Entries Tagged 'Personal' ↓

In a complete departure from my usual peak oil/climate change/collapse posts, I would like to digress into romance – which, believe it or not, ties indirectly into the problems just mentioned. This post is aimed at single men.

Dear Men,

If you’re alone this Valentine’s Day, you probably don’t care that much. (If you have a girlfriend or wife, she probably will….) However, if you’re alone much of the time and are tired of it, then you need to make some changes in your life. I did, and it made all the difference in the world for me.

If you’re sick of seeing ads like the one below, with the happy, smiling couples, and thinking that could never be you, then perhaps it’s time to change.

Not many years ago, I was in my early forties and very lacking in confidence with women.  This seems quite strange to people who know me, as I had been married – and divorced – twice by that point. However, one of the reasons I kept jumping into marriages was because of this lack of confidence. I would get my courage up long enough to get close to a woman and promptly propose.

Take it from me, marriage is not a solution to loneliness; it can actually make it worse. The solution is not to “find someone, anyone,” but to develop your confidence. Continue reading →

Do you ever feel like you’re the only sane person in an insane world? I don’t want to believe that climate change and peak oil and peak fish and ocean acidification and various other looming catastrophes are coming. Who does? That would be psychopathic. At the same time, ignoring real-world evidence and shouting down scientists seems rather…crazy.

It’s easy to start questioning your sanity when so many act as if nothing is wrong. Here I am, fighting to get action on peak oil and climate change, and there goes Joe the Plumber, commuting to work in his brand new Hummer with a Support the Troops bumper sticker. And it’s not just people who could, possibly, be excused for not knowing any better. The Canadian Conservative Party, U.S. Republicans, and Libertarians everywhere – all loudly turning a blind eye to reality.

Is this not crazy? I have asked for contrary evidence from credible sources, and all I get are:

• Variations on “You’re crazy”; people calling me paranoid, sex-deprived, too stupid to even talk to, and so on
• Sources that are clearly not credible; look, if some guy is not a climate scientist, receives funding from oil companies, has a history of being funded by corporations and pushing their view against that of the vast majority of scientists and accumulated evidence, HE IS NOT CREDIBLE

I suppose people are desperate to believe what they want to believe. Perhaps many of them think that by shooting the messenger, the message he carries also dies. I wish it were true. Continue reading →

Or much at all, really. It took me some time to figure out why it’s her fault, but once I did, all became clear. You see, she (and her daughter, so it’s two working against one here, really) cook by making something out of whatever is in the refrigerator. When we do our weekly grocery shop, they buy items with this flexibility in mind.

I, on the other hand, plan. If I’m going to cook Burnin’ Butt Burritos, from my How It All Vegan! cookbook, then I buy the necessary ingredients while shopping. Of course, by the time Thursday arrives and I’ve psyched myself up to cook dinner for everyone (while carnivores, they do like the aforementioned BB Burritos, although lately there have been subtle hints that variety would be nice), ingredients vital to my dish have been used. How can I cook without the right ingredients?

The solution – because I’m a guy I must think of a solution; I think women are much better at accepting the insoluble – escapes me at the moment. I could bag and tag my ingredients, I suppose. That would entail taking only the amount of onion, broccoli, etc that I need immediately after grocery shopping and putting it in a separate, labelled, and preferably tamper-proof bag in the refrigerator. That’s a lot of work. I could put a Do Not Use list on the refrigerator, although I can’t imagine the compliance rate would be good. People who don’t plan aren’t going to pay attention to lists.

Why can’t everyone just plan? That, plus some spares – a few extra tomatoes and so on – should get us through the week nicely. Something must be done. I decided to make a few resolutions this year, and one of them was to make my meat-eating family at least one vegetarian meal – that they like – each week. (I’m vegetarian all the time.) How can I meet my resolution, which I happen to think is a valuable one for everyone concerned?

Solutions welcomed in the comments. Divorce is occasionally considered by both parties, but is not being seriously considered at this time.