by John Rixey

Created on: January 13, 2010

Nice - the economics of sustainability.

I've got this tree in my backyard that keeps producing apples. It's like a grocery store, but instead of a company getting a loan to pay a farmer a minimal wage to pay immigrant workers to harvest his orchard to sell in grocery stores around the country, it's like magic. It's as if there was some invisible god-like force that makes this one particular tree in my backyard produce actual food for human people. I would call it a miracle, but I've heard stories about these sorts of trees before.

The magical food-producing tree in my backyard made me start to think about other possible benefits produced by this god-like process of magical food production. Seriously, though - the tree just makes apples for me. I don't have to put money in it - I don't have to do anything.  So I started thinking about what people really need. I learned in elementary school that these things are "food, shelter, and clothing." If the god-tree and its vegetable brothers continue to produce food for me every year, I think we've got the food part covered.

For shelter and clothing, I feel like I would have to quit my job as a graphic designer for an accounting corporation. While this profession gives me some money that I can spend on food and clothing, I hate the job and I would rather be hunting or fishing or building something or weaving something, as would most cubicle-residing American men. 

But, of course, gardening, hunting, fishing, building stuff and so on are leisure activities. I've got to have a job, after all, or else how am I going to pay for food, shelter and clothing?

 Luckily, I've been able to put off this lazy lifestyle of gardening and building things and I've gotten a loan from an organization called a "bank." I'm not sure where they got this money, but now it's mine and I can buy any number of foods, shelters, or clothing with it and all I have to do is sit in a cubicle for eight hours a day. The source of this money and the things I buy with it are a mystery. Frankly, I don't give a damn where it comes from. Do these things come from the same magical god-like force that grows the apples on my apple tree? Maybe, but I just don't care. I'm willing to do whatever I have to do to make enough money so I don't ever have to worry about this "sustainability" issue anymore. Lets let somebody else deal with

all

of

that

stuff.

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