The Way is a method and the Truth is a goal. The Way and the Truth, in the same place at the same time, is the essence of humanity. Friends, I don’t know what I’m about to say, but I feel that the Way and the Truth are near.
I have met like minded people recently. I urge you to meet them too. You can find them at
http://www.dinegreen.com. It seems that there is an association out there that has provided a Way. Through a series of test questions, a restaurant can earn a “green rating” which appears to align with what we’re trying to do here: be sensible. I’m honored to live in a little town outside of Philadelphia that has one of a dozen Pennsylvania restaurants that makes the cut to be certified.
But that’s a Way. What about the Truth? Well, dear Readers, you already feel the Truth a bit, don’t you? Like spider legs up the stem of your brain little thoughts crawled up wondering “but why does such a big state have only a dozen green restaurants?… there must be some out in the rural areas that are default green… it’s a .com, so it’s for profit… this is a self-selecting group that is green-washing…”. And we all lose hope again.
You know, the Chevrolet automobile company is about to release an electric car. That’s about the best Way I can think of to take a strong step forward as a Civilization toward recognizing that Humans are part of the corporeal reality we call the Universe and we better damn well respect it. But I naturally feel that this new technology is a strong step while, at the same time, I know that Chevy does it because they have to in order to survive. Two minds are easy here: Markets and Progress - a new technology makes a change easy.
The Way that relates to eating locally isn’t Progress. It’s a Regress. We’ve been there before. We evolved from there. We evolved culturally away from there.
I realize that I’m not on the verge of stating the Way and the Truth. I’m here today to say what prevents us from getting there.
Deep inside every Western Culture Human, eating locally feels like admitting defeat. It feels like a failure. It isn’t Progress. It is admitting that our grandparents knew something we didn’t, and like the snot-nosed pricks we are, we pout instead of doing the right thing.
So we see the self-selecting group trying to move us back to Green Dining and we see a gimmick, and we see an attempt to be wholly self-sufficient as a heroic effort in the spirit of John Wayne or any other red-blooded American that pulled himself up by his bootstraps… And we don’t let ourselves see the wisdom that grew out of generations of living with the land.
What did I learn on day 10? The Truth is, or at least the truth must be, that profit is a dirty word. Profits come as long as we do the right thing. Thinking "well it's a business so of course..." leads us to failure. Business, government, green and the-old-way is all driven by people. And the Truth is from people. If people won't do it, whatever it is, then there is no Truth for us.
We live by our Man-made economy. We win by making that economy reflect what we want. When I choose to eat dinner out, I will eat at the Tex Mex Connection. When I eat at home, I won’t expect fresh apples in December or steaks in April. I can eat in season for where I live just fine.
So what do I do with the garden? I should grow a Paw Paw tree…
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