GOODBYE BLAND AFFLUENCE~Get ready for authenticity chic;

[giovonni]

The Wall Street Journal

Goodbye Bland Affluence
Get ready for authenticity chic.
By PEGGY NOONAN
A small sign of the times: USA Today this week ran an article about a Michigan family that, under financial pressure, decided to give up credit cards, satellite television, high-tech toys and restaurant dining, to live on a 40-acre farm and become more self-sufficient. The Wojtowicz family—36-year-old Patrick, his wife Melissa, 37, and their 15-year-old daughter Gabrielle—have become, in the words of reporter Judy Keen, "21st century homesteaders," raising pigs and chickens, planning a garden and installing a wood furnace.

Mr. Wojtowicz was a truck driver frustrated by long hauls that kept him away from his family, and worried about a shrinking salary. His wife was self-employed and worked at home. They worked hard and had things but, Mr. Wojtowicz said, there was a "void." "We started analyzing what it was that we were really missing. We were missing being around each other." So he gave up his job and now works the land his father left him near Alma, Mich. His economic plan was pretty simple: "As long as we can keep decreasing our bills we can keep making less money."

The paper weirdly headlined them "economic survivalists," which perhaps reflected an assumption that anyone who leaves a conventional, material-driven life for something more physically rigorous but emotionally coherent is by definition making a political statement. But it didn't look political from the story they told. They didn't look like people trying to figure out how to survive as much as people trying to figure out how to live. The picture that accompanied the article showed a happy family playing Scrabble with a friend.

Their story hit a nerve. There was a lively comment thread on the paper's Web site, with more than 300 people writing in. "They look pretty happy to me," said a commenter. "My husband and I are making some of the same decisions." Another: "I don't know if this is so much survivalism as a return to common sense." Another: "The more stuff you own the harder you have to work to maintain it."

To some degree the Wojtowicz story sounded like the future, or the future as a lot of people are hoping it will be: pared down, more natural, more stable, less full of enervating overstimulation, of what Walker Percy called the "trivial magic" of modern times.

The article offered data suggesting the Wojtowiczes are part of a recent trend. People are gardening more if you go by the sales of vegetable seeds and transplants, up 30% over last year at the country's largest seed company. Sales of canning and preserving products are also up. Companies that make sewing products say more people are learning to sew. I have a friend in Manhattan who took to surfing the Web over the past six months looking for small- and farm towns in which to live. The general manager of a national real-estate company told USA Today that more customers want to "live simply in a less-expensive place."

More Peggy NoonanRead Peggy Noonan's previous columns.
And click here to order her new book, Patriotic Grace..
Some of this—the desire to live less expensively, and perhaps with greater simplicity—seems to key off what I am seeing in Manhattan, a place still generally with more grievances than grief, and with a greater imagination about how badly things are going to go than how bad it is right now. Many think that no matter how much money is sloshing through the system from Washington, creating waves that lead to upticks, the recession is really a depression. We won't "come out of it," as the phrase goes, for five or seven years, because the downturn is systemic, global, and because the old esprit is gone. The baby boomers who for 40 years, from 1968 through 2008, did the grunt work of the great abundance—work was always a long-haul trip for them, they were the first in the office in 1975 and are the last to leave the office to this day—know the era they built is over, that something new is beginning, something more subdued and altogether more mysterious. The old markers of success—money, status, power—will not quite apply as they have. They watch and work as the future emerges.

In New York some signs of that future are obvious: fewer cars, less traffic, less of the old busy hum of the economic beehive. New York will, literally, get dimmer. Its magical bright-light nighttime skyline will glitter less as fewer companies inhabit the skyscrapers and put on the lights that make the city glow.

A prediction: By 2010 the mayor, in a variation on broken-window theory, will quietly enact a bright-light theory, demanding that developers leave the lights on whether there are tenants in the buildings or not, lest the world stand on a rise in New Jersey and get the impression no one's here and nobody cares.

The New York of the years 1750 to 2008—a city that existed for money and for all the arts and delights and beauties money brings—is for the first time going to struggle with questions about its reason for being. This will cause profound dislocations. For a good while the young will continue to flock in, for cheaper rents. Artists will still want to gather with artists—you cannot pick up the Metropolitan Museum and put it in Alma, Mich. But there will be a certain diminution in the assumption of superiority on which New York has long run, and been allowed, by America, to run.

More predictions. The cities and suburbs of America are about to get rougher-looking. This will not be all bad. There will be a certain authenticity chic. Storefronts, pristine buildings—all will spend less on upkeep, and gleam less.

So will humans. People will be allowed to grow old again. There will be a certain liberation in this. There will be fewer facelifts and browlifts, less Botox, less dyed hair among both men and women. They will look more like people used to look, before perfection came in. Middle-aged bodies will be thicker and softer, with more maternal and paternal give. There will be fewer gyms and fewer trainers, but more walking. Gym machines produced the pumped and cut look. They won't be so affordable now.

Hollywood will take the cue. During the depression, stars such as Clark Gable were supposed to look like normal men. Physical perfection would have distanced them from their audience. Now leading men are made of megamuscles, exaggerated versions of their audience. That will change.

The new home fashion will be spare. This will be the return of an old WASP style: the good, frayed carpet; dogs that look like dogs and not a hairdo in a teacup, as miniature dogs back from the canine boutique do now.

A friend, noting what has and will continue to happen with car sales, said America will look like Havana—old cars and faded grandeur. It won't. It will look like 1970, only without the bell-bottoms and excessive hirsuteness. More families will have to live together. More people will drink more regularly. Secret smoking will make a comeback as part of a return to simple pleasures. People will slow down. Mainstream religion will come back. Walker Percy again: Bland affluence breeds fundamentalism. Bland affluence is over.


originial article here;http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123992073614326997.html

[Dantheman62]

Great article, and I believe this will increase a lot more! I call it a reverse trend, where people move back to the country and away from the cities.Yeah the cities have bright lights and glamour and restaurants, but there's nothing like the pitch black star filled skies of the country!

