repiphany

i tried this once before, but blogger wouldn't let me post. perhaps just as well... it was a nasty rant. i'm calmer now.

we've just had a biodiesel conference here in our northern prairie town, initiated by a very dear friend, who's the local agriculture extension person. we had brilliant people from all over north america in our midst. i was one of the lucky ones who got to chauffer them around, so i was blessed with many one-on-one conversations with amazing people with whom i'd not normally ever have that chance. it reminded me why i am where i am, what's important to me, and where i want my life to go.

i didn't choose to work for an oil company. it's the only job i was offered when i finished my business course. what i really wanted was something in the administration end of the arts. and i've applied and applied since i started here nearly 3 years ago, but nobody seems to want me. so here i stay. because i have to eat.

but my conscience bothers me. i don't like oil companies. i feel like i'm trying to serve 2 masters. it's a sort of cycle i go through. send out resumes madly, go to job interviews, be disappointed, resign myself to where i'm at... get frustrated, send out resumes..... ad infinitum. part of the problem is that the first assumption of most employers is that oil companies pay far more than they can, so they don't even call me for the interview. and, though the pay is decent, i'm a pretty small cog, so it's not as much as many people seem to think.

it's a trap... that i've built for myself. i love my little renovated church home. i've pretty much built it myself from an empty shell. but i hate the cost of heating it (both financial and environmental) and of commuting from it to my job in another town. and i feel isolated. surrounded by rednecks whose idea of humor is a sexist or racist slur, and people with more money than good sense or compassion.

i have very little in common with my co-workers. they take holidays in the tropics and spend summer weekends pulling shining new 5th wheel trailers behind equally shiny new monster trucks and SUV's. there's often a speedboat or a quad in tow. they buy all the latest gadgets and toys and think global warming is a joke. they'd be very pleased to see our winters less harsh and long. they give no thought to the millions of other travellers on spaceship Earth who'll be broiled alive, starved or drowned when that happens. so we all continue driving our carbon producing toys and complaining about the cost of fuel. but we pay it. because we can. and to hell with the consequences. somehow, they just won't affect us.

the people i spent time with at the aforementioned conference are of another type. i was ashamed at their dismay in the lifestyle i, and my neighbors live, consuming hydrocarbons and imported goods insatiably, with no recognition of the real, global cost.

almost nothing we use is produced here. everything - food, clothing, building materials, even the petroleum products that are the source of our wealth - are tansported across the continent to us. though the oil comes from here, it's transported by pipeline to eastern Canada and the US for refining. in summer, much of our fresh produce comes from California and Mexico. many farm families (and we're a farming community, pretty much... despite the fact that most farmers have to work in the oilpatch to keep up with their lifestyles) don't even grow a garden. they eat their own beef, but buy the rest of their food in a supermarket.

and it's cold here, so it takes a lot of whatever you're using to keep your house warm. and the houses are all so !#&* BIG!!! wouldn't want to actually have to spend any time in the same room with our kids or spouse, now, would we?

and, let's face it, i'm menopausal, and grumpy, so maybe i'm overreacting. i feel like i'm on a treadmill that sits in a quicksand quagmire. no matter how hard i work, i'm going down. alone.

way past the end of lunch break. must make obeisance to mammon.

merry christmas