Everything is Bad for You

Is there a solution to living in a toxic world?

Good Morning Fellow Optimists!

Please don’t be discouraged by today’s title. There is always hope at the end of each essay that I write, even the hard ones.

If you are new to The Ruins, you may want to start with this video that I made to lay out the big picture of what these pages are about.

We had a big week on the ground at The Ruins proper. The crazy talented mosaicist, Margy Cottingham arrived to install her second major work, The Mrs. Viola Johnson Portrait. Viola’s son, grandson, great-grandson, and great-great granddaughter arrived for the unveiling. Tears were shed, stories told. More to come on all that soon.

I came up with a new line yesterday…

The Ruins: a story that was supposed to be over.

Ten words that trick you into thinking they are simple. Reminds me of that line attributed to Hemingway as the shortest story ever told…

”For sale, Baby shoes, Never worn.”

Detail of The Viola Johnson Portrait by Margy Cottingham

And now, the main event…

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It’s like we are all playing a game of The Price is Right, forever.

We are stuck in a consumers loop that never stops demanding we buy into it. It has become nearly impossible to exit the game because the game has become all powerful. The lure of the perfect purse. The purest olive oil. The seduction of the heated seats. The latest Kitchen Aid mixer. Or in my case, another batch of vintage smalti for my color library.

Our consumerism sets the stage for the subject of badness. Because with all the things we need to buy, comes our relationships to them. Once we are faced with the latest list of things that are bad for us, we realize that our only real power lies in not buying them.

First there are the clear baddies of today…plastics, both single use and micros. Polyester, pesticides, processed food. Mercury in our fish. Microwaves, especially when paired with the aforementioned plastics. Sodium lauryl sulfate in our shampoo. Aluminum in our deodorant.

I couldn’t read to the end of this bleak article 23 Toxic Chemicals You Come into Contact with on a Daily Basis. The Azodicarbonamide in your yoga mat may kill you! The PFC’s in your carpeting may be causing your ADHD. The chloroform in your swimming pool may be causing your depression. To go down this path is to descend into madness.

Have you ever read the Prop 65 warning labels that come with almost every item that we buy now? You can find it on a shovel at Home Depot and the socks you order from Amazon. There is no escape from the system and the system is trying to kill you.

I lean more towards the attitude that life may kill me tomorrow so best not get too worked up about a bag of over processed Cheetos or not wearing the mask while mixing thin-set for the next mosaic. But I admit that navigating the world of things that will kill me while simply trying to shop for dinner is harrowing stuff. Food shopping is the worst of the toxic mine fields. I either feel guilty for spending the extra money on the organic free range chicken or I feel guilty for not caring enough about my long term viability to spring for the organic price point. And you better believe that I have considered that those two chickens may be the same chickens, just with different labels.

Industries have been created around the idea of things being bad for you. Just look at the elite culture that GOOP has built. All the way down to the hand written signs at your little farmer’s market that you go to on Fridays. The message has been wildly successful. Everything is bad for you. And if you can’t navigate the land mines, you are not a smart consumer.

Some of us yearn for the chimera of simplicity of past generations. Back when no one had learned to fear the term seed oil. Back before we traded in our cast iron for Teflon and aluminum. Our grandparents didn’t live with the fear of poison in their cleaning products, because they were using hand made soap and pure vinegar. For them, technology was the good stuff. Innovation was going to save us from the brutal realities of hand washing and line drying. But it’s not really true that they didn’t live in fear, is it? They just had different fears.

Some of us buy into the marketing easily, without thinking too hard on the big picture. Eat this not that. Buy this not that. Today’s kale chips are tomorrow’s cocktails of turmeric and turkey tail.

But lots of us fall through the clean cracks completely. What about those who can’t afford to begin trying in the first place? I am beginning to think those are the lucky ones. Not being able to afford to choose between the bad things that may or may not kill us, they get on with business of living.

Like the nice old lady who rings up your bags of ice at your twice-yearly visit to The Dollar Store. She has never set foot into Whole Foods to shop for organic ground bison, and never will. But she has been shooting her own local deer to stock her deep freezer for the last two decades. You decide which scenario is less bad in the big picture. Which has the strongest claim to local, organic, sustainable, non-GMO, and pasture raised eating?

In the end, there is no clean. There is only our grasping for control in a world too full of toxic choices.

We can’t escape. Even the ones of us who can afford to commit to clean eating, clean household, clean beauty regime….we still have to move through the dirty world of invisible pesticides and 5G technology. Pick your poison. Even the whales can’t escape the micro plastics. Even Gwyneth’s gut is full of yet to be identified toxins.

We can raise a few chickens, but what do we feed them? Check out the price for organic feed. Do the math. Committing to a clean, closed loop for laying hens is an expensive hobby, not a self-sufficient path. Only a tiny percentage of us will build a life around homesteading in order to escape the bad things. Most of us will chip away at our prisons by trying to purchase the right things.

What is the solution to all the bad?

Maybe we should not think about it too hard. We can’t win the clean game. We can carve a few things out and live a healthier lifestyle, yes. But thinking too hard about the poison in our carpet or the toxins in our insulation will turn us into neurotic suckers who fall for every fly by night expert with a study.

Buying less seems to be the most direct route. Or buying old. Or buying locally made. My goat milk soap store down the road is the most satisfying money I spend every few months. I have slowly carved down my cosmetic routine to the point that it consists of pure tallow for moisturizer and a mineral block as deodorant. They work! I have not solved my dependency on mainstream shampoo and conditioner yet. We invested in a Berkey water filter five years ago and feel really good about that. Robert makes the water every morning for the days use. Even the dog drinks Berkey water.

When you get too caught up in the worry about all the bad things, remember the 1980’s. Remember how convinced you were that buying non-fat everything was in your best interest?

And never forget what they did to eggs.

And butter. Chocolate and coffee. I spent the 1990’s essentially starving myself of protein so I could binge on non-fat, highly processed grains. I will never forgive the nutritionists for demonizing a high protein lifestyle.

You can be sure that something that is killing you today will be utterly debunked in a few years. Or something that is saving you today will be killing you tomorrow.

The solution? Train yourself to not worry so much about getting it perfect.

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And now I welcome you to the second in the series of Sager Solutions, bespoke video tips for becoming a better mosaicist. If you are a paid subscriber, welcome to the party!