Codger-style living is at heart a values shift–away from status and power toward freedom, mobility, and creativity. Millions are slowly discovering the happy truth, that these are what really satisfy.
A side effect of this value shift is that it can save the world from its greatest evils.
Homelessness: This is a ridiculously easy problem for codgers to solve, because we know the difference between shelter and status symbol. What we know that others don't is that cozy mobile accomodations can be had for peanuts. Almost as importantly, we know where we can park for less than peanuts. To approximately quote one of the great codgers, Thoreau, the cause of most homelessness is not so much a lack of money as a lack of imagination.
Global Warming: Our low consumption, off-the-electrical-grid lifestyle adds almost nothing to CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Factories and power plants can scale way back when millions of greedy, insatiable, munching caterpillars transform to codger butterflies fluttering about the continent, powered by sunlight and tiny sips of nectar. Codgerism heralds the great slowdown.
Overpopulation: Mindless, reckless reproduction will cease when the codger value of sustainabilility takes hold. Codgers generally pursue values of rational self-interest, which is incompatible with a bunch of needy kids. Overcrowded, clamorous cities quickly inform his mind on the subject.
Water shortages: Codgers use from 2-4 gallons per day. Settled householders use 150 gallons per day. Need I say more?
Land shortages: Codgers do not desire to own vast tracts of land–just to use a tiny piece for a brief time.
Job shortages: The codger lifestyle is so cheap that they can retire early, opening up jobs for others. When the world adopts our low-consumption lifestyle, careers will be as short as 10 years. Drudgery is the enemy of the good life.
Fuel shortages: Confirmed codgers need 3 good reasons to go to town. They travel in short hops, consuming only a fraction of the fuel of a commuter. And all sensible codgers go south in the winter, where they hardly need any heating fuel.
Religious and Cultural Conflicts: Codgers travel and become acquainted with many cultures and religions. They soon discover that no one has a monopoly on truth. Dogmatism, chauvinism, and jingoism are abandoned. Tolerance, openness, and agnosticism become common attitudes.
One of these days I should make an estimate of how much energy I use annually compared to the conventional lifestyle. I'm curious.
ReplyDeleteI share your enthusiasm toward solar panels; still, 99% of the energy that we codgers consume is still fossil-fuel based: propane heating, stove, frig; and of course, the motor vehicle that drags us around.
Pure poetry! Thank you.
ReplyDelete