I think we're not talking enough about how to to the basic things in life well.....
By this I mean issues surrounding how we grow our food, meet our basic energy needs, build our houses, get from A to B, manage our waste, I mean really BASIC STUFF.
I think this is because we are born into a society, for those of us born into the UK, where all of this is done for us - or rather where the 'normal' means whereby we meet our basic needs are through market systems - which largely means letting large Corporates deal with meeting our needs and we just pay them for a convenient way of accessing the end product.
We buy food in a supermarket, for example, and don't talk about the food chains which supply that food, rather our conversations are about which supermarket to shop in, when in reality the processes behind them are largely the same.
We buy a house on the market with a mortgage, and our conversations are about what the best mortgage rates are not about how to live off-grid much more cheaply.
And when it comes to waste, we don't really think about it - we never really ask where recycling goes, whether it's energy efficient, and human waste, well that's straight down the toilet, flushed.
I think the main reason these things are not discussed simply because they are not on people's radars.... all of the inconveniences of the hidden problems behind market systems are out of site, out of mind.
But if you do 'snap out of it' and make the transition to 'off-grid utopia' land you find that such things are discussed....
Nothing Special
Here in East central Portugal where is a lot of off-grid (ish) living going on it's amazing how mundane some of the conversations can be.....
About which veg to grow and how, chickens, basic building techniques, firewood, maintaining tools and so on..... it's just part of life, nothing special.
But more over there is much less talking and much more doing (well, unless you're a slacker like me), so much to do, so much work, 'working' is a form of 'talking' - kind of manifesting rather than discussing.
The next conversation I need to have with people is why my chainsaw isn't cutting wood as efficiently as I'd like. Not sure if it's the blade or if it's just too puny?!? See, QUITE mundane!
It's as if being out here is what happens after talking - the discussion is over, 'society' isn't doing things according to my/ our ethics, now it's up to me/ us just to rebuild according to our own remit....
Or something like that!