Hi, all of you wonderful people!
I want to share with you some of my thoughts from these last weeks, and what I've been looking into. As I came back, the political situation in Estonia has become more and more out of balance, my life and new job have been quite time-consuming, and my new (mainly online) friends are actively organising protest performances and making manifests (paradoxically, the situation in media and public speeches has become „calm“ again, politicians are even talking, how we can learn from the crisis we had, though it is far from over). A lot of this protest ideology is rather new to me, so I've started reading and re-thinking what I've read before. Mind you, all of my „live-without-money“ and anarchist ideas are not to propagate moneyless environment and upset Martin, it's just exploring the possibilities to learn and develop a better system with combined knowledge :)
The information might not be new to a lot of you (as you are exeptionally smart ppl with a lot of knowledge), but writing it down sort-of clears my mind and helps me organize information in my head, so here we go:
I recently read Kalle Lasn and his book called „The Culture Jam“, and though it is a bit old already, I really recommend it. There's more on it here, for example: http://depts.washington.edu/ccce/polcommcampaigns/CultureJamming.htm
Adbusters, his activism campain focused on creating a shift in the public consumerist conciousness using the tools of the same commercial propaganda and brainwashing machine, has a webpage (www.adbusters.org) and it is quite active on Facebook, too. There are a lot of great creative approaches to changing the consumerist system on the web.
I have also looked into the food wasting system we have here in Estonia (what happens to the expired supermarket foods, what regulations stop it from being redistributed, what to do with the local food bank being evicted from its storage space, etc) and tried to get in touch with the people interested in freeganism.
Also, my friends, I want to encourage you to look into your local freecycle mailing list. The stuff circling there is surprisingly versatile. It's a good place to ask for anything, or to get rid of those slightly too small but oh so pretty shoes, or your old PC speakers, or really.. anything. And when exchanging your gifts you definately meet nice people :) http://www.freecycle.org/
Oh, I have missed you, and I have used so much of the knowledge gained in Sunseed when talking with my friends. A strange thing has happened though, for many different reasons I have lost touch with most of the people I shared my ideas with before, and many of the new friends are more interested in sharing love and enlightenment than political activism or something like that. It is sometimes hard to find the right people to work with, and I have been quite quiet as well, focusing on gaining knowledge and personal development..
I have enjoyed all of your links and thoughts, and will continue to do so, I'm sure!
Have a wonderful end of the year, and keep everybody updated on your plans, there is much to gain from your wisdom :)
Greetings and hugs,
Maarja
