"Wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question of whether a still higher 'standard of living' is worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free." Aldo Leopold 1877-1948
"Hand knitting [and animal husbandry and spinning and weaving and farming and building and cooking and the baking of bread] was taken for granted until 'progress' did away with the need for its regular practice. But the cost to humanity in the loss of these skills...has exceeded the value of the theoretically higher standard of living. We need to work with our hands, creating objects that are natural, not synthetic. We can secure more reliable satisfaction by having a few possessions...instead of many disposable items that briefly assuage fleeting desires." Priscilla A. Gibson-Roberts
A man recently told me that he figures (literally) all of his tasks out by the equation time=money. He figures his time is worth at least $75/hr to him. So, if it takes an hour or two to mow the lawn, it is actually cheaper to hire someone else to do this work at $25/hr. Same with washing the car. Shoveling snow. And while most of us (I hope) would feel some discomfort with this monetary accounting of our lives, I fear that many (myself included) already live with such a system of accounting.
My eyes have been going bad. Not an all-round general bad-ness, but a bad-ness that prohibits, or at least severely limits, my use of the computer. Severe headaches, eye aches, and nausea accompany any prolonged (translation: three minutes or more) use of the computer. Such limitations have proven most frustrating (especially for one who loves to write), but they have also proven most provocative: my mind has been working around this idea of progress, this idea we have of a "standard of living," of a time=money society.
Due to my "difficulties"--I don't know that I could rightly call them by that name--I currently write on two manual typewriters (one, a massive black studio model that types quite fluidly, the other, a small portable model, complete with green typing keys and a carrying case that locks). Although I can no longer write at lightning speed, and I cannot edit as I go, or transfer misplaced sections of my writing where they ought to be, I have found, on the whole, that the physical effort of typing is infinitely more satisfying to my soul than the slippery speed and ease of our new computer-machines.
Food. I labored over a meal one night: baking bread, boiling, broiling, mixing, chopping, stirring, kneading. Three hours of preparation, all accounted for. As I neared the final stretch, I found myself particularly frustrated at something (what? I cannot remember now. Perhaps the water wouldn't boil quickly enough for my liking). And with my frustration came the thought, "All this time spent. It would have been cheaper just to go out to eat." This thought of course reminded me of my friends comment eariler, or his time=money reckoning. I began to see his point of view, I thought. But when we sat down, just the two us, to that beautiful meal, another system of accounting occurred to me, a system far superior to one offered by our society. Time=love.
I invest my time for people I love. Yes, it would be "cheaper" to eat at a restaurant, even a nice restaurant, than to labor over such a meal. But the chef in the restaurant doesn't love my husband. The chef doesn't love me. Perhaps, if we are very, very lucky, we are eating at a restaurant where the chef spends his/her time cooking because he/she loves the art of food. Babette, anyone? But more than likely, in today's time-conscious society, our chef, or rather, our line-cook is operating on the culture-honored principle of time=money. Sadly, the proof is in the pudding (this may be the one and only time I feel justified in using a cliche, indulge me, please). I may have saved time. I may have saved money. But what have I gained? A greater appetite for cheap things? A soul sold-out to Wal-Mart? (How many times have I heard, "Oh, my family just wouldn't be able to survive if it weren't for Wal-Mart"?) I digress. I shall save the Wal-Mart rants for another time, another blog, another play. But for now, I propose that if we make our time worth money, we have devalued God-sustained life. God is love, may our lives be in His image.
If any man (or woman) be skeptical of my new accounting, let us conduct a test. Bring before him his wife's freshly baked bread and a loaf of shrink-wrapped pre-sliced freshness-guaranteed grocer's bread. Let him choose. Offer him a sweater made of wool, hand-knit by his grandmother or an acrylic designer's sweater, even a wool designer's sweater. Which shall he take?
Yes, the time=love accounting has it's own "cost," with fewer possessions being high on the list. One cannot have a new hand-knit sweater every time the fashions change. There is also the plain fact of more work, more manual labor. You cannot make home-made bread in the microwave (or even in the bread machine). With more work, there is less "leisure time." All in all, a time=love society looks, to the natural man, to be devolution: fewer possessions, more work, less leisure. Could man really handle this lower standard of living?
I think, perhaps, the better question would be: how much longer can man survive the higher standard of living?
Epilogue:
Please forgive any errata. My eyesight is weak, and my editing time severly limited thereby.