew what the sun felt like on our necks. And we all pat ourselves on the ass at how smart we are.

That was my Moment Of Clarity.  That is what the Pagan revival is. That is what the Modesty Movement is. That is what Homesteading is. That is what the Preparedness movement is.

Industrialization (of manufacturing and of faith) wiped out our species history, culture, and memory. We're just trying to find out what things could've been like, had it not occurred. What faith would've been like, had it not been wiped away like a city under a tsunami. What "Womanhood" may've been like if Woman had never been reduced to personal property, and subsequently public property and commodity. What "Home" would've been, had home not been destroyed by everyone leaving it for factories. What could happen, if we don't figure these things out.

These movements are "taboo" because they are defiantly personal. "My soul belongs to me. I take it where I want." , "My body belongs to me. I expose it to whom I chose, not you.", "My resources are mine to chose and develop. Not an urban planner, not Walmart, not you." , "My safety is my own. Police don't provide it. I do."  They communicate to others that their opinion, input, etc... is neither wanted, needed, nor appreciated.  And in our society the suggestion that some morsel of your existence, let alone a large portion of it, is not for public consumption is anathema. People will sidle it along with terrorism. People will tell you that not having a facebook account means you're an antisocial psychopath. Imagine what they think of someone who ignores fashion trends, and raises chickens in the back yard.

Who said it was better? Best? The only way? When? Why? For some "Look, it's just the way it is!" isn't enough. Some people just want to turn back their own clock (not yours) to experience it first-hand, and while you might want to judge their intellect and reasoning skills - they took a risk, and lived for their own reasons. Something alien to most people.

That is why I am so strident about getting -back- to where spirit-faith was before The Industrialized Church ate it. That is why I am so strident about getting a lifestyle back to where it was before The Consumer Market ate it. I have to level the apartment complex before I can rebuild the cob house. I can't just assume the cob house is inferior because first world nations relegate it to the heap of "For Poor People."

Addendum: 

I want to be very clear I am not diminishing the plight people who are genuinely at a disadvantage. In fact, I'm sure a lot of them would happily trade their lives for a Western one. Seeing as I'm a big proponent of personal choice, I'm a big proponent of them personally choosing whatever the hell they want to.  I wish they had the resources to make those choices, and accordingly often chose to donate portions of my income to help them get there. I am not romanticizing poverty - my grand and great-grandparents barely lived through the Great Depression, and often told stories of it when I was growing up - stories to make a very dirt poor child (me) feel better about often having to bear out the consequences of poverty.

I am not suggesting we throw out medicine, or computers... I'm suggesting the wild notion that no one has the right to tell you, me, or anyone else, how to live their damn life (wherein no one gets hurt). That no one has -ever- had that right. That exercising our personal freedoms, where we are accorded them, should perhaps be a celebration rather than the beginning of "I dislike your choices, so stop making them.". 

The fact that I've had to spam bin a few choice comments already sorta makes my point about the reactionary nature of the global society, and how someone's very lifestyle is considered public property, to be weighed in on, and dictated.