Self sufficiency

Well, when you read it in Time, you know that the winds of change have finally caught up with the tired and worn out.

The article, 'The Dropout Economy,' by Reihan Salam has it's finger on the pulse of a new way of thinking that's rapidly gaining momentum as more and more people take a look at the world around them and where it's heading, and decide they can do something different.

That's us, we who un-school. That's us; who make their own or do without. That's us, who don't think money is the only thing worth working for. That's us, who don't take kindly to being told what we should think, and how we should act and what we should value and emulate.

The author notes:

"Rather than warehouse their children in factory schools invented to instill obedience in the future mill workers of America, bourgeois rebels will educate their kids in virtual schools tailored to different learning styles. Whereas only 1.5 million children were homeschooled in 2007, we can expect the number to explode in future years as distance education blows past the traditional variety in cost and quality."

The point is, the jobs of today will no longer exist in the future. Kids that drop out already know this. Many of them are already preparing for the new working world that according to the author of the article will be one where,

"Work and life will be remixed, as old-style jobs, with long commutes and long hours spent staring at blinking computer screens, vanish thanks to ever increasing productivity levels. New jobs that we can scarcely imagine will take their place, only they'll tend to be home-based, thus restoring life to bedroom suburbs that today are ghost towns from 9 to 5. Private homes will increasingly give way to cohousing communities, in which singles and nuclear families will build makeshift kinship networks in shared kitchens and common areas and on neighborhood-watch duty. Gated communities will grow larger and more elaborate, effectively seceding from their municipalities and pursuing their own visions of the good life. Whether this future sounds like a nightmare or a dream come true, it's coming."

It's already here. 'The times they are a changing'; it's organic nothing can stop it.

Comments Welcome!

Changing Ways

On the car drive up to Lake Simcoe the winds chase the clouds until my daughter exclaims in wonder at their rapid speed,"Oh Mummy, I've never seen the clouds could move so fast!"
Out the window,the sun,a ball of fiery gold flashes through the branches of the forest, gleaming brilliantly through the leaves of the trees, racing by our side to be first.

This morning, all is calm and beautiful on the lake. In the evening, I watch the sunset and before my very eyes,the sky turns from pink to deep red and the clouds transform from an old traveler with a broken staff to a phoenix broad and strong of wing.

By night time, the lake is a turbulent,brooding mass of water the wind whipping and blowing wildly at its surface.

And so it is with us all. We change.
Today's unruly child is the calm and collected youth of tomorrow.
The raging little boy has evolved into a tolerant and empathetic young man, capable of dealing with disappointment.
The mother now sees that her worries and concerns were pointless;it was just a passing stage, nothing to fret about at all.

Nothing is permanent. We forget that in our worry to do what we think is right for the people we are responsible for. All too soon, they have grown up, passed away, left us behind.
Wouldn't we be better off if we loosened up, went instead into the mystery of things, had faith that this too will pass?