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Simple things we take for granted

Tinkerman

Tinkerman

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I have had several instances in the past few months of seeing things in an alternative perspective. These little reality checks hit me at the oddest times. For example just yesterday I made a small mess on the kitchen counter, so I grabbed a couple of kleenex out of the adjacent box, swabbed it up and through them in the trash. It quite intensely hit me that those thin, insignificant pieces of tissue would have been a very valuable and rare item in a life way back. Can you imagine what it would have been like to feel such thin, velvety paper. It certainly would have been an amazing luxury. And yet I threw it in the trash with very little of it having been used.

I think the same thing every time I throw a plastic water bottle in the trash. If I take the perspective of my native American life time I see the incredible value in its reuse, it's sustainability. The thing happens each time I throw out an empty jar... oh how that would have been so nice to use for dry storage in my pioneer life time. Yet now we think nothing of wasting it because they are so readily available.

If I take the position of past, ancient life times, and allow the mindset to control my perspective, I see such waste. But I think that is one of the things past life perspectives can teach us. It is a wisdom. And it comes from such simple things.

Has any one else noticed this? It is easy on major technology and electronic things... but simple tissue, a plastic bottle etc...
Hmmm.

Tman
 
Tinkerman said:
For example just yesterday I made a small mess on the kitchen counter, so I grabbed a couple of kleenex out of the adjacent box, swabbed it up and through them in the trash. It quite intensely hit me that those thin, insignificant pieces of tissue would have been a very valuable and rare item in a life way back. Can you imagine what it would have been like to feel such thin, velvety paper. It certainly would have been an amazing luxury. And yet I threw it in the trash with very little of it having been used.
Tman
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Do you know where Kleenex came from? It was one of several types of filter media used in WWI gas masks. After the war they either had to find a new use for it or go out of business.
 
Tinkerman said:
Has any one else noticed this?


Tman
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Heck, yes! Apples, and maple syrup any day of the year. Plus, I can just pop open a box instead of prying open a crate.
 
Has any one else noticed this?
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Ha ha, heck, yeah, and that’s from this lifetime, not a past live prospective. I guess I am old, we didn’t have plastic containers when I was a kid. We had glass jars, of course, but we sure could have used some of the yogurt and other containers I throw out nowadays. They would have been treasured then! I remember my mother making a batch of cookies or donuts to take to someone; she’d put them in a crock, put a plate over that, tie the whole thing in a tea cloth, then put that in a gunny sack so she could carry it. Seems awful heavy to me now. And that's only one tiny example. There are a lot of things I wish I could transport back in time to my mom.
 
When margarine and whipped topping first came out in plastic tubs, people thought they were "too good" to throw away. Every one's cupboards were full of stacked, carefully washed containers. It really disturbs me that I throw away so much packaging now.


When I was 19, and had my first apartment, I thought how wonderful it was for one person to have all that clean, airy space, although my belongings were sparse. At the time, a PL connection didn't occur to me. Now it makes sense.
 
Oh yeah. I'm a busboy and I HATE having to scrape food into the garbage. So much of it wasted! Perfectly good food! It's awful.


Electricity and plumbing can seem amazing to me also. But they are! Sometimes I'll just stare at a running faucet thinking how wonderful it is to have hot or cold water on command like that. Same thing goes for light bulbs; they seem so fantastic to me. Sounds a little funny, I know!
 
I have often been grateful to be able to pick up the telephone (even before cell phones) and call my family or friends. What about elevators!


It sure is a shame how wasteful we have become. Product packaging is crazy, sometimes it seems it must cost more than the item inside!
 
BriarRose said:
When margarine and whipped topping first came out in plastic tubs, people thought they were "too good" to throw away. Every one's cupboards were full of stacked, carefully washed containers.
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I still do this. They are good for all kinds of things, not just food.
 
Red Night said:
Oh yeah. I'm a busboy and I HATE having to scrape food into the garbage. So much of it wasted! Perfectly good food! It's awful.
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Maybe our food is too cheap? You should see what the school cafeterias throw out daily. When I was in school my mom made my lunch partly to save money (no reduced or free lunches then) and I was a picky eater.
 
wonder said:
It sure is a shame how wasteful we have become. Product packaging is crazy, sometimes it seems it must cost more than the item inside!
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This is mainly an anti-theft device. Packages are designed so you can't stick them in a pocket or purse. The plastic "blister" packaging is cheap when applied by machine.
 
I volunteer at an early 19th century historical farm, and the owner constantly says "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without." WW 2 slogan but its still useful for a 1820's farm!


In college, and in the technical theater department, it was generally beat into everyone to save everything that's 2 1/2 inches or larger. Never know what you need. ;)
 
BriarRose said:
When margarine and whipped topping first came out in plastic tubs, people thought they were "too good" to throw away. Every one's cupboards were full of stacked, carefully washed containers. It really disturbs me that I throw away so much packaging now.
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And what dad didn't have an equal amount in the garage that was full of nuts and bolts?