[Noela]

Thanks for this post, Gio. This is certainly my view
of the future - and how I hope it will go.

We are all unique individuals and will find
different ways of adjusting to this new kind
of world, no doubt. That's fine, and how it
should be. But we are also all part of the
collective energy - and if things move in
the direction suggested by your thread
adjustment will be easier.

I love the bit about "it will be permitted to get old,
and be a liberation". Yep, it is a bit of a liberation
Has anyone noticed how ageism seems the last
of the "isms" to have made any counter impact -
hardly registers as something to be considered
and deplored?

[Carmen]

Any action (however small) toward self-sufficiency, self-sustainability brings with it more energy and then more ideas for the next step. The intelligence of this Universe lends a hand to those who help themselves. The earth honours those who honour her.

A whole new world, a new enthusiasm arises that was alway there, but dormant!. Those who help themselves, help others by example. Self responsible people are magnetic. Enthusiasm is attractive.

Love and Light

Carmen

[Christo888]

Well if MMS could add 25 years to your life and living in a rural area lessens the toxic affects on the body maybe the signs of ageing really won't be so bad.

I think it was the slowing down of the efficiency of our Hormones that creates the ageing. Hormones run on the Binary system of 1's and 0's, and apparently Egyptians knew how to recharge their body's electromagnetism so they lived longer.

Maybe that's why so many Hieroglyph's are of young or of youthful depiction; they just didn't show or have many ageing effects from their environ. The 'Tablets of Thoth' have 'Anti-Ageing' techniques in them and those techniques are free.

We could build miniature rural communities that are electromagnetic (Egypt was a giant circuit board) and stay young and healthy!

[Carmen]

Hmm, if we also added the mind into the mix Christo, we would definitely be onto a youth serum. Our neuronets in our brains, and the beliefs of society that aging and dying is our lot, is a huge limiting factor to forever youth. Our bodies deteriate because our minds "think" that they should!

[scanner]

Been my dream for years haven't got the funds to do it though , just bought the multi fuel stove read to go in my farm when it comes AND IT WILL

[Noela]

Oh Carmen, I couldn't agree with you more.

This has been my philosophy and belief for years,
i.e."we deteriorate physically (and sometimes mentally)
because this is engrained in society's belief system"

I must admit it is harder to maintain the more the
years tick by- but I keep being given helpers -
people, ideas, suggestions - but the most important
is one's own attitude and belief.

More controversially - I believe the lack of sex or
sexual interest plays a part. Now this is a lack
that is more difficult to remedy!! And is there
ever a taboo here!

However, I do remember reading somewhere
that the way to agelessness was
"sex and social action" - and I think they may
have a point!

[Carmen]

The sexual energy used in a creative way, upwards instead of outwards is the key to enlivening the body I think Noela How did we get onto this Its your fault Noela

Tantric sex is probably one form of sexual expression that teaches this. Ask Sting, I think he's into this stuff.

Anyway, I was taught that sexual energy contained in the body energized and enlivened the cells. Celibacy is a natural part of spiritual advancement and not something that there should be rules about. I have noticed that some people (men usually) who are very sexual, age quite rapidly and some retain a wonderful aura of health and vitality. I suspect that this difference is their level of consciousness. Can't comment about women, although I think being in love adds to a womans youthfulness

Love and Light

Carmen

[Noela]

Thanks Carmen - and yes, it is my fault - on to
the subject of sex again! (three planets in Scorpio).

My week-end on a Tantric Sex w/e was a real downer.
However, I do have a friend who was a facilitator
for Trantric sex workshops. She gives me some
useful info.

Cheers

[Noela]

I have just been watching Susan Boyle singing
"I dreamed a Dream" on Youtube - and I feel
this is an example of some of the changes we
have been talking about in this thread - maybe
a forerunner.

I guess most people now have heard of Susan
Boyle, the 47 year old from Scotland who took
the audience (and the panel) by storm on
the show "Britain has Talent".

And why? - Yes, she has a great voice, but it
seems to me there was more than that going
on here. We could see and hear the snide looks
and remarks before she sang, but then -
right from the first note there was heart and
spirit and, it seems to me, a heart connection
that went directly from Susan to each and every
one in that audience - not to mention the panel.

It is affecting me even as I write about it -
truly, truly amazing - and how confirming for
all we on this Forum hope for in our "Brave New
World" to see how people react to heart energy.
It was spontaneous and immediate, the
recognition, it would seem from everyone, of
that energy, given with simplicity and without
pretention, from someone who just sang for
the joy of it.

:thumb_yell o::thumb_ye llo:

[giovonni]

Hi Noela
My sister and all her friends have gone bonkers for Susan!

They call me Susie Simple!

I find her simply brilliant> in her demeaner and candor
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...ghing-now.html

[Noela]

Dear Giovonnie (and others) - my laptop went in for repairs a few days
ago. It has felt like losing my right arm! Finally, I have headed off
to an Internet Cafe to catch up.

Good to hear your comments about Susan. I came late to watching
her on Youtube. I do feel that what this epitomises is the change
we all hope to see - from ego to heart. That's why I feel it is so
important. No doubt there are many others who are responding
from the heart (perhaps without really knowing this is what they
are doing - it's just natural for them).

This is probably particularly true of the very young - who will come
and show us a new way of being.

(Sure feels good to be back online - but probably not much from me
until laptop returns - nothing serious "overuse" the workshop telle me!)