When Passion Becomes Obsession

When Passion becomes Obsession

 

  We all have passions. We all have things that we are passionate about and often they are things that others don't understand. For those of our friends who do not understand our passions, they seem like obsession. But are they really an obsession, or are we just devoted to the things that we love, and over time our passions change, we learn to love and do new things. Sometimes those passions are complementary to earlier loves and at other times they displace their predecessors. It is the cycle of life, we experiment, we prosper, we grow bored and we move on. 

  

  For many years my driving passion was geocaching, and I still like to get out occasionally, but it doesn't seem to hold the same spot in my heart that it used to. I found a resurgence in my love for it when I discovered photography. I found them to be complementary hobbies, geocaching would take us to wondrous spots and I could capture them on camera for future reference. For a time I was in the prospering stage again. Then a new passion arrived, writing. 

 I had used the photos from geocaching in the past and developed a blog that I updated in a hit or miss fashion. It seemed that sometimes I was too busy doing to take the time for the telling. Then, about six months ago, the writing bug bit me, hard. I started on a novel and the next thing you know I had two novels written in the first draft stage, but my blog still suffered. it seemed that words on the computer were words that I didn't get in my novel. A challenge from the writing group that I joined changed all of that. The challenge was simple, to start a blog or to return to one we already had. The twist was, that our first topic was randomly generated. I posted that one a couple of weeks ago. Now I am back to writing on my own terms. And that brings us to the obsession.

 Starting on November 1, writers all around the world are taking part in NaNoWriMo. If you are wondering what that is, you are not alone. It stands for Nation Novel Writing Month, and is a challenge to write 50,000 words in one month on a novel. It has been going on for a long time, but it was not until I started writing a novel and looking for community involvement that I discovered it. So, for the next month I will be chained in the basement at a desk, hammering on the keys of the computer in a quest to challenge myself to write a novel in a month.   I think that qualifies as an obsession, don't you. 

To all of my friends and family, I'll see you in December.

  

 

Memory of Wool

   Now that the weather is getting colder, we find ourselves digging in the closet for warmer clothing. Gone are the days of t-shirts and shorts, and we welcome the season of long pants and sweaters. As I dig through the piles of clothes, I find that I am amazed by the changes in my closet over my lifetime. 

   When I was younger, cold weather meant that the hats and mittens were pulled out of a garbage bag that had spent half a year stuffed into the back of one of the few closets in the house. Now we find ourselves looking in a walk-in closet, for a plastic tote that in all likelihood has been sealed with cedar to keep the clothing fresh and moth free. No more picking up the moth balls that fall out of the bag as we dig through finding our favourite hats and mittens. 

   The clothing itself has probably changed the most. We used to use wool for everything. We had wool scarves, wool mittens, wool socks, wool sweaters, and even wool long underwear. I even remember having wool pants to wear outside when it was particularly cold. And we were glad for the extra warmth. We pitied our friends who went coasting or skating in only a pair of jeans. We knew that they were going to freeze as soon as they got the least bit wet and that they would be the first to leave to go home and warm up. 

   Wool was the go to material for many years. It retained its warmth when it got wet, and it let out moisture when you were physically active. But anyone who remembers those days also remembers how it itched. It seemed that we got a new home knit sweater most years for Christmas and we had to try it on for fit as soon as we unwrapped it. With no base layer, as we would say today, the feel of that scratchy wool was enough to make us want to rip the skin from our bodies. But when we put a shirt under it, we were warm and cozy and ready to face the worst that winter had to offer. 

   Today, microfiber has largely replaced the wool of our youth, and it does the job with amazing skill, keeping us warm in all conditions. But there are still the purists who insist on natural fibres and for them it is still wool. But even wool has changed over the years. The Merino wool of today is as soft as silk on the skin and you can wear it with little worry that you will remove it to find you skin reddened and full of hives. The socks, mittens and hats are all soft and warm while being more durable than their home knit ancestors. You don’t see anyone today sitting around with an orange stuffed in the heel of a sock, darning the worn out section. Some skill have gone by the wayside in the march to progress.

   Regardless of the type of clothing you prefer, modern or old-school, this is the season to dig out those warm clothes and get outside and have a walk through the crisp air as you kick your feet through the fallen leaves and take in my favourite season of the year in comfort.

Changes in our Lives

  As we shuffle through this mortal coil, we make many changes in our lives.  The things that at one time meant the most to us will fall by the wayside, temporarily or in some cases, permanently. New challenges and experiences will step in to grab our interest, and these may become the new driving force for us, or they

may end up being one more step on the journey through life.  

 

  Recently I have taken up writing, and have to date written two novels. As a beginning writer, I now realize that the first draft is rough, really rough. I see a long time in the editing phase as I re-learn all of the grammar that I have forgotten since I was a student in those long ago days. To that end, I joined a writing group, and we meet every other week to be a combination critique, cheering section, and motivational group. They are cheaper than a therapist for trying to reclaim any shred of self respect after two weeks of tearing apart every word that I have put on paper. 

  As part of our group, we often set goals and do writing exercises. The last meeting set a goal of creating an online presence through a blog, or if we already had a blog, to get back to writing. The catch was that a random idea generator would pick our topic. The topic that came through this descent into computer alchemy is "Will Butter Rule the World."  That's it, no more suggestions, no guidelines. The only caveat was that we should aim for five-hundred words, I missed that last one as we were on vacation, so I went over.  We met again last night and lo and behold, not one of us had published on our blogs. So guess what our goal was for this week? You probably guessed it, to actually hit 'send'. 

  Well here goes, my quick jotting for my writers group.

The Rise of Butter

The end of the petro-economy or ‘The Great Greening’ as it later came to be known, did not arise from the efforts of the environmentalists as everyone anticipated. Rather it came about from the greed of the petrochemical executives themselves. Everyone in the early 21^st Century assumed that the race to stop global warming would be won by the citizens through a concerted effort toward altruism and the good of their fellow man. The truth is that the greed of the executives hid the fact that peak oil had long passed and the industry was on borrowed time. Trying to squeeze every cent of profits, they kept the decline a secret as the first wells went dry. Playing a shell game with shipments, they kept the populace in the dark about the end of oil until too many dry wells brought shipments to a halt. The ships that delivered the oil had dry tanks and the flow to the consumer ceased.

Industries that relied on oil closed, and one of the hardest hit was the agricultural industry. Reliance on cheap fertilizers derived from oil and monoculture planting led to crop failures in the first year. Hybrid seed that could not reproduce from the parent plant, grew wild and people watched in vain as their efforts to feed their families produced nothing of value for their stomachs.

The fledgling alternate energy industry, long stunted by the petrochemical companies, struggled to ramp up production, but ran into the same energy wall that the rest of society had, it takes energy to produce products, and the machinery that had been used to date ran on fossil fuels. A great effort ensued to retrofit these machines and at last they were put into production. The final straw of the petro-collapse was discovered when there were a shortage of lubricants to maintain any machine in working order. Work progressed on finding a replacement for high grade machine lubricants.

Most trees suitable for producing oil fruit had been cut for firewood on that first cold winter after the collapse of oil, eliminating several potential sources. Parallel research into the uses of lard or vegetable oils ran into the same problems, their products could not be grown without large amounts of fertilizers or antibiotics. The solution came from the dairy industry, and the use of butter. Researchers were able to refine butter and cheese into a high quality lubricant that would keep machines running for the foreseeable future. Countries that had banned the use of antibiotics in their dairy found themselves the leaders of the new economy as their herds flourished while their competitors hybrids succumbed to disease.

The dairy industry, already a strong lobby in the petro-dollar days, took advantage of the situation and rushed to cement their advantages in the marketplace by having advantageous laws enacted banning the use of antibiotic feeds in agriculture. This made the dairy industry the sole reliable source of fats and oils for industry and home use.

The United State, once a leader in the dairy and oil industries, found that their over-reliance on oil products and pharmaceutical farming, left them unable to maintain a domestic supply and their industries fell into decline. Canada, Britain and Germany having found themselves in a favourable position, replaced the dollar with the Pound(butter) as the favoured international currency. Butter is now revered as the saviour of the human race and is held as the new gold standard.