For me, I've learned how meaningless most things are in that it's true in that you can't take any of it with you. And I think what is most important is what you leave behind and what you perpetuate.
 
I agree totally with the need for less waste and materialism, but I seem to need to live in beautiful and harmonious surroundings. Changing fashion and poor quality in the objects we buy contribute to this syndrome. It's so wrong that often it costs more to repair something than to replace it! Plastic parts on things that use to be made of good quality metal make me "crazy". A plastic window latch? It's guaranteed to break.
 
From Baked Beans and Spaghetti-O's...


As a child I was fasinated from canned food...I couldn't get over the fact that food would stay good so long in a can. I remember eating right out of the can, not even making the food warm...funny, I still don't know why! And by-the-way...I also collect all my plastic containers, my cupboards are full!


I also love knee socks that stay up by themselves, and clips that hold your hair in place without alot of work...and last but not least...cold milk!
 
My job is a 6 mile drive away from my house. It's a 15 minute drive through town... unless you don't have motorized transportation or a horse. For simple things, consider the ballpoint pen. Unless you'd like to have to carry around a quill and an inkbottle or a potentially leaky fountain pen, that ballpoint is pretty slick!


For wastefulness, this might make you all cringe a little:


An associate of mine had a $1550 flat screen TV. This puppy was pretty loaded, 46" HD LCD, iPod dock, all sorts of hook ups in the back to run everything with a screen through it! Well, the picture started getting "weird", so lah-dee-dah, they just went out and bought a new one. They gave us the TV because they know we recycle scrap metals and plastics. As soon as we got it home, off came the back and up came the internet for some research. A simple $20 part will have this TV up and running fine in no time! I can't believe they wouldn't even try to have it diagnosed before dumping it! *shakes head* I wish I had that kind of money.


On the plus side, we now have a sweet Hi-Def 46 inch LCD TV that we couldn't afford in a month of Sundays...
 
Shiftkitty, there must be a PL reason neither you nor I have "that kind of money", but I sure hope this lesson is nearly over, and we have it next time! typing Of course, we won't be wasteful! : angel
 
Oh, of COURSE not! typing


I did have some kinda instant karma in this lifetime dealing with money. We've always been broke. I've actually eaten out of a dumpster when I was a teenager. Our house should have been condemned and most of what we owned was salvaged from junk piles. I cursed every second of that lifestyle!


After I got married things started looking up quite nicely and for the first time in my life I didn't have to buy my clothes at the Goodwill. I was starting to feel like we had finally clawed our way out of it. Goodbye and good riddance to scummy alleys, slimy trash bins, and checking the gutter for loose change, I was finally moving up!


Then my husband went on permanent disability, the nation's economy started its downward spiral, and it was back to digging in those dumpsters I was so glad to be away from. Even my old friends the gutters got to see me poking through them again. At least this time it's not for food, it's for recyclables. We keep gas in the cars that way and even though I see a light at the end of the tunnel as we catch the bills up, I doubt I will ever sneer at a scuzzy dumpster or cruddy gutter again.


Important lesson about turning your back on the swill that used to feed you, I guess. "Never spit in a gutter," I could hear Fate saying. "You never know when you're going to have to live there."
 
At least we both have a sense of humor. It's cold comfort, but it gets you through. Yes, it's a Karmic lesson. Is it easy to learn? Nooo!
 
Great post Tman!


I agree, there is so much waste nowadays. Daily life in the past was much harder then it is now, (though we've created new complications), but in a way I still wish I could go back to the simpler times. I like having running water, heating, air conditioning, etc. at the flick of a switch. But I don't like how peoples mentalities have changed with things becoming so easy. I think many of old ways are still very valuable, and should not be forgotten.
 
Yesterday was an incredibly beautiful day here on the ranch; temperatures were in the low 50s, the six foot snow drift behind my tool shed was melting away and the birds were singing loudly. Even a few quail walked up from the creek... just to stretch their legs and catch a nibble at the bird feeder.


As I sat watching the sunset the jet contrails were like torches blazing across the sky. And another thought crossed my mind: what would the Native people have said about these odd streaks across the sky. And then somehow I knew... it was like I could think or see their (my) impressions. Some residual past life memory allowed me to view this modern phenomena in a different "light." At first it was awe, then it was spiritual, and then it was a not so pleasant omen... foreboding and sad. Like I knew then, what I know now...
 
You have a very good point. We do take things for granted. We all went from having hardly anything, to having as much as we need. Now we are realizing that we are starting to run out again. Like oil for instance... It's like we are kind of going full circle.


Think of it this way... You you born to be "green" and just now realizing it. Lol
 
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