People In Wood Houses Shouldn't Raise Squirrels

Do you ever sit in a place empty of all but you as a representative of your species and listen? I hear chattering woodpeckers, trees bending to the lower angle of the sun this time of year, insects buzzing, crows calling, and leaves rustling. That's the headline news in this part of the world, along with a weather report of generally cooler air temperature that draws the moths out. Red berries brighten on the burning bushes. A few leaves fall on the driveway. A slow and exciting news day.

I live on the edge of a suburban forest, my wife and I sharing an artificial cave called a house, with 19 separated areas we call rooms further labeled as bedrooms, hallways, bathrooms, closets, living room, kitchen, and more. Two-thousand square feet of living space. Two people. Two operational motor vehicles. Three nonoperational motor vehicles. Furniture. Clothes. Stuff.

We use gallons of water and petrol a day. We discard several trash bags of debris a week. We feed two indoor cats. We water a few indoor tropical evergreen plants. We pay to insure the house, belongings, vehicles and our bodies for reimbursement should disaster occur. We buy electricity to operate machinery like this computer.

Our mode of living is copied by millions of people around the world (in the billions, I guess). Our use of the planet's resources is described as middle class living, with luxuries like driving a mile to the corner store to buy grocery goods, including frozen items that we can quickly transport home without thawing and exposing our groceries to foodborne illness-causing bacteria like salmonella.

Our life is pleasant. No wars. No pestilence. No neighbourhood violence to speak of. Easy to say peace and prosperity influence our thinking. We can let others make the hard decisions about what seven billion people should do to live together without even thinking about them ourselves, if we want (them = the hard decisions and the seven billion people).

A sheltered life, influenced by family issues such as birth, death, age-specific achievements and the like.

Some people refer to this as a life to be envied while others say it is a life of inconsequential activities to be overcome. Regardless of what others say, it is the life I have led the majority of my days. I don't envy my life and I don't cast aside my life. I am who I am as well as how and where I grew up.

Thus, I cannot confidently describe how to find peace and happiness outside the lifestyle I have most fully experienced.

Just like I cannot describe to you why a yellow jacket wasp insists on landing on my leg this afternoon (the soap I use?) - I am allergic to yellow jacket venom but I am confident the insect won't insert its stinger in me for no reason.

I look at the world through my eyes and with my thoughts. I make decisions and judgments based on who I am while imagining the lives of others. I see countries like I see my neighbours - different but not needing to go to war over ideological issues.

I have read that if everyone lived my life, our planet would be used up. I accept that assessment. To accommodate a more affluent species, I have reduced my daily consumption habits, including no lawn mowing, lower food intake, less electricity used and fewer kilometers driven. I am frugal but I still enjoy a few luxuries including this blog posting.

Practice what you teach. I am not the world. I am not my neighbours. I am me. I will always be me - one with and part of the universe while part of me sees myself separate from the universe.

A leaf falls from a tree, turns into soil and feeds the tree to turn out more leaves. Is the soil the tree? Is the tree the soil? The tree and I share the same air - are we each other? What about the yellow jacket tasting my leg, the gnat buzzing my ear or the mosquito draining my blood? Perhaps I am my neighbours. Maybe I am the world. We are me and I am them.

The secret to living is no secret. We're all connected. Poison the squirrel chewing on the house and you kill a hawk. Kill the hawk and more squirrels show up to chew on your house.