Toward a better society
Every day, I am frustrated by the way our "civilised" society works. Most people get up every day, drag themselves to work, spend all day in an office in front of their computers, just to then waste the evening away in front of the TV - or, if it happens to be a Friday/Saturday night, spend the evening getting pissed in their local.
Obesity, heart attacks, and cancer are all on the rise in our society - mostly, I think, due to a combination of a lack of excercise and terrible diet. We rely more and more on cars to get us from A to B, to the point where even a short walk to the cornershop or the bus stop appears to be almost impossible. As we move less and continue eating crap, we put on weight. The solution to this is easy - just pay absolution to your local fitness temple. You don't even have to go there, just pay the membership to feel better!
I don't claim to have the solution to a better society, but I think I have some pointers.
Live Healthier
To become healthier, we need a combination of a better diet and exercise. While I don't advocate vegetarianism - I like my meat too much - eating less meat certainly improves one's diet. The best way I have found to improve my diet while improving my cooking skills is to join a local box scheme. These schemes deliver vegetables (and eggs, bread, herbs if wanted) to your door, once a week. Our local box scheme has the added advantage of a lack of choice: you can't choose what you want (and therefore get the same stuff every week), you get new seasonal veggies every week - which leads to blank faces and skeptical looks about the new vegetables every week, but definitely forces me to improvise and improve my cooking.
The second part is the exercise. And the answer is simple: walk and cycle. If you walk or cycle to work (or to the pub, or anywhere!), you 1. see more of your surroundings and 2. get your regular exercise. You also arrive more energetic, ready for the day ahead (in the case of work). And: if you move more, you want to eat less crap. So the two points go hand in hand.
Share with others
In some sense, sharing is a very selfish act: it makes you feel good. Every time I get rid of some old clutter (in my eyes) and see someone's face who picks up their newfound treasure (in their eyes) on Freecycle, I feel good. I feel as though I've just 1. saved that person some money and 2. saved the item from going to the dump. Of course, it also works the other way: it's incredible what treasures I have found through this group, where people give away things for free - everything from apples through fridges all the way to laptops. We furnished our entire flat through freecycle, saving us massive amounts of money and giving someone else the space in their living room back - with the peace of mind of knowing that their grandfather's old dining table went to a good new home.
This is also where the concept of Freeconomy - a concept a friend told me about not too long ago - fits in. The idea of Freeconomy is to counteract the loss of communities we're seeing in today's materialistic and individualistic society. When registering on the website, members put themselves on a map and provide a list of skills and tools to share with others. Need a power drill, but don't feel like dishing out £50 for something you'll use once? Drop someone who has one in the neighbourhood a message and ask if you can borrow theirs. Saves a lot of money spent on useless things, and forces you to get to know the people who live around you. Wonderful idea!
Also, it's incredible how much sharing your home with others for a few nights can enrich your life: even if they are complete strangers, every guest we have had at our home through Hospitality Club or Couch Surfing has given us a lot more in return than what we gave them. We may have made dinner for them, while they told us about their travels. We may have offered them a bed, while they returned the favour with a massage (in the case of the lovely massage therapists we had over). And people are a lot more willing to open their hearts to you if you open your home to them, without expecting anything in return - and especially without the involvement of money!
Along these lines, and right up my alley as a passionate cyclist is WarmShowers, a community of cycle tourists who provide each other - you guessed it - a warm shower and maybe a bed/place to pitch a tent for the night. I can't wait to get my first guests. If you're cycle touring Scotland and pass through Edinburgh, be my guest!
I think the world would be a much better place if Freecycle / Freeconomy and Hospitality Club / Couch Surfing / WarmShowers weren't the exception, but the norm. And if everyone cycled.