You can eat a peach any day. Thanks to overnight delivery and 24-hour stores, you can buy a peach 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Some stores are open on holidays so, yes, even on Christmas you can buy a peach. The trouble is you don’t. Maybe you buy some but then you put them in the refrigerator and never eat them. You will eat one tomorrow. Today that chocolate ice cream is just too inviting. The next day, peach day, you choose a piece of cake instead. It goes on like this until the peaches are so rotten you consider getting a new fridge.
One of my favorite instructors at UC San Diego was Dr. Paul Saltman. He passed away a few years ago. He studied the effects of trace elements on physiology. He would often comment on the fact that there are undetectable amounts of essential minerals and substances in foods that neither science nor medicines know about. We need these nutrients in very small doses and in some cases, large doses would be fatal. We used to get these beneficial materials as a consequence of our varied diet that was caused by the seasonal availability of different foods. We ate peaches in July and August because that was when they were ripe. We had apples in the fall because that was when they were ready. We made preserves and dried fruits to have them available longer but those eventually ran out. We also were more inclined to eat what was put before us because the alternative was not a punishment it was hunger. There was no alternative. Eat or starve, your choice.
Today, there is always something else to eat in most homes. You can have a hamburger and fries at every meal. You can eat a salad at every meal too but that seems to happen less often. What was once a broad and mixed diet has become less varied as the choices we have available has increased. This is one of the absurdities of choice. The more you have to choose from the fewer things you choose! The narrow range of foods that many people eat is now causing malnutrition maladies that have been absent from our first-world country for decades. Like the frog that is slowly cooked and dies before it realizes it should jump out of the pot, we have an abundance of riches that is killing us. Some of the effects are lowered intelligence, reduced life expectancy and greater susceptibility to disease.
Diversity is not a bad thing. It's how we apply this diversity that causes trouble. Having 500+ channels to choose from means that we no longer have three networks deciding what is best for us to watch. Therefore, left to our own discretion we avoid edification for entertainment. We skip education for excitement. We avoid programs that might awaken deep thoughts in favor of shows that arouse our base nature. With the Digital Video Recorder (DVR, Tivo, or VCR) we can save those less pleasing things for another time; first gratification, then elevation. Very soon, we will not even have to record those shows. We can choose to see them any time thanks to the Internet. Just like with the peaches, they’ll be there tomorrow. Today we just want to numb our minds and turn-on our libido.
The same effect is happening in our neighborhoods, communities and the groups we associate with. Thanks to the great social networks we can find people with very similar tastes. We no longer need to interact with our neighbors. Why join a community group where we might be asked to tolerate differences of opinion. Thanks to the Internet, we can even be someone else whenever we want. We have so many friends to choose from (100,000,000 on MySpace alone) why would we want to talk to our neighbor next-door. He might be a nice person but we already have so many friends he is going to have to join a group for us to take the time to see if we like him. The gal across the street might be nice too but until she posts some pictures online there are more potentially gratifying “friends” to get to know. Some friends even have web cams that let us into their lives in ways our neighbors might not approve of.
For all of the talk about the big tent of each political party, the only people who are allowed to address the crowds are members with a specific and limited view. The parties are happy to have our money but not our input. They are happy to talk about the diversity of their membership but loathe allowing discussions that vary from the points of the party platform. Variety is tolerated as long as it is not opinion that we are talking about. Diversity is great as long as the diverse are quiet and don’t make trouble.
How can we avoid narrowing our selections as we confront growing diversity around us? Make a determined effort to get to know people who are not like you. Watch movies that are not in your video collection. Find choices that are not on your Netflix or Amazon recommendation lists. Enter your library into LibraryThing and then find a book that none of your friends has and read it. We have to make purposeful choices to keep diversity in our lives from becoming narrow-mindedness, malnutrition, and anti-social behavior. Start by having a peach today.
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Comments: 27
bananas, and so on, and so forth. Powerful article to get one thinking. Web 2.0 is changing the World.
See, I make most of my purchasing decisions by what I can afford. If, say, peaches cost a dollar a pound, and bananas cost 44 cents a pound, odds are I'm just going to have bananas. If the unhealthy ground beef costs $2 a pound and the ultrahealthy ground turkey costs $4 a pound... you see what I mean?
We make decisions between what's good for us and what's good for our wallets, and in many cases, they're not the same thing. We struggle to survive, and then we wonder why we don't feel like we're living; we rush out to live, and discover that soon we have nothing left to live on.
So give me some money, and then I'll go buy some peaches.
Austin - Sometimes diversity is thrust upon us by our conditions. Living is not having, it's the experience.
I like Chile as a country, but I don't like the environmental cost of transporting food over thousands of miles.
What do I do?
Parents indulge their chidren by permitting them to demand what they will and will not eat. Children must be fed what is good for them, and made to go hungry if they refuse what is right for them rather than indulged with the unhealthy things they are demanding.
Wanting to eat things imported from far away leaves a terrible carbon footprint on the planet. We should try to eat what is produced locally--from a radius of 200 miles around us.
Austin, you are NOT poor, you have a computer, you seem to have an education, I am not sure you even know what being really poor is...maybe you are just lazy...get a job, get 2 jobs. Participate in the economic machine that makes the world run or you will just get 'run over'.
This: "So give me some money, and then I'll go buy some peaches. " sums you up pretty well and it sums up the malaise and 'what's in it for me' mentality of a large group of entitled Americans.
Why should anyone GIVE you anything?
Go out and earn it the old fashioned way!
I do agree however that our culture and society tend to favoritize things with broad appeal- and that tends to dumb down our political and social life. I have never watched a minute of American Idol and I think I am a better person for it. In terms of book publishing, many good books are ignored while the bestseller lists contain a lot of sloppy books written in 3 months. If we try a bit harder as consumers, this could change.
"I grow old I grow old, I shall wear my trousers rolled.. Do I dare to eat a peach?" Yup, when it is in season.
The greatest political moment I experienced was when former Congressman Martin Sabo was addressing a meeting at the Longfellow Community Center in South Minneapolis. It was during the nuclear hysteria of the mid-1980's and a young progressive woman was questioning why the Congress would authorize funds for nuclear weapons. She began to cry and couldn't finish her question.
Sabo stopped the meeting and comforted her.
He then launched into a gentle lecture on "getting out more" and "spending more time with people who have different views than you do".
Essentially he was admonishing the crowd for their social isolation.
What I find stunning, and we see it here on Gather every day, is how people can still isolate themselves even when they share cyber-space with others who have diverse opinions.
Very thoughtful article. I've thought often about how we have too many choices, that the choices can be overwhelming. It's tough to go into a store and see 15 brands of peanut butter or a huge aisle of different types of cleaning products. I do think 'simpler' is better and less stressful.
We live in a neighborhood where each home has over an acre of land. It is VERY difficult to see and interact with the neighbors. We have 5 kids, so it makes it a little easier, because kids seek out other kids! But we have made an effort to get to know some of our neighbors. Although I participate here in Gather, I don't find my main social connections here. I really try to reach out to others, and I have a strong web of friends. It's sad to see that many Americans do not have that any more.
On a final note, I grew up visiting my great uncles' farm often. They had apple and peach orchards. There is nothing like a fresh white peach! I buy them when I see them in season. It brings back memories!
... so even during an era of lesser diversity, we were able save a sweet summer treat for later enjoyment ... maybe that is how some people feel about the shows they "put-up" with their VCR, DVR, or other new device.
Living in Georgia for part of my formative years we got peaches from roadside stands. They were so juicy they gave you napkins when you bought a bushel. Driving in the hot summer sun with sweet liquid dribbling down your chin is a tiny piece of nirvana.
Your analogy gave me pause to think. We try to buy to seasonal at our local farmers market, but I am still liable to get Taco Bell instead of chopping up greens. Bad me, bad me.
Namaste, Wayne
Want some Turkish Delight? Can't get it in stores, go to a Turkish website and order some! Russian music too, and lots of other things.
I know, that's like having peaches available all year round, but in another way, it's getting to know the world outside of "the only things available locally."
Side note: There were already Peaches at the Farmer's Market that are locally grown here!
I think that, for me, things kind of circle around. Yes, having all of these new choices distracts me for a while, but I come back around to the same old tried, true and healthy favs. I watch the history channel and PBS and also have a salad with every dinner, for example.
My first book is just coming out next week (May 21st to be exact), "Maps for Modern Magellans: Charts for Captains of Commerce". In a nutshell, it is an effort to put business basics in a new format to help people who struggle with their business and life. I try to be insightful without being professorial. When I started it I thought it would have 20 short chapters. As I received feedback to provide more detail the book grew so long that I split it. In the second volume, due out in the fall, I discussed unintended consequences. It looks like the carbon footprint of having what we want when we want is probably an unintended consequence.
The comments on the taste of fresh peaches are also wonderfully vivid. We have a white peach tree in our yard. While the peaches may not grow as large as the supermarket varieties they taste fantastic. It helps that they are essentially free. The next piece I am working on is a Modern Magellans Manifesto. In it I propose that we recall that green-space and self-sufficiency project power and provide a sense of peace and self-assurance that are important as we go through the challenges of life. I hope you'll read it and comment on it as well.
Thanks again for your notes and votes
"an abundance of riches that is killing us"
There certainly is a lot of growing truth in that. It's interesting that the food market's growing diversity, which was once hailed for bringing certain essential vitamin and mineral rich foods to areas that did not have local sources for such, are now beleaguered for injuring our health with cheaply made and esoteric foods. Desires for profits seemingly being the point of change.
I wanted to make an allusion to "Eat a peach", the rock album from the Allman Brothers Band, but I could not figure how.
I feel there is no harm in picking those you wish to associate with.
From my point of view-- I am having a hard time understanding why you feel I must know a neighbor who I feel I will not like. I like knowing personalities. This has nothing to do with diversity. Kids are growing up a product of their parents. The kids I know are half white and half black. What diversity? I am confused